athenaCollector vs. NextGen® Practice Management Solutions

athenaCollector would be well suited for smaller practices. It is well suited for larger practices, however some turn around time/system maintenance becomes more challenging. The product is well suited for a fast paced work environment. Ease of use of the system makes it easy to navigate and not get lost.

Incentivized

To start, Nextgen PM is NOT well-suited for companies who are looking for a could-based product—you will be required to house this software on your own server (this will force that company to maintain their own infrastructure). The solution is great for a company looking for a PM/EHR combo that communicates well with each other. The two modules are owned by the same company and does not require a costly API/bridge to be built between the two programs.

Incentivized

• Ease of scheduling appointments, checking patients in, and entering charges.
• The system is very user friendly and navigation throughout the system is not complicated.
• Reporting tools are setup in a format that the average user can use.

Incentivized

• Ability to save favorite phrases and templates to make charting more efficient for providers.
• Ability to interface with Question Diagnostics for certain laboratory tests.
• Ability to send and receive tasks to other user(s) on the system as well as send future tasks and reminders to yourself.

Incentivized

• Reporting for payer contract variances is weak for an organization as large as ours.
• Custom report development can get pricey and take some time to develop.
• A few of the spin-off products, such as the Dashboards, are not as customizable as our organization had hoped they would be.

Incentivized

• More robust online scheduling solution
• Integrated solution for online payments
• More Robust AI solution for AI charting for providers

Incentivized

Overall, a very easy and robust system to use for small practices. It enables us to keep billing in house and connectivity with various databases keep the providers "in the know" about what's going on with their patients. Some solutions - such as the patient portal and online scheduling are cumbersome and we have difficulty getting patients to use them.

Incentivized

The ease of use is far superior than any other similar billing systems product I have used. Navigation throughout the system is very self explanatory. Training time on this system is 1-3 days depending on users role (prior to additional on the job training within the system specific to the users role). Other systems have had software training for a week or more.

Incentivized

We feel that Nextgen does not stack up very well against the cloud-based software on the market. Housing the underlying tables on your own hardware requires COSTLY man hours. We are in the business of providing health care services to patients, not database administration. Introducing cloud-based products has had a tremendously positive effect on our business.

Incentivized

• Nextgen did a good job of transitioning our practice away from paper health records.
• I believe that the Return on Investment would have been much higher had we gone straight to a cloud-based tool.
• By getting our feet wet with Nextgen, we have a pretty good understanding of Practice Management software. In other words, we could plug and play with most systems on the market.

Incentivized