Likelihood to Recommend Athena is a well-suited electronic medical record system for those professionals that work in a medical center, hospital, clinic, and/or outpatient clinic that need to provide frequent and accurate documentation for insurance providers and all other members of the care team. It might be less appropriate for a small agency.
Read full review I would recommend NextGen Healthcare EHR 9 times out of 10 for a mid-sized multi-specialty practice, internal medicine, family practice, peds, and behavioral health (for CHCs, FQHCs, and private practice), but beyond that, I don't believe that NextGen Healthcare EHR is the best solution most times. Consider having all staff at all levels read "Raving Fans" and employ the model. Do what you do well, don't do what you can't do well. You'll be far more successful.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review NextGen has always stayed on top of the many changes every year and remained certified. I have seen many EHR companies go out of business or seen users have to change EHR systems in order to remain compliant for reporting. With NextGen, I am able to make a few customizations that my providers ask for to make their documentation easier. Not all EHR's are customizable. While it is not best practice to do a lot of customizations, sometimes it is worth the extra work to keep your providers happy! I love going to the NextGen User Group Meeting they have every year. I always learn things I didn't know and learn more about the things I do. They offer classes for everyone no matter what you do that pertains to NextGen. Even Government updates for healthcare. Read full review Cons 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 Read full review EHR and Practice Management are two completely different interfaces within the same program and are not easily navigated. Only super users can perform all tasks, making it so all staff needs to become a super user. Credit Card processing is difficult to set up and change-- we moved offices but need to process CC payments through our old office. When patients prefill their registration information online, we are unable to confirm their insurance information due to small glitches with the program. There are multiple ways to view the daily schedule, and none of them are easy to use. Read full review Usability The usability of the product is great. The difficulty that we have is in the background with the speed of servers or of things loading. If there are any issues with the remote server, things can really slow down drastically.
Read full review Performance Pages load quickly and reports are uploaded quickly. It just takes far too many clicks to get anything complete in this program. If a patient wants to pay for something after we have checked them out of their appointment, or wants to make an appointment it is not efficient. In a busy practice like ours efficiency is key and we need to keep the flow going
Read full review Support Rating Tier 1 support is useless. They gather details we've already provided and have no idea how to help us. Techs just call rather than scheduling an appointment which means we are in the middle of something else and our internal IT is unavailable to provide appropriate connection. Webex details aren't provided in advance of the call so it's difficult to get connected timely to have a conversation in real time during the support session. Many issues drag on for months and tickets get closed without resolution. It's a "known issue" is the most unhelpful response to a recurring problem. UGM Learning Lab is perfect because the issues based experts are there! It would be ideal to always be connected like that in real time
Read full review Alternatives Considered During my medical rotations I have used multiple products similar to Centricity, but I found Centricity to be one of the easiest to use and one of the easiest systems to learn
Read full review NG is like no other software I have ever used. I thought if you used one software they are all alike. Not this software, it is totally different but let me tell you very thorough and it also can track anything that anyone has done in a work day. Good auditing system.
Read full review Return on Investment Medication Management has taken a negative impact on our clinicians, the ease of use changed into a complicated process. Read full review Our AR days are very low compared to industry standard. We end up using many 3rd party tools (IMO, virtual scribes, voice recognition, etc.) to accommodate shortfalls. In my experience, some support issues take over a year to resolve. In the meantime, you have to develop workarounds. Read full review ScreenShots NextGen Healthcare EHR Screenshots