Epic offers a suite of medical practice management and EHR software.
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NextGen Healthcare EHR
Score 7.9 out of 10
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NextGen® EHR solutions meet the needs of ambulatory practices of all sizes by helping users coordinate patient care, while complying with healthcare reform demands such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), population health, and other value-based care requirements. NextGen® Enterprise EHR built for large practices delivers a fully integrated, scalable system that helps clients achieve interoperability, patient engagement, regulatory compliance, and value-based…
All of the EHR's I have worked with are strong in their own right, however, Epic really shines in an Enterprise level situation. Most EHR's are specific to one context, like hospital, lab, or clinic. Epic has a great deal of strength in unifying all of these different contexts …
Epic is great to access from home or anywhere there is a wifi connection. It is very convenient for office or hospital employees. One time when it is not optimal is when I write a Certification of Terminal Illness for a hospice patient. I can never see it again. It drops off of Epic. I wish those notes would remain.
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.
Interdisciplinary Communication: The care of patients improves when you are able to have the entire care team communicate with each other. Epic makes this process very easy by utilizing one chart for all physicians in the organizations. Care decisions and patient safety are greatly improved by seeing past decision making processes.
Patient Communication: With features like MyChart and Care Everywhere, Epic gives patients a great deal of control over their information. MyChart acts like a patient portal allowing them to see what their providers have to say, see lab results, make payments, and share information with their doctor all from a mobile device or computer. Having features like this allow the patient to take part in their care.
Improves Claim Efficiency: The way that Epic handles insurance claims is incredible. Claims are correct and double checked before they are sent to the insurance companies. This in turn, reduces the number of denials and improves the speed of payments.
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.
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.
You should invest time into taking a training class before using Epic, but once you get the hang of it the usability features are endless! My favorite part about Epic is how it is automated and "trained" to catch user errors that would typically be missed in normal documentation/charting. This ensures accuracy and eliminates errors.
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.
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
A dedicated support staff for each module/area is provided by Epic. This is beneficial for points of contact, however, not all support staff are created equal, and there seems to be high turnover in these roles(staff seems to turn over every 1-2 years). This can make it challenging for continuity and quick support resolution as new staff are not as familiar with organization-specific needs, environments, and/or questions.
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
Epic gives extensive customization options in terms of utility and view. I have found this to be highly useful and efficient EHR as compared to other EHRs we use in our organization.
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.
It must have had a positive impact as things get done quicker, leading to easier billing/coding. It must be saving a lot of money and time. I am not aware of a better product.
