Today's Debate: Should doctors rent a CIO?

Many medical offices are in a blind spot of the IT market.

They're too big for do-it-yourself solutions, but too small to hire a full-time IT professional.

One suggestion from John Avellanet (right), co-founder of compliance experts Cerulean Associates, is to hire a part-time CIO.

There are several ways to do this. You can get them on the phone as a paid support service. You can put them on retainer. Or you could go in with some other offices and share one.

However you go about it, you still need to do the same vetting you'd go through in hiring an accountant or a new office manager.

You need to make sure they not only know IT, but can translate directives from government and insurance carriers into hardware, software and networked connections.

How much will it cost? Avellanet offers a ballpark estimate:

In the interim financial officer marketplace, hourly fees run between $125 to $300 with daily rates between $1,000 to $3,000.

Yeah, I know. Who do these guys think they are, doctors?