athenaIDX vs. Veradigm Practice Management

I couldn't recommend IDX to anyone. Most of the reviews on this site appear to be for the program that broke off from Athena IDX, Centricity Practice Solutions (CPS). CPS is a much more capable program managed by Unlimited Systems (a separate company) that should NOT be confused with Athena IDX (managed by Athena Health). It's possible that Athena IDX was usable in the 90s compared to other peer programs at that time, but there are so, so many better, modern solutions available now for far less money. This software is priced at the enterprise level with a level of quality that is below budget tier with an ancient feature set to boot.

Although the EHR software industry is still developing, Allscripts has proven to be better than most.

Incentivized

• One of the best things about Centricity is it is flexible. We are able to add a data point behind a term (CPS calls this an observation term) and track any data needed. These observation terms also allow us to pull information forward and display information needed to make a good decision or used to decrease errors. For example in our history forms given to the patients one of the questions is side of injury. This affected side displays on our EMR forms which helps providers and prevents mistakes.
• CPS integrates with other programs. We are paperless and use DocuSign to send each patient their history, ROS and all new paperwork. This allows us to import the history into the forms and has saved us from adding extra staff (FTEs) to room and take history. The history form can be completed at home or in the waiting room. Each section has a observation term behind it and allows it to be placed into the note at the correct section. Since we have a fully integrated product we do not have to have another program to enter or transfer our charges from the EMR to the PM side of the program.
• Our notes look great! We did a lot of customization which gave us the detail and look we wanted. It seems like a lot of work at first, but the outcome has so much efficacy. We increased our providers without having to increase our staffing and it is due to he efficiencies we gained by using the EMR.
• One other note, Centricity is flexible but that means it is complicated. You can not have flexibility without it be complicated don't let that stop you the end results can be great.

Incentivized

• Ease of monitoring reports from all providers for each provider
• Ease of copying last report into current on
• Ease of deleting report when starting the wrong type of report

Incentivized

• Statements print only current open accounts, would be nice to print a total statement for patients so they can see if payments are split between open and closed/zeroed out accounts
• Ability to create custom reports

Incentivized

• Some of the "canned" reports are wrong. We have reported issues to Allscripts multiple times and they never were interested in fixing the problem.
• The work and total RVU values that are assigned to each CPT code don't have a reference for the year so we have to keep changing them every year and overwrite the old ones.
• There is no option to load facility and non-facility values for total RVUs.

Incentivized

Moving away from paper reports is a little hard at first like ripping off a bandaid, but once you're fully integrated, it's just so much easier to see all your work over time and access reports, schedules, and all pertinent employment information for each patient. Not having to deal with paper files just changes the office completely.

Incentivized

I'm actually not sure if we call Allscripts support or our own support team with superusers. There never seems to be a problem that can't be fixed right away. The biggest problem you can have is when you start a report when the patient hasn't been checked in. I know how to fix it myself now, but it takes a few minutes with support when you need them to back it out.

Incentivized

Training consists of overly specific points with no general process considerations. Trainers will regularly go 'into the weeds' on pointless edge cases while the meat of the training still needs to be addressed.

Athena IDX is more reliable than other platforms. It rarely has latency challenges where it has to be intermittently shut down or updated. It is accessible on multiple devices and overall, easy to use and navigate.

Incentivized

Centricity is much more difficult to get support for in my experience.

Incentivized

The pricing structure is outlandish for how old and feature poor this program is.

Zero ownership. Zero responsibility. Zero desire to build something good.

• Extremely expensive software for the limited feature set. We're talking millions of dollars with off hours support (anything outside of 8-6EST) that starts at $1200 for the first hour and $300 for each hour afterwards.
• Multitasking isn't a thing unless you assign more licenses (thereby increasing your costs). Users can quite literally only have one IDX window open at a time unless you assign more licenses. This slows down everyone as there are plenty of times where examining different parts of a patient's profile is useful.
• Reporting has been nearly impossible as we use modern reporting software. IDX's analytics site is firmly stuck in the 1990s and lacks decades of innovation present in something like Power BI.
• Nickel and diming philosophy. A limited API server costs ~$10k/month. Setting up a new facility in IDX costs you and requires a 4 month lead time. Many more instances of this.

• I am only a user but it's easy to assume that this program is very expensive.
• Access to reports across all providers is game-changing.
• Helping the patient navigate care by seeing not just reports but scheduled visits is also a major plus.

Incentivized