Most popular features of all Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals apps
25 reviewers had the following to say about athenaClinicals's features:
Surgery scheduling module is painful as well.
Pros
Co-sourcing of billing office.
Cons
Document management. Task Assignment Overrides.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Do your homework. Call others w/ Athena and not just the groups they tell you to call. Map out your document flow not just once, not twice, but at least 6 times so you can anticipate bottlenecks and identify red flags w/ their document management process. Don't set up two departments (we have pain and neurosurgery) as it creates way more problems than it's worth. Make sure you fully understand how the buckets and spend a great deal of time on this aspect of the system.
I can say that the program is VERY easy to navigate, the patient portal is a nice layout, the interfaces work very well for labs, faxes and pharmacy requests.
Pros
user friendly sorts electronic faxes electronic orders assists with MU reporting nice/patient friendly patient portal appointment reminders AR/productivity reports are easy to read and run
Cons
customer service is severely lacking chronic problems with posting payments EOB erros document issues the cost is crazy high issues with reminder calls not being sent correctly
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Other
The foundation is good, the support could be better.
Pros
Flows overall efficiently, well integrated system; scheduling, clinic notes, billing, patient portal.
Cons
The Past medical history section, flow sheets, quality management sections take a long time to load, the pages glitch and stall - really affect efficiency.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
The software beautifully integrates EHR, billing, and practice management functions.
Cons
However, the Client Support Center (CSC) is able to take care of most questions and concerns.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
We began our EHR transition with Practice Fusion, which was a trainwreck. Athena is the gold standard of EHRs, and working with them has dramatically simplified our lives and enhanced our practice.
I have had 46 years of medical office management with several different practice management and EMR systems.
Pros
I appreciate some of the charting and reporting features.
Cons
Jones there was a problem with your insurance claim 3 weeks ago, you will need to call your insurance and get that resolved or be prepared to pay $XX.Xx when you check in today".
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
By properly knowing your office unique needs, including those of any multiple facilities involved you can best determine which system is the right one. Some EMR systems are not the best practice management systems. I don't feel its necessary to settle the correct EMR and / or if necessary separate practice management software is out there. Keep looking until it you find the right one. Always call the references and ask specific questions - will it do this ? How does it do this? If they have learned how to work around a known system problem that's a red flag. Tread carefully this marriage should last several years.
The customer support is wonderful, being able to do combination narratives and templates has been very helpful and has increased my time management.
Pros
Auto medication updates, customizable templates, patient portal, patient quality measures and tracking, and great customer services.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Do not compare EHRs to paper or dictation documentation.
Pros
Scheduling is a plus also I like the reports area.
Cons
Billing Athena does not clearly state why claims are going to Hold
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Athena is friendly usable and that this EMR would be a 10+ if they would fix some glitches
I started working w/Athena in Aug 2016. Since then our Admin has been advising me to call or web chat, search online & use the search features Athena has to offer. I have NEVER gotten a question resolved by calling. I end up walking the "helper" through the features & page. This was very upsetting. I've been put on hold for 20 minutes at a time while an "advisor" looks up a solution in their manual. As a result, I hung up in frustration. I then received an e-mail confirming my problem had been resolved. What a joke! That seems like it is just to appease the numbers needed. There are no training manuals, no courses to take & definitely nobody to teach a person how to use this program. A rep. who no longer works for Athena set us up years ago. This is not geared towards a specific practice, which is even more frustrating. Hopefully, you can respect the time I took to write this review & improve your program. It would be great to receive training as well, or at least an instruction manual.
Pros
billing features are simple; insurance program automatically runs insurances to see if they are active
Cons
As a scheduling manager, the features are not user-friendly, as I have worked with 4 different programs.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Faster scheduling, easier insurance verification, and less overall paperwork.
Pros
We love getting paid faster and being able to track the revenue cycle of claims.
Cons
Sometimes getting things done from the Athena account management can be a hassle.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Be free from paper and billing agencies, start using Athena and become what a practice should be.
Pros
After a month of training and learning a whole new approach to patient management I am pleased to say that I would recommend Athena to any practice that would like to improve efficiency and increase revenue.
Cons
If there was a way that Athena can integrate a claim tab that in one click I could instantly view the patients claim history as I am finishing the current billing slip I think that would improve the overall system.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Don't be afraid of change . Other vendors are free and you could see that as a bonus but in the end it could cost your practice money. We were hesitant to change because of the disruption we thought it would cause. But before we knew with a little hard work we have completely converted to electronic charting in less than 4 months and I would never go back. If you see a lot of PPO patients like our practice does you will enjoy the benefits of getting paid faster and through electronic payments. This is turn produces more weekly revenue and it is fun seeing our bank account fill up every week.
In the past, we had problems with insurers which seemed to continually refuse to pay certain claims no matter how many times we corrected them.
Pros
Reminder calls, insurance validation, eligibility and phone daily report, ticklers that remind patient to schedule an appointment if not done at check out, ease of entering/dropping claims, ability to generate useful and custom reports, day end review allows you to see if any claims need corrections immediately
Cons
Streamlined version seems to require more clicks and sometimes the co-pay is not applied to the date it is paid which can be confusing
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Mine was in relation to workflow for entering charges.
Pros
Auto eligibility, worklist and bucket functionality, family billing, reports
Cons
Posting efficiency and reliance on claim notes being accurate.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Overall Athena has a great product that I would recommend to anyone!
Pros
Has everything an EMR needs to have from Registration, Clinical Documentation to Billing.
Cons
There are too many steps and clicks to try to get to a patient's chart. Slow response from customer service.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Our practice has been using Athena for our practice management software for over 10 years and we implemented the Athenaclinicals EMR in 09/2012.
Pros
The EMR and charting functionality is very comparable to other available software.
Cons
Completing certain tasks are more cumbersome than necessary, at least based on the opinions of our providers and staff.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Great experience, capture more money from claims. Less stress with collections, copay etc.
Pros
Real time billing information
Cons
None
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Research multiple plans and try out the program
In my opinion, Athena is a great program to use. After the recent "Streamline" update the staff has had difficulties adjusting to the new look but doctors have found it to be more convenient. I think overall Athena continues to improve with updates and I have noticed many other medical offices have started to use Athena.
Pros
Recent activity in the patient's chart. Doctors have recommended the new streamline update because it makes it easier for them to dictate.
Cons
Unable to show patient alerts or reminders needed during an appointment. For example, the patient is in pain management but continues to ask for pain medication during an appointment.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Physician recommended. Staff still has minor complaints.
We also utilize their practice management/billing options which improved our cash flow.
Pros
Relatively easy to use EMR for documenting patient encounters.
Cons
Hard to get custom reports unless you pay for additional support.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Overall a quality product that works well with our family medicine/urgent care office. I would recommend this products to others.
Overall there are many good qualities with Athenahealth. I would recommend it to my collegues.
Pros
It's a very robust EHR and practice management tool with every feature under the sun that you could want.
Cons
They don't help us implement new features like credit card processing, the patient portal, etc. Customer care call center is okay to answer some specific how to questions but they're not going to hold your hand through a long process like setting up the very un-friendly patient portal.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Don't switch over to them until you try the system in a demo mode for at least a month. Also don't expect iPad EHR or PM access, or any meaningful mobile access, because athena has nothing of any value. Keep that in mind before you decide you want to be chained to a computer on a desk somewhere...
Athena faxing and scanning is easy to use and makes getting the paper into the electronic medical record simple.
Pros
Ease of use is the main thing. If you have to spend your time looking around in the EMR it is frustrating.
Cons
It is more expensive than other choices on the market.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
It is a good all around EMR tool for our cardiology practice.
We went from an EMR that inserted other patient's information into current patient's chart and was difficult to sort out from a billing standpoint to AthenaHealth and have been thrilled.
Pros
The patient portal is excellent.
Cons
Fitting some of the templates to apply to pediatric patients can be challenging.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
I have trained on 3 different EMR systems and AthenaHealth is definitely the most user friendly system for providers.
Pros
Vendor listens to customer feedback & does frequent updates in response to your feedback
Cons
Automated message system for appointment reminders often fails
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering athenaClinicals
Take your scope of practice into consideration when searching for a practice management and/or electronic health records software.
Pros
Combination of billing functionality, EHR and practice management software.
Cons
As an example, our state Medicaid recently changed their claim formatting requirements.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Out of all the EMR athenahealth reporting piece is hands down the best out there.
Pros
reporting, registration, verification of benefits
Cons
scheduler needs to be updated. Billing adjustments need to be at practice discretion.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Athena benefits are practice with efficient billing, scheduling and payments processing.
