Frequently Asked Questions

Healthcare providers and payers are KLAS’ primary customers. Everything KLAS does must ultimately benefit providers and payers by helping them gain relevant insights to make the best decisions for their facilities, patients, and members. We know that when vendors excel, providers win.

We believe that if we take care of healthcare professionals first, success will follow. It’s our company's policy and culture to help the provider and payer above all else. KLAS works closely with vendors, associations, governments, and other healthcare stakeholders to encourage product and service innovations that will benefit providers and ultimately healthcare as a whole.

KLAS engages providers in annual calls in which providers gain access to industry insights. During these interviews, KLAS also asks the provider to rate their own experience with their vendor(s), share what successes/challenges they are facing, and—if making a change or a net new decision—who they’re considering.

These conversations produce vendor scoring alongside candid use commentary to help explain the scores

KLAS respects the privacy of the providers and payers who speak for us, and all interviews are kept anonymous. KLAS’ goal is always to share more insights and data with healthcare professionals than we take. This creates a unique and symbiotic business model of give and take between KLAS and the provider community.

KLAS also works with providers on a custom basis to meet requests for performance data on upcoming vendor selections, benchmarking data on usability, and other topics impacting providers' abilities to deliver better patient care.

KLAS primarily engages with the vendors by shining a light on their performance, regardless of whether they spend money with KLAS. If a vendor chooses to engage with KLAS by becoming a KLAS member, they then have access to performance reports in the KLAS online database, KLAS Performance Data, and access to KLAS' wide range of industry experts.

In consultations with KLAS experts, vendor executives are encouraged to engage in honest dialog about their performance in the marketplace. Access to these tools and insights empowers HIT vendors with the necessary tools to drive customer success.

KLAS determines, based on interest from the provider community, whether a vendor’s performance should be measured. KLAS then engages the vendor for a complete client list of all live customers.

Even if a complete client list cannot be obtained, KLAS will still work to rate vendors in the market segments that providers deem necessary.

KLAS researchers then reach out to these providers for candid, anonymous feedback in the form of a scored evaluation and verbal commentary on the vendor’s performance. KLAS conducts over 30,000 of these interviews with HIT decision makers each year.

Once a sufficient number of providers evaluate a product and KLAS has an accurate picture of the segment, KLAS publishes this information in an online performance database and in industry reports.

Whether a vendor pays KLAS anything, either by way of purchasing KLAS reports or subscribing to a KLAS membership, does not impact the performance score KLAS reports for that vendor’s products. When it comes to rating a vendor, the provider/payer always has the last word. Strict, internal bias controls of our data ensure that this is the case.

The provider speaks and KLAS simply does its best to amplify that voice. KLAS is committed to providing accurate, honest, and impartial insights to the healthcare industry.

KLAS bases the pricing of a KLAS membership for vendors primarily on the gross annual healthcare revenue of the vendor. Vendors with higher gross annual healthcare revenue frequently have more products for KLAS to report on and more users for KLAS to interview.

Occasionally, exceptions to this pattern arise. These are taken into consideration.

Every year, KLAS releases their Best in KLAS Awards, showcasing that year’s top-scoring vendors in an ever-growing number of HIT market segments.

To us, being a Best in KLAS vendor reflects a certain mindset. A Best in KLAS vendor should think about customer success first and believe profit will follow. They exhibit attributes of customer-centric service and deliver outcome-oriented technologies that help the care providers deliver against their facilities' objectives.

KLAS does not give out Best in KLAS awards to help with vendors’ marketing efforts; rather, the Best in KLAS award is a signal to providers that the award-winning vendor can and should be held to a higher standard of customer excellence. In reality, it is the healthcare providers, not KLAS, who give the Best in KLAS awards. KLAS simply serves as amplification of the providers’ experiences.

The provider voice from thousands of monthly interactions KLAS has with providers serves as the compass for which vendors and segments KLAS rates. If a particular market segment is compelling to providers, KLAS gathers evaluations for reports on the segment. If the segment is not interesting to providers, KLAS focuses elsewhere.

KLAS seeks to gather only the research providers and payers truly need.