NextGen Healthcare EHR vs. Prime Suite EHR

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.

Incentivized

PrimeSuite is great for a practice that has knowledgeable billing staff and a hands-on approach to billing; it is not ideal for those who need something more automated. You can customize PrimeSuite to prevent posting errors at charge entry and to catch some common mistakes. However, these must be set up by someone who knows what those errors are, and as payers change their requirements, they must be updated.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• It is a trusty software that does not crash or glitch very often
• It is very secure
• I can use it from different locations

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Speed, it continues getting slower and slower with each new upgrade.
• Prime Suite does not use the screen space very effectively. On larger monitors with higher resolution, there is a LOT of wasted space.
• Strange errors pop up that give little to no useful information about what the issue is, and the typical response from support is to uninstall and reinstall the programs on the workstation.

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.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I liked PracticeAdmin for the way it showed key metrics and the simplicity of the software. However, you get what you pay for, and PrimeSuite has so much more functionality than PracticeAdmin ever did. I prefer the reporting, the options available in setup, just the overall customization you can do with PrimeSuite to that of other platforms.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized