NextGen Office

Pros

What is most prominent is a User friendly design focused on registering the patient and updating his status.Hassle free alert system with analytics designed for all types of procedures.Support for the program is strictly within the US and they offer hands on authentic support.

Cons

It was overwhelming the redundant amount of features they have available which may take a while to sift through and fully adapt.It is not very customizable and felt a little flimsy in that department.

Pros

The ease and ability of automatically connecting with Avaya, and pulling up my claims for work.

Cons

The frequency it goes impaired, and the times it won’t automatically pull up claims.

Pros

It's a solid EMR. The billing functions are plenty.

Cons

Competitors perhaps provide more alternatives with better features

Pros

Patients can review their personal health records, including medications and lab test results and the billing integration helped my billing needs

Cons

learning to customize can be pretty complex and time consuming. It's really not the best for a small practice.

Pros

EASY TO NAVOGATE IN NEXTGEN, ONE OF MY FAVORITE SYSTEMS.

Cons

LABS REQUIRE A LOT OF CLICKING TO SUBMIT

Pros

Support/Training Access. Almost anything you might have questions about is available in the knowledge database. The interactive training videos are very helpful.Custom Forms. Adding custom forms is easy.Visit Templates. It allows one to save common visit notes.

Cons

Inaccurate error messages. For example, if a patient's address is not entered and you try to send a prescription, it gives an error message about the sig. It took forever for me to realize why this happened. Reported but support did not correct or seem to care.Tech support. To request a new feature/additional service, you must contact the sales rep. I wanted 4 months for a response to adding a second lab.Radiology orders. To order tests I must go into the admin area and add the test with the CPT code the first time. The tests aren't built in during setup so ordering a test you haven't ordered before is time consuming. The longer you use it the better it is but these should be built into the system.New patient. When adding a new patient, if they have a family member already registered with the same insurance, it forces you to use the existing profile and this doesn't always work so you are forced to start over. Claims. The process is time consuming. Inconsistent fields. For example, the date field on one form allows one to type in the date and automatically advances to the next field but on other forms one needs to tab from month to date, on anther a form pops up and you must click the month, day and year.

Pros

I purchased this software a little over a year ago and I still struggle with it from the PM side. The EHR side I do not work with a lot personally but my staff and doctors seem to like it pretty good. The scheduler is easy to read. Billing has a lot ways to track denials, rejections etc.

Cons

There are a lot of things that could be improved with the billing side. So many steps to make any corrections with payment postings. Constantly have to go from keyboard to clicking with the mouse instead of just clicking the "enter" key. May seem trivial but it does interrupt the stream of things.

Pros

Its relatively cheap, however you get what you pay for...

Cons

Recurrent multiple mistakes by billing side (revenue cycle), very poor communication. Multiple teams handle your account but none of these teams communicate with each other causing recurrent mistakes and constant oversight by the user

Pros

Comprehensive EHR and practice management features.

Cons

Initial setup can be time-consuming and complex.

Pros

Easy to use and very useful app. Innovative

Cons

I don't have negative experiences about this app

Pros

Provides standard EMR and Practice Management functionality. If all you're looking for is a simple EMR to track your patient encounters, this software is a decent option.

Cons

1. Extremely difficult to transfer from other EMRs to this system. Beware that there will be a lot of manpower needed in order to get you up and running unless you're willing to pay expensive migration rates.
2. Account management and customer support teams are unorganized and inefficient. Often you have difficulty finding somebody who can answer your questions.
3. The pricing is based on a per physician basis. If you have a provider leave your practice/company, you are not allowed to terminate prior to your next renewal date. You could be left with significant fees for unused licenses if your company has any turnover. Their team offered no flexibility with fees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing NextGen Office

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to NextGen Office

Pros

They are improving the product consistently. There have been two product updates since we started with them in March. Customer service has improved greatly as well. 99% of the time someone who picks up the phone and helps you with your problems. They have daily webinars that are free of a particular topic, so you can log in, ask questions, get help, and then log off. The product has a lot of great things such as ease of sending the charges from the docs to the billing department, seeing the exact statement that a patient received so you can talk to them more intelligently, getting lots of detail on the claims, rescheduling a patient from one day to the next, and blocking a portion of the schedule or opening a portion of the schedule.

Cons

You can submit issues via email, but once they respond back, they close the case. Even if they didn't give you the answer you were looking for, you then have to email again and reference the case requiring you to print everything to keep track, because there is no way to follow the status of your case. If you submit feature requests, there is no way to know if they are working on it, aren't considering it, holding it for a future update, etc. There are specific reports that you can get, but if you need something that's not pre-built, there is very little way to obtain the info, if at all. I requested some kind of report writer. The reports all come out as an Excel spreadsheet which is good, because it allows you to manipulate and move around the data, but when you print it's very unwieldy and not pretty. They need to have a way to convert the report to a PDF format once you have it the way you like. Many of the reports don't offer options such as picking providers, locations, payers, so you have to manipulate the report after it opens to delete what you do not need, which is time consuming. The software is extremely dependent on location, which means everything you do has to be done by location creating a lot of work. If you have many offices, your docs do surgery in several locations and they are outpatient or inpatient. Changing or adding something has to be done many times, because you do it by location. It would be easier if there was a drop-down listing your locations and you only had to check the locations to which your additions or changes were applicable. Parts of the software feel as if they are too structured and everything has to fit into their predetermined way to do things. There is not enough flexibility and leeway to change portions that suit your practice. Vendor training was not great when we started and we paid for an outside vendor that works with Healthfusion to come on site and train us. I understand that the help and training portions have changed a bit since then and may be better. It has great potential if they would open up the software and be more flexible!

Pros

It does have medical diagnostic tools like the Vanderbilt already included as well as an Asthma action plan/Asthma control test and several other questionnaires that are rather necessary in primary care as well as collates the information (i.e you can compare today's Vanderbilt score with their last Vanderbilt score without having to hunt down that note).

However, true to NextGen's form, the things that worked really, really well (like having the school physical form be automatically populated with the vaccines), they have somehow succeeded in completely screwing up, making the very, very few good things about NextGen a rapidly diminishing anomaly.

Cons

Where do I start??? Having to input data several different locations, it is SLOW and every single thing you want to do has to open a new window (read between the lines and understand that in an already slow program, every page you open has to load) and with all of the windows you open, there's no way to minimize them to go to another screen i.e you can't minimize the medications so that you can review the patient's last lipid panel, TSH, blood pressure, etc. You would have to close the medication module, open the orders module to review the lab then go back to the medication module and open it to make any medication changes. And if you want to make any medication changes or do any documentation at all, you have to have an open encounter and none of the encounters are labelled in any sort of orderly fashion so you have to open each encounter to find out where you put anything (again, think of each page having to load/open and taking 5-10 sec each).

Medications: you have to associate a diagnosis with every single medication if you are a provider which is an awesome idea except that if you haven't previously entered that diagnosis, you can't actually save your medication and go back to it, you have to close out of the medication module, enter the diagnosis into the assessment and then go back into the medication module and re-enter all the same information again.

Labs: there is no way to save quick phrases or phrases you use frequently so that conveying test results is, on a great day, a lengthy and painful process. Also, if you want to know how your current lab value compares with the previous ones, you have to open up the patient's chart and go into the order module.

Entering orders: again, if the proper diagnosis isn't there, you can't save your work and open something quick to pop the diagnosis in, you have to lose all of your orders, "X" out of that screen, open up the assessment screen then go back to whichever area you were in (another lovely thing: everything is separated so putting in lab orders is separate from putting in diagnostic studies which is in a different tab than putting in referrals which is in a different tab than any clinic orders (like toradol, PPD, u/a, etc). Also, if you are ordering any sort of medication to be given in the clinic (like Toradol), if you forget to add that it's a medication, it deletes the order and you have to start all over.

Various names depending on the section: sometimes it's filed under Pulmonary, sometimes it's filed under Lung, sometimes it's filed under Respiratory...and the sections aren't in any kind of order either. The routine way physicians document an exam is starting with constitutional and working your way down. Nope. Not in Nextgen. The main page of the physical exam has One Page Exam, then constitutional, then diabetic foot exam, then ears, (separate from) nose/mouth/throat then neck/thyroid then breast (huh????) on down. However, if you open up a quick-note [great concept if it worked but the software doesn't actually recognize anything is in any particular field (i.e. HPI, Physical exam) and ROS doesn't even save...so if you try to calculate the code it always comes up as a 99212)] and you want to modify the exam at all (because if you go into the one page exam and enter anything, because it doesn't actually recognize there is data there, it deletes everything except what you've just entered) you go into the "Additional" tab where the headings are (I kid you not) Neck/Thyroid then Breast then Psych then Ears then Constitutional then Respiratory then Nose/Mouth/Throat then Musculoskeletal then One Page Exam then Cardiovascular then GU then Abdomen the Skin/Hair then Head/Face then Eyes then Lymphatic then Vascular then Extremities then Rectal then Back/Spine then Neurological and on... The ROS starts with Cardiovascular and marches on down to end with Respiratory and then Vascular and one might think it was alphabetical except Reproductive is sandwiched between Immunologic and Metabolic/Endocrine.

ROS: Since I brought up the review of systems, let's stop there for a moment. There are not things listed that a patient would say; they start out strong but then in Respiratory they include things like "Known TB exposure" (not really ROS but rather PMH or even HPI) and under Cardiovascular they include "Claudication" (not likely something a patient is going to complain about) and my personal favorite, under the female ROS is "Abnormal Pap smear." While there is the ability to pick "Other," most often the drop down menu that is supplied is a restatement of the things in the first menu so you have to hit escape and just type in your own words (or the patient's words).

And on top of all of this, it has the audacity to be glitchy. One of the things it does for me is, even when I've entered an assessment, sometimes it doesn't recognize that it's there and then tells me to enter an assessment...news flash: because of the way the software is set up, you can't enter a plan without an assessment there, so if I got to the screen where I could enter a plan...clearly there's an assessment there...however, you can't argue with a computer...

I titled this "I must be missing something" because if you go to their web page, they've got all these awards that they've won, etc and I just don't see how anyone could award them for anything. This software is abysmal at best and, if I leave my current place of employment it will be because of THIS. Not my boss, not the patients, not the money, the EHR. And this was adapted because the Illinois Primary Health Care Group that is over all of the FQHCs thought that this was the best option for Health centers that are taking care of a challenging population who needs things to be easier for them not more challenging. And with this software, I am more likely to miss things that need to be done because EVERYTHING is on a separate page and with 15 minute visits, who has time to do all that with a slow EHR???

Funny thing is, there's an update that may have fixed several of these issues but you can't task anymore so we can't upgrade. That would mean that every time you needed your nurse to do something, you couldn't send it to her, every time you wanted the front desk to schedule something you couldn't send it to them, every time you needed a follow up lab or test ordered, you couldn't send it to anyone to call the patient and do it. So either I'm missing something HUGE or the people who are evaluating NextGen and give it anything better than "Epic FAIL" are either working for the company or involved with someone who works for the company. My new analogy has become: if I did my job as well as they did theirs, I would be in prison for Manslaughter....

Pros

communicates with my billing company, but I could just fax a superbill just as easily. does insurance eligibility checks, does eRx (but is often difficult to find the pharmacy unless you know the exact zip code, sometimes doesn't find the pharmacy at all, like Safeway's)

Cons

Wow, there is so much not to like... Word searching for ICD10 codes, past medical history and problem lists returns hundreds of search items that have absolutely nothing to do with the words being searched. Also, if you enter the words out of the order in which they would appear, you will never find them. Social History is much more than whether a person drinks alcohol or smokes. There is no way to put in valuable details of a patient's social history and automatically include it in your notes. A lot gets lost by having to adhere to some stupid engineer's formatting. Same with past medical/surgical/obstetric histories-you cant add any valuable details to anything (like which knee was replaced and what happened after their concussion, etc). The charting is so useless that I have given up and gone back to paper charting. I start an encounter just to put my billing through. Health Maintenance: I can't enter that a patient refuses to do a colonoscopy or mammogram. All I can do is "disable" that patient from being counted for meaningful use. Poor formatting: while they tout being iPad friendly, each page has lots of unused space, so there is a lot of scrolling just to enter data or get to the save button (and if you don't press save, you lost it). More poor formatting: entering vitals->information is so spread out that it takes two screens to enter. AND peak flow is on the first screen while height and weight are on the second "additional information" screen. Which is more important? Also watch out for the backspace button, sometimes it works like you would expect, and other places you will get logged out and lose all of what you were doing.

Pros

We have been using this product for several years now. After looking at several other EMR's NextGen seems to be more user friendly than others I have seen. There is a lot of "clicking" and navigation to be done to complete a chart but it seems to be the same with all EHR's. NextGen offers recorded trainings, WebEx and onsite trainings to get the most out of the product. Support is quick to return calls when a ticket is opened for technical assistance or if you just need help with a workflow issue. We have integration/interfaces with several other products and all work really well together.

Cons

Providers would like to see "more intuitive" templates.
There are some templates that you cannot print from that would be of help, for instance the Vital Sign Graph.

Pros

Once you customize documents, questionnaires, custom forms, physical exam information - it simplifies your work and you can be more efficient.
Easy to customize once you learn how - my previous software took me long hours for several months to fix and even then it was not so easy, I had to keep typing additional data for my office notes.
Saves time creating paper super-bills ( with my previous software I had to do it manually for every patient, then give it to the biller to post it), here once you close your note, the claim is actually ready to post... faster payments.
The chief complaint has many set up questionnaires that are easy to use by staff and helps the health provider to quickly review the concerns, facilitates the interview, simplify the provider's work.
Billing - has many ways to see the claims. Recall list for follow ups, blood tests, etc - once you order a test that is a follow up or in your note you document the follow up... automatically show in the recall list. Nice appearance of the finalized progress notes, many of the areas are automatically saving and you do not have to worry about losing your data. At the end of the day, you can review open encounters to make sure you finalized all your notes.
Interfaces with labs and vaccine registries are available and work very well.
Labs show automatically - there are icons on top of the page that make easy to find labs, tasks, messages, prescription requests, etc.

Cons

Unable to see several tabs or pages at once, you need to save and close what you are doing to go some other part of the chart or if you need to open other patient's chart at the same time you are with one patient in the room - same applies for the PM portion and it is time consuming because you can not multitask.

Pros

I chose this software because it was designed by physicians, specifically osteopathic family physicians. It is organized in the traditional SOAP format so it is intuitive to most of us. It took me a little while to get comfortable with moving around in it but it is second nature now. I like to freelance my subjective paragraph and it's easy to do. Pull down's appear as if you didn't actually listen to the patient. The tech support is outstanding. I can call them and they are always helpful and very patient with a physician who may not totally understand every nuance of the program.

Cons

In the Rx number of days section, there needs to be a 5 day option, z-packs are 5 days and a 3 day option. Yes, I can type it in but I'm lazy. And if I type in an inhaler for 90 days, it has a problem allowing me to just send three inhalers. Same with BCP's.

Pros

I love the A/R features. I love how fast I get paid by commercial vendors. I love how intuitive it is on helping avoid claim issues. I did not have any issues with implementation. I have had nothing but good experience with support. We have had this EMR for over a year (and I have dealt with a few) and this is by far the best I've used. We have not had any issues with it going down. We have called when we have thought the system was down and they have guided use through issues with browsers, internet speed etc. So we were always glad we called, problems solved when we thought it was on their end. Yes, claim eligibility check is only on some providers but if you get to know how to use it more in depth it can be VERY helpful in further info not just for eligibility but for knowing primary care provider etc. I have had ZERO issues with auto post and yes, I have double checked. I also really like their statement service, I review each statement before I "send" them to them to send for me but no more issues with bad addresses etc and well worth the money. Their "help" section is great. The help sheets are AWESOME. I email support more than I've ever called them and they send me helpsheets when I can't find them.

Cons

I would like a better way to weed out the non paid lines with auto post instead of dumping them all to the appeal bucket. I would like to be able to attach a claim to the billing comments and be able to send them to another employee to review. I wish that I could upload our own forms to save in the system- I do not like the forms library at all, pretty well worthless to us, I would like it if I could upload, name our files and use it that way.

Pros

NextGen is vastly powerful and has lots of feature that are either built in or can be added.
Good SQL performance.
Flexible and customizable.

Cons

Steep learning curve, onsite SME highly recommended.
Expensive licensing
High server and PC requirement to get the best performance

Pros

It is user friendly when processing charges and posting payments. The auto flow works wonderfully and can be customized to your needs based on our processes in our office. It has a lot of features that makes charge entry easier like rearranging your codes right in the charge screen and accepting the copay at the same time.

Cons

My biggest complaint has been and will be the reporting. The process to create a report is fairly simple but all of the options aren't as available as I'd like and tweaking them is next to impossible. There are some reports we just haven't been able to create.

Pros

Easy to modify "template" or document on the fly. Scheduling portion is good. Financial reports are good.

Cons

Average customer support, at best. You get passed from person to person, promised call-backs are usually days later than promised, sometimes do not occur at all.. Conversion not as promised. Medications documentation is confusing, redundant, very inefficient. Does NOT autopopulate labs results for tracking over time (cannot look at flowsheets unless you individually enter each result into the flowsheet, which is ridiculously inefficient), yet we were shown examples of lab flowsheets. Lots of problems with their electronic claims submissions. If I could get out of my contract (after 1 year of use now), without paying for the full 3 years I signed up for, I would do it immediately!

Pros

The product support was horribly useless. The techs and their supervisors knew very little about the product. The Nextgen system itself is the real problem though. It takes so many clicks to perform the very simplest retrieval of information or data entry. The windows to see information or enter are tiny, 1 cm in height and cannot be adjusted. After a full year, our office of 4 MDs and 3 NPs (all tech competent) were still only able to see 10 patients per 8 hour day, and still spend time after hours to document. Awful.

In all honesty, I cannot find one redeeming quality to this EMR, compared to any of the others I've used extensively or on its own.

Cons

The answer to the problems were always: "It's being addressed in the next version roll out". This is a half-baked EMR. It's use is a danger to patient care and a real liability. We abandoned it.
The system is intended to have the clinician enter all HPI, IMP and Plan by point and click check-boxes. If these are not used, then it does not collect meaningful use data. However, the clinical utility of the text it generates is so generic, so hard to generate, and so cryptic that it is of no use to retrieve the facts of the the case. The only way to enter your thoughts, history or plan is to free text it (in addition to the mandatory point and clicks), doubling your work.
It doesn't even have a way to carry over information from past notes HPI or plan, so that it can be easily adjusted.

Pros

Integration between practice manager (scheduling) and EMR (records) software. ability to carry forward and safe smart phrases to speed up note writing

Cons

Exercise log completion is tedious and takes too long relative to other sections of notes. Some sections of evaluations are not intuitive as where to find things.

Pros

There are several benefits to using NextGen Office, including its user-friendly interface, robust functionality, and strong customer support. The system is well-suited for small and mid-sized healthcare organizations and can be customized to meet the specific needs of each organization. It also integrates with other healthcare technologies, allowing for seamless workflow and improved patient care.

Cons

Some users have reported that NextGen Office can be slow or unreliable at times, and that certain features may require additional technical support. Some users have also reported that the software may not have all the features and functionality required by larger healthcare organizations. Additionally, the cost of implementing NextGen Office and maintaining it over time can be a significant investment for some organizations.

Pros

It was accessible in the cloud. I was able to free text fairly easily.

Cons

I had to nag my regional representative to get a response. He acted like he just didn't have time to help with issues. I needed to archive my records because I was retiring. My rep and the technical backup team from NextGen did not speak with a different department (billing). The billing department felt that I should given earlier notification in order not to fulfill a yearly billing cycle. It became apparent to me that the various departments don't communicate with each other. The billing department could have honored my telephonic and email communications that I had with two of their other departments and simply closed my account in a month or two. They chose to stiff me for a complete year of billing.

Pros

My biller felt the practice management/billing side of meditouch/NextGen office was about average but the issues with the EMR made this product impossible and ended up switching EMR

Cons

I started my subscription with meditouch/Health fusion, later changed name to NextGen office.
The software is a billing platform with an EMR tacked on to it. I had used various EMRs during residency and in a group practice and this is the absolute worst product, most rigid software with lots of clicks and not user-friendly. Just reviewing a lab result is a hassle, needing to go in and out of the chart note, with numerous clicks in between. On several occasions, I noticed Meditouch glitching and chart associated with the labs belonged to another patient, therefore had to double check all the time, an issue that I had never encountered with any other EMR (EPIC, Cerner ambulatory, Praxis, even NextGen Enterprise etc.)
Once the sales-person had sold the subscription to me he would not return my phone calls, and customer service was practically non-existent. Eventually got assigned a new contact person who was a lot more responsive but unable to solve any of the product related, customer service related or billing related issues.
Eventually, I switched EMR, and canceled my subscription with NextGen and received a confirmation that my services were discontinued, but their billing department continued to charge my credit card on file. Make sure not to sign any authorization for the billing department to charge your credit card.
In order to export my patients' data to my new EMR, NextGen wanted $ 5000. My new EMR (Praxis) transferred the data for a fraction of the price.

Pros

1. Highly configurable...an organization can develop/program/configure any template or drop-down list box to tailor it to their clinical staff!

2. Software includes everything a clinic/hospital needs...and with NextGen's MirthConnect product, any interface or integration to another system is possible and easy! Besides the EHR and Practice Management, NextGen provides a Patient Portal, ePrescribe capability, Rosetta and MirthConnect (allowing interfaces to any system like LabCorp, Quest, Immunization Registries.), and much more!

3. NextGen Support is awesome...and if there is a new staff member, just request Tier 2 or Tier 3 support techs so your challenges are addressed quickly by experts in every area of the product!

4. NextGen Training is helpful from knowledgeable and experienced staff who have worked in clinical and front office environments. For any upgrades or projects, or if you are brand new, leverage the advanced trainers for additional training for staff and learning how to utilize/configure the system by having them review your configuration.

5. NextGen Development and NextGen 3rd Party Integrators (like Ciscon) are amazing to work with...If you don't have time to develop templates or learn, contact them to obtain a quote. I have been most impressed with support team at Ciscon! They have been able to streamline Provider templates and save tons of clicks so the Providers just adore and appreciate the efforts! They were also able to train all the clinical staff on the new workflows.

Cons

Like any EHR (vs a paper chart), there are lots of clicks for the clinical staff members.
In addition, the graphical user interface was so new to staff, this caused delays in the encounters.
(To mitigate, we spent time, money, and effort on training users as well as building customized templates...This was worth every penny!)

Pros

What I like best is that it is cloud-based. I also like that I can scan and upload documents to the patient's chart, and when you pull up a patient, you can pretty much see all the information on your patient regarding demographics, insurance, authorizations, and what is outstanding.

Cons

There are many things I do not like about this product. Posting secondary payments is a hassle. You end up having to manually post most of the secondaries because this software gives your claim a new ID each time the claim is submitted. Even if paid by the primary and you create a secondary claim, there's a new claim #. This causes the secondary ERA payment to not know where to post the money. The claim number should stay the same for the life of that claim. Also, they tell you that you can look up the claim easily when posting a secondary claim by doing an advanced search by the patient's name. Most of the time, this is not the case. You end up having to click on multiple pages to find the claim number so you can post the payment.

I also am not a fan of the reports and the lack of filtering. Our sales guy told us that the software reports could be customized and if there was a report we wanted, we only had to ask. If there was an enhancement we wanted, we only had to ask. However, I can't even pay for a report or enhancement. When I ask for any enhancement, I am told it is not possible or that it will become part of the list, which never gets looked at apparently. Even the most simple request don't happen. For example, if an authorization is not active any longer, this should not print up on an authorization report forever. This causes the report to become gigantic. They will tell you that you can filter these things out yourself, but that is extremely tedious, especially after using the software over a long period of time and especially if this is a report you need to use every week.

Another thing about the reports is that many of them are not live. If you do work today, you can not see what is accurate until the next day. The reports will show you what was what as of close of business yesterday. Also, the salesman told us that they worked with almost every insurance company and therefore we would be able to check claim status, track claims, check eligibility, referrals. This was a large exaggeration. They have maybe five insurance companies that can do 1/2 of that.

Customer service is sometimes slow to respond, and they usually don't give very helpful answers when you send a written inquiry. The best thing to do is to call. But even then, they might not be able to help you because what you want, they simply don't have available.

Also the fee slips you will have available to use from their system are terrible. The options are very limited, and the font is extremely small and hard to read. I am a billing service, and all of my offices complained. When I asked if the font could be enlarged, I was told no, even though there was much room on the slip that was not used.

Training on this software was pretty much train yourself. You are allow three one-hour phone training sessions. You are given a lot of homework to do on your own first. If you can not make your appointment promptly, they will cancel it. If you are at your appointment but waiting on them, that is a different story. You have to do much of the setup with this software on your own, and it is not as simple as they would have you believe, especially exporting data from the old software to the new. They will tell you that if you can use an Excel spreadsheet, you can do it yourself. I had expert Excel spreadsheet staff do this for me, and it took forever to get it done. It was a nightmare and very expensive. This is because there are many requirements that are very vague. They offer pretty much no help.

If you have to resubmit a claim multiple times, all the claims get new claim numbers, and the claims you do not want stay in the claim history. This causes what you are looking at to be confusing. Even if you just have to resubmit a claim because the insurance says they do not have it on file, it stays on claim history with a new claim number.

Finally, when you have your insurances loaded in your payer list, they do not load with the addresses or phone numbers. You have to do this manually. Even when you do this and you want to print your aging report or work, the report shows without the insurance phone number or address. This is a large inconvenience when working your aging. It is also very hard to separate your insurance companies.

Pros

Nextgen is an ideal platform when operating across multiple office locations or affiliate offices under one corporation. Medical records are viewable in one platform without having to log in and out for each location. Patients are easily searchable with alerts to prevent accidental adding of duplicate charts. You can add a feature to check insurance eligibility on both medical record and practice management side. And encounters instantly populate on both sides, making transferring from front desk to clinic seemless. It is easy to set up alerts for patients, whilst maintaining privacy features to protect their data. There is the ability to add a database of referring providers, which makes it easy to send referrals and records confidentially without having to print, scan or fax documents. You can also utilities a tasking feature to send trackable messages or assignments across locations or departments.

Cons

There are so many features it can feel a little overwhelming at first. It is highly recommended to take advantage of any training offered on this platform on order to best take advantage of everything it has to offer.

Pros

Platform-independent (works on ChromeOS, MacOS, iOS, Android, etc.)
Browser-independent (works in Chrome, Safari, Edge, Internet Explorer, Opera, etc)
Cloud-based with no need for specific hardware/software in-house.
Local to our time zone (Pacific) with U.S. based customer service
Clearinghouse is in-house with the vendor
Speed of operation - there have been moments when the cloud-based

Cons

Lack of specialty-specific Meaningful Use, PQRS, and MACRA measures
Need for heavy customization for the purposes of documenting specific scenarios (specialty or otherwise)
Extra components within standard documentation unnecessary for most specialties
Integration of PM and EHR could be a bit better

Pros

The customizations that are possible. WE are a specialty so it is important to capture the data, that is not always PCP. We have needs for rx report to be integrated which is coming in the new upgrade. We need to interface labs so doctors have quick and easy access to results. We have a responsibility to the community to keep them safe from people misusing or selling their medications. The templates and documents are easy to customize. The Nextgen support is helpful. We are excited to hear what the future hold for paincare, through their VAR Itelagen. The integration between EHR and EPM is coming along. Interfacing with labs, HIE. The reporting is made easy captured in the back ground for MIPS. They provide access to websites to become experts in there system. The help desk is not afraid to say if they don't know something and direct you to someone that does. The hosting is made easy. We are told it will be a 30-45 day transition very excited. The application has come a long way in looks it has been designed to be easy to access, it has shortcuts that only need to be hovered over to see data a quick glance. The Patient education was a nice add. It is user friendly and attaches to the encounter as a record it was done. The clinical reconciliation is a great add and makes things easy.

Cons

I wish the upgrades were easier. oTHERWISE i AM VERY HAPPY WITH THE SYSTEM.

Pros

None. Beyond bad. The other programs are much better even with some frustation. This is easily the worst.

Cons

1. Nextgen customer service for implentation is an absolute joke. I had spoken to so many different employees and none seem to know what they are doing. Common answer to questions and you are placed on hold while they ask someone else or transferred to the next employee.
2. Difficult to set up. Eclinicals, practice fusion, and athena got it right. Next gen is so wrong. If you are going to make it difficult to set up, maybe have employees trained how to use your program.
3. After about 3 years of using the program and trying to put up with the short comings, I had switched EMR programs. Boy, did I forget how much better my life is with out Nextgen. I can leave work with records completed. Other programs are just so much more efficient.
4. Just when you think you are out of the Nextgen trap. They will hold you records hostage. I was served a subpeona to request for a medical record, patient sueing an employer. I requested the record for 2 weeks and still have not received the record. I had missed the deadline, now probably in contempt of court.
Please save your sanity and choose a different program.

Pros

Did not like. We switched from server based NexGen to MediTouch/Healthfusion in 2013. Unfortunately, NextGen bought out the company.

Cons

Overall, the software works. However, the company forces you into auto renew yearly contracts. Even when we tried to cancel the RCM company a month before the service was set to renew (which technically the Go Live date was two months after notification), they made excuses not to cancel. First it was that we did not cancel. Then it was that we did not cancel with Clinic Anywhere. Then it was that the balance needed to be up to date before they would cancel. Mind you, we were losing money with their lack of collections and their lack of knowledge of billing. I will not get into the billing specific issues here, but any biller should know what they were doing incorrectly. This is what happens with overseas outsourcing. We walked away from the company after 10 years because of their unreasonable negotiation with dropping the RCM portion of the contract.

Pros

The ability to track authorizations using tasking and worklog as patient portal and how the messages easily populate into the front desk inbox. Patient portal can easily route the messages appropriately. And last, the ability to customize it to the needs of our specific practices slash specialty!

Cons

The ongoing upgrades although I know that is necessary for any EHR. Also there is no "reschedule" option for appointments. You can cancel then rebook and look at reschedule history but I personally like a reschedule button then follow the sequence needed.

Pros

The system is pretty easy to use. There are multiple ways to do pretty much everything in the system. Very rarely does the system go down.

Cons

Easy to delete some things. The system seems slow frequently but it is fixed fairly quickly.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing NextGen Office

Reasons for Switching to NextGen Office

Pros

Autoposting is fantastic. We find it does it correctly close to 100% of the time. When the system cannot effectively autopost, it "flags" the RA so that you can address it individually. When we initially converted, we found that importing patient demographics was refreshingly simple and something we could do on our own without additional costs.
Patient demographics are easy to enter and maintain.

Cons

Reporting is completely ineffective. Canned reports don't balance against each other, and it's hard to quantify values. Not much assistance from Customer Service, although they do try to be helpful.
EDI process has been nothing short of challenging. From enrollment issues in the beginning to claims submission and follow-up issues, we are finding as we work AR several months later we're still having issues with some of our claims from early on which can't seem to arrive at the payer, despite acceptance confirmation from Healthfusion/ENS. It's costing us hours of time on the phone and lost productivity. We also cannot actually see the acceptance reports and are told we can't have access to those because they're in larger batches, which again creates additional phone calls and work on our part.

Pros

The layout is fairly readable.
Sometimes it is nice to click on a box and have it instantly bring up a table to select different options, but it is generally annoying and difficult to customize.

Cons

Excessive tabs, scrolling, and button-clicking. It is very time-consuming to complete exam charts due to the poor layout design of the system. The layout design does not utilize monitor real estate very well.

Pros

It is very easy to complete my notes at the time of examination of the patients

Cons

whenever an upgrade or maintenance is completed over a weekend, many times we run into problems coming back to work on that Monday. For examples, slowness, screen freezes up, etc. The latest incident was this past weekend. It was eventually corrected on the Monday, but it slows us down.

Pros

Everything thing you need is there. Options are unlimited. Navigation is straight forward once you learn the system. Support is knowlegible and fast.

Cons

Tough to learn. Training team needs a lot to be desired

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing NextGen Office

Reasons for Switching to NextGen Office

Pros

NextGen Office is a cloud-based office productivity suite that includes tools for word processing, spreadsheet management, and presentation creation. One pro of NextGen Office is that it is accessible from any device with an internet connection, allowing users to work from anywhere and collaborate with colleagues in real time. Additionally, NextGen Office is typically less expensive than traditional office productivity software, as it is subscription-based rather than requiring a one-time purchase. This can make it a more cost-effective solution for businesses and individuals.

Cons

One potential con of NextGen Office is that it may require an internet connection in order to access and use the tools and features of the platform. This could potentially be an issue for users who need to work offline or do not have reliable internet access. Additionally, some users may prefer the more advanced features and customization options available in other office productivity suites, such as Microsoft Office or Google Workspace. As with any software or platform, it is important for users to carefully evaluate the pros and cons to determine if NextGen Office is the right fit for their needs.

Pros

2015 certified
APMA partnered to work with them. NextGen uses APMA registry.
Health Fusion was already purchased by NextGen so they aren't going anywhere.
Customizable

Cons

1. It looks great when sales people show you but out of the box requires A LOT of customization. Of course, the good is that it is able to be customized - but YOU do it.
2. YOU do all work. They show you but you DO it
3. Many of the verbage they use looks good until you READ it. Then you realize how many changes YOU need to make.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing NextGen Office

Reasons for Switching to NextGen Office

Pros

I like the immediate transition of the company since the new [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] has taken over. Their commitment to customer success with new edge technologies has been a great shift and kept me as a customer.

Cons

I dislike the fact that they don't have a bigger stack in the hospital industry of healthcare. I think this needs to change particularly with their api and interoperability stack.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to NextGen Office

Pros

NextGen is by far one of the easiest EHR providers to use. It is extremely user friendly and straightforward. One of my favorite features is how you can set access and abilities for each user and their specific role/responsibilities.

Cons

While I love the clipboard to easily drag and drop appointments, I wish the system showed the original appointment in the patient chart and that it was moved. It happens sometimes but not usually and it would be helpful to note that the appointment was moved. The patient portal and documents definitely need work as they don't always work to their complete functionality.

Pros

The layout was a very clean, easy on the eyes, software. It was fairly easy for patient intake and for backend charting. I believe our billing department really like it as well.

Cons

The company does not provide quick customer service. It actually took us over a year to even have a rep assigned to us. And that was after begging.

Pros

The billing chart entry is not terrible. After a while you get used to it. It is fairly simple to use once you have a full understanding of how it works and able to easily operate it. The charge entry is extremely simple giving you step-by-step charge entry points to easily understand.

Cons

The customer service was NOT great. I dont know if perhaps my experience was unique but especially when it came to deployment it had a very difficult time. I do not like how they restrict you on what you are allowed to do within your own database. I wish the user had more capabilities especially when initially setting it up for the office. I feel like every time I have an issue no one knows how to answer it and just passes me off to the next person.