Kareo Practice Management

Text automation for patient confirmation

Detailed billing reports

Where to start...for one, during my start-up with a "success coach" and trust me, I use that term broadly, I had to f/u on every single issue that came up. I was told she was taking care of my electronic lab enrollment, after waiting 3 months and reaching out to my success coach, Kayli, countless times, I only was told when contacted by management that my Quest lab access had been denied after 2 weeks because I was never told to independently create my own account with Kareo- after asking/emailing/calling multiple times trying to figure out the process. So needless to say, I have NO electronic lab access 4 months after signing with Kareo and they are now just starting the process.

Prescriptions- I had reached out to Kareo, no exaggeration, over 10 times to figure out why I wasn't receiving prescription refills. Spent countless hours on the phone with "support line" that could never give me an answer- to any question. And never f/u either until I directly insisted to my salesperson to have management contact me directly. I had a patient go to the hospital due to not having their medications because apparently their pharmacy had sent refill prescriptions over 3 times which I never received. Only after talking to management, did they look into further and then inform me that I had 3 locations in the system (?? I have ONE location). They were all prior addresses of offices, one from over 4 years ago. To date, again, 4 months after paying a year up front, I can't receive refill requests. And the solution proposed to me by management was to call my prior EHR and request they delete my prior addresses. And I cannot contact my prior EHR because I was in a large group that restricted the account to only 2 individuals in a group of 18 doctors to even have access to talk to them. So I can't resolve the issue, Kareo after 4 months instructs me to call them myself, and the prior EHR doesn't even recognize I had an account with them because it was under a group practice name.

Online booking- I thought this would be an amazingly efficient add-on. What they don't tell you is you can only designate "increments" of appointment times. Kareo will tell you it syncs with your existing schedule so that online bookings are only in vacant time slots. I had new patients selecting a time increment of 15 minutes, existing patients selecting 45 minutes (with a deductible) and any increment over 15 minutes (which the patient can select at their own will, being if you choose 15 min increments, it will offer appointment length for 15 min, 30 min, 45 min, 60 min etc with no outline of the appropriate time length) will over-book your schedule. So if you have a 10-10:15 slot, the patient can select a 45 minute appointment that starts at 10 (Because that 15 minute slot is open). But then will overbook the patients at 10:15 and 10:30.

It created utter chaos in my practice. My office manager spent more time calling patients to inform them they had booked an inappropriate time increment, they can't book a new appointment for 15 minutes, we don't accept their insurance...the list goes on.

There is no way to restrict the increments or who can book an appointment.

Messaging- I can't view what incoming messages from patients are sent to whom. And neither can my office manager. And the patient gets to select who to sent the message to, either the "provider" or "location." And 9 times out of 10 they send to the "provider." So as a physician, I am inundated with patient messages simply wanting to book a new appointment or reschedule. As a physician, obviously prioritizing my time is important and my office manager can't view these messages.

The list goes on, unfortunately. "A/R" reports only allow them to calculate a theoretical A/R based on your self-pay rates to patients, not individual contracted rates with insurances. So my A/R has an inflated number, which I can't even quantify by how much, because the A/R is based as if every insurance patient paid as a self-pay patient. Seriously, no one thought this through?

Can't send multiple controlled scripts at once electronically. Have to enter, go to separate site, enter code, be redirected back to KAreo then re-enter another med, be redirected to separate site, enter code, be redirected...Any other EHR I've ever used (and I've used around 6 between residency and private practice) you could enter multiple Rx, but then check the meds you wanted to send and then enter ONE code for, say, 2 controlled scripts. Kareo, you must enter separate codes one by one.

I could go on but will choose to hope for all reading, you get the general point...

Electronic eligibility checks makes checking coverage a snap.

Kareo is easy to configure and navigate. The ability to open multiple windows is great, and allows billers to move around to different areas of the software with minimal clicking.

Kareo has powerful reporting. The ability to run a variety of reports on demand is great. There are a number of predefined reports that can be further configured by the user, and Kareo makes available an Excel plugin that can produce additional types of reports if needed.

I would like to see Kareo add the ability to print messages from the secure, built in messaging system.

Having a way to shorten the CPT or DX codes on the superbill would be great. Currently, the descriptions frequently exceed the column width depending on the length of the text description.

There's a current bug that causes the user account screen to refresh, and/or creates an error message. Reopening the window usually fixes the problem but this needs to be fixed.