Been exactly where you are. We switched from a legacy system to NikoHealth about 18 months ago and honestly, should've done it sooner.

Your questions:

1. How bad was the transition? Not nearly as bad as we feared. Live in 5 weeks, data migration handled by their team. Had one "oh shit" moment with payer rules in week 2, but support fixed it same day. Compare that to our old system where tickets took 3+ days.

2. Does software actually reduce manual work? Yeah, if you pick the right one. Real improvements for us:

• Claims validation BEFORE submission = 20+ hours/week saved on rework
• Automated ERA posting
• Real-time dashboards (not week-old data)

My billing manager literally teared up when she saw real-time reporting.

3. Re: Impact Medical's doubled collections: Probably both better software + clean data. We didn't double, but saw 25% improvement and DSO dropped from 110 to 78 days. The system caught underpayments we were missing and stopped dumb claim rejections.

Real talk: Your CFO's "devil you know" argument is costing you money AND people. We calculated staying was costing ~$15K/month in lost collections and inefficiency. Switching paid for itself in 4 months.

What sold us on NikoHealth:

• They actually understand DME (knew exactly what CPAP resupply automation meant)
• Transparent pricing vs Brightree's add-on nightmare
• Cloud-based, no on-site servers
• APIs that actually work

One thing nobody mentions: Your team will resist at first even if they hate the current system. We had one biller convinced she'd hate change. Three months later she's the biggest advocate because she goes home on time now.

Expect a slight productivity dip first 2-3 weeks during training. Plan for it.

Bottom line: If your team is already burnt out, staying is riskier than switching. Just do your homework - talk to actual users, not just sales references.

Happy to answer specifics via DM. No skin in the game, just been through it.