athenaIDX vs. Intergy EHR

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.

How well is the product customizable for workflow modifications for my clinic? Does the result flow easily for the provider or are there many chunky clicks required? (i.e. one modification to a workflow between the nurse and provider requires 27 clicks.. ok this accomplished the workflow that was needed but at what cost?) Can your system produce customized reports on the fly, is the data real time or lagging? Can the system be tuned in terms of document/note templates and the Graphic User Interface forms so a particular practice/provider/speciality needs can be taken into account?

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

• Health Reminders- for different patient needs or preventive care/screenings. For example patients who have a diagnosis of Diabetes- their health reminders will show if they need an A1c, foot exam, eye exam, etc. and when it was last performed
• Orders Tracking- This helps nursing staff make notes on referrals or orders and they are able to look at the order tracking section for all patients and filter it by provider, order type, status, etc. to know what needs to be followed up on or what has been completed and so forth...
• Tasks- This is a nice feature that has many different options for use. It can be used internally to send a quick message to another user, a phone message, billing message, and any task gives you the option to make it "patient related" if necessary. It can be used by the providers when they make an order they can then send it to the nurse to complete. Lots of different ways for Tasks to be used

• 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

• Sometimes, Intergy tends to crash on occasion, which is understandable.
• Also, when checking for insurance eligibility, sometimes Intergy will not accept a specific insurance card and I have to call up the insurance to make sure the patient is eligible for coverage. It would be nice if more types of insurances could be added.
• When creating recalls for patients to remind them to visit, sometimes the system does not cooperate properly.

Incentivized

Very user friendly and efficient

Incentivized

Usually they are very helpful. I would prefer they do some of the actual changes I am requesting instead of having me do the work. I feel that they could walk you through it, instead of letting you figure out the desired results on your own.

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.

Track all hours and don't sign off on anything if you are not 100% happy.

Incentivized

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

We moved from Intergy to athenaCollector and athenaClinicals. Athena is cloud-based, meaning we can access it from any location that has internet. My staff misses the ease of scheduling in Intergy, but the accountability of users' productivity is amazing. We had more control over document classification with Intergy, but sometimes that's a double-edged sword. When some people label a document "MRI-Lumbar spine" and others call it "Lumbar Spine MRI," there is some redundancy and sometimes important documents get missed.

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.

• Intergy has had a positive ROI. The financial tracking and tools have been easy to use and helped recover additional monies for practices.
• Claim Tracker allows practices to have a real time view of all unpaid claims.
• The E&M calculator helps providers choose the appropriate code for billing compliance.