athenahealth vs DrChrono

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Our analysts compared athenahealth vs DrChrono based on data from our 400+ point analysis of EHR Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

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Product Basics

AthenaOne is a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) software designed to streamline clinical workflows and administrative tasks for healthcare providers. It is most suited for small to medium-sized practices and clinics seeking a comprehensive EHR solution with robust features and a user-friendly interface. Key benefits include improved patient care coordination, enhanced clinical decision-making, and increased practice efficiency. Popular features include patient charting, scheduling, billing, and reporting. AthenaOne is often praised for its intuitive design and ease of use, as well as its robust integration capabilities with other healthcare systems. Pricing is typically based on the number of providers and features required, with monthly subscription fees as the common payment model.

Pros
  • Easy navigation
  • Robust features
  • Secure patient data
  • Seamless billing
  • Customizable templates
Cons
  • Potentially high cost
  • Learning curve for new users
  • Limited customization
  • Occasional technical glitches
  • Customer support response time
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DrChrono is a cloud-based EHR and medical billing solution that replaces the chaos of paper charts and separate systems with a single, easy-to-use platform for managing all aspects of a medical practice.

For doctors, this means:

  • Effortless Access to Patient Information: Imagine having a patient's medical history — allergies, medications, past visits — at your fingertips.
  • Simplified Appointments and Prescriptions: Schedule appointments and send prescriptions electronically in just a few clicks.

For patients, it means:

  • Taking Control of Their Health: Book appointments, communicate with their doctor and access their own records through the patient portal.
  • Staying on Track: Receive automated reminders for appointments and medication refills.

And for the practice as a whole, the system helps:

  • Get Paid Faster: Automate billing and insurance claims to reduce errors and speed up payments.
  • Improve Financial Health: Track outstanding payments and identify potential billing issues.
  • Negotiate Better Rates: Gain insights to negotiate more effectively with insurance companies.

We tested the system to see how it works in real-world scenarios. Here’s what we think: while mastering the billing module may require some effort and billing data import has limitations, the system’s intuitive interface and accessibility from any device make it a user-friendly option.

A free trial and flexible pricing plans allow you to explore its potential and determine the right fit for your practice.

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$140/User, Monthly
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$250/Provider, Monthly
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Mobile
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Product Assistance

Documentation
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Live Online
Videos
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Videos
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Email
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FAQ
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Improved Patient Care Coordination: AthenaOne's comprehensive patient records, accessible from anywhere, enable seamless collaboration among providers and facilitate informed decision-making for better patient outcomes.
  • Enhanced Clinical Decision-Making: The software provides real-time access to patient data, clinical guidelines, and best practices, supporting evidence-based care and reducing medical errors.
  • Increased Practice Efficiency: AthenaOne streamlines workflows, automates administrative tasks, and reduces paperwork, allowing providers to focus more on patient care and less on administrative burdens.
  • Improved Patient Engagement: The patient portal empowers patients to actively participate in their care, view medical records, schedule appointments, communicate with providers, and manage their health information.
  • Enhanced Revenue Cycle Management: AthenaOne's integrated billing and coding features ensure accurate claims submissions, reduce billing errors, and accelerate reimbursements, optimizing practice revenue.
  • Improved Compliance: The software helps practices adhere to regulatory requirements, such as HIPAA and Meaningful Use, ensuring patient privacy and data security.
  • Enhanced Mobility: AthenaOne's mobile app enables providers to access patient records, securely communicate with colleagues, and complete tasks on the go, promoting flexibility and efficiency.
  • Scalability: The cloud-based platform allows practices to easily add users and expand capabilities as needed, accommodating growth and evolving needs.
  • Data Analytics: AthenaOne provides robust reporting and analytics tools that enable practices to track performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions to improve quality of care and business operations.
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  • Avoid Claim Denials: In our analysis, the product excelled with a perfect score of 100 for claims management capabilities, outshining competitors like athenahealth (89). It helps you:
    • Fill out CMS-1500 forms.
    • Create and send many claims at once.
    • Look through past claims by date or type.
    • Check all the claim details — like patient info and procedure codes — before sending it to payers.
    • Match payments to bills.
  • Automate Billing, Insurance Checks and Patient Workflow Management: The product achieved a perfect score of 100 for these capabilities:
    • Capturing records of medical services and charges.
    • Keeping a detailed list of charges for exams, procedures and supplies.
    • Helping doctors create and update patient visit records.
    • Checking if a patient’s insurance is valid before their appointment.
    • Automatically checking what medical benefits a patient has, like maternity or cosmetic surgery coverage.
    • Letting patients access health info and advice through the patient portal.
    • Allowing specialists to see patients referred by other doctors and send reports back.
    • Helping doctors refer patients to other specialists.
  • Reduce Medical Coding Errors: In our analysis, the platform scored 98 for assigning the right billing codes like ICD, CPT, HCPCS, NDC and taxonomy codes.
  • Make Data-Driven Decisions: The product scored 88 for features that help you generate aging, billing transactions, revenue, write-off and adjustment reports. You can also access pre-built reports like payment trends and insurance analysis to save time creating them from scratch.
  • Access Data Remotely: The product scored 94 for mobile capabilities, more than its competitors like Oracle Ambulatory EHR (79) and athenahealth (71). It truly stands out for:
    • Tracking claims from submission to payment directly from a phone.
    • Sending messages easily to billers, patients and staff.
    • Offering seamless access to the system on iPhone and Android devices with native apps.
    • Delivering timely alerts for payment reminders, appointments and more through push notifications.
    • Adapting to any device with a responsive web portal for a smooth user experience.
    • Helping practitioners dictate medical notes directly into the app for easy note-taking.
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  • Patient Charting: Electronic medical records (EMR) with customizable templates, comprehensive charting tools, and integrated clinical decision support.
  • Scheduling: Online appointment scheduling, customizable appointment reminders, and patient wait time tracking.
  • Billing and Coding: Integrated billing and coding functionality, claims management, and revenue cycle reporting.
  • Patient Portal: Secure online access for patients to view medical records, schedule appointments, communicate with providers, and manage billing.
  • Telehealth: Integrated video conferencing capabilities for virtual patient visits.
  • Mobile App: Access to patient records, charting, and communication on mobile devices.
  • Reporting and Analytics: Robust reporting tools for clinical, financial, and operational performance.
  • Integration: Connectivity with labs, pharmacies, imaging centers, and other healthcare systems.
  • Security and Compliance: HIPAA-compliant security measures to protect patient data.
  • Customization: Ability to tailor the system to meet specific practice needs.
  • Support: Comprehensive training, support, and resources available.
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  • EHR: Provide better care with features like free draw for visual explanations, custom vitals tracking and access to immunization registries
    • Custom Templates: Tailor forms with specific fields, drop-down menus, checkboxes and even add your practice's logo. This ensures your documentation is consistent, efficient and specialized for your needs (e.g., cardiology forms with specific heart diagrams).
    • Electronic Prescriptions: Send prescriptions electronically to pharmacies directly from the patient chart. Access the drug's formulary tier, prior authorization requirements and alternative medications if the prescribed drug isn’t covered. Access patient PDMP data directly within the EHR to identify potential abuse, misuse or doctor shopping.
    • Free Draw: Upload images (x-rays, scans, photos) or use pre-loaded anatomical diagrams within the patient chart and draw directly on them.
    • Custom Vitals: Create vitals specific to your needs including things like blood glucose and oxygen saturation levels. Capture data in various formats: text, numbers or predefined options using dropdown lists. Access the flowsheet to visualize trends in custom vitals over time.
    • Prior Authorizations: Initiate the ePA request directly from the prescribing workflow. Automatically populate the prior authorization request form with relevant patient information (demographics, insurance details, medication prescribed) pulled from the patient's chart.
    • Lab Orders: Integrate with national, regional and specialty labs like Quest Diagnostics and Labcorp. Create predefined lab panels for common tests or specific conditions. For example, you could create a "lipid panel" or a "prenatal panel" with a single click. View lab results within the patient's chart, organized by date, test type and ordering provider.
    • Medical Speech-to-Text: Use voice to input clinical notes, patient histories and other information. See your spoken words appear as text in real time within the EHR to review and edit the transcription as you go.
    • Immunization Registries: Automatically send your patients' vaccination details to the state IIS, ensuring that records are up-to-date and complete. Retrieve immunization records from the IIS, even if your patient received vaccinations elsewhere to avoid unnecessary duplicate vaccinations and identify potential gaps in their immunization schedule.
  • Practice Management: Save time and reduce errors with appointment management tools, including appointment profiles, insurance eligibility checks, online scheduling and automated reminders.
    • Appointment Profiles: Instead of manually entering the same details (length, reason, etc.) for every appointment of the same type, you create a profile once and it auto-fills the details (duration, reason for visit, exam room and billing codes).
    • Eligibility Checks: Verify your patients’ insurance eligibility in real time — check what services are covered under the plan (e.g., office visits, labs, specialists) and any limitations or exclusions.
    • Online Scheduling: Set specific days and times when each provider is available for appointments. Offer different appointment types online (e.g., new patient, follow-up, consultation) with varying durations. Add buffer time between appointments to prevent scheduling conflicts and allow for patient check-in/check-out.
    • Patient Reminders: Send automated appointment reminders via email, text or SMS. Configure reminders to be sent at various intervals before the appointment like — a few days before, the day before or a few hours before.
  • Medical Billing: Improve your revenue cycle management with tools like billing profiles, medical coding and automated claims submission.
    • Billing Profiles: Combine frequently used CPT, HCPCS, custom codes and ICD-10 codes into a single profile. Attach common modifiers to the codes within the profile (e.g., modifier 25 for a significant, separately identifiable E/M service).
    • Medical Coding: Easily search and select the appropriate codes within the EHR using keywords, code numbers or descriptions. Perform basic code checking to identify potential errors such as invalid codes or missing modifiers.
    • Good Faith Estimates: Generate good faith estimates to help patients understand costs upfront and avoid surprise bills.
    • Claims Submission: Submit electronic claims to insurance companies within the system. Track claim statuses in real time. Scrub claims for errors like missing information or formatting mistakes before submitting them to payers to avoid denials and claim rejections.
    • Denial Resolution: Generate denial analysis reports to identify denial patterns. Edit and submit corrected claims directly within the system. If you disagree with a denial, generate appeal letters and track their statuses.
    • Patient Statements: Generate statements for individual patients or groups of patients based on various criteria (e.g., date range, insurance status, outstanding balance).
  • BI Tools: Get a visual summary of key metrics and performance indicators. Generate customizable reports to:
    • Track revenue, expenses and profitability
    • Analyze claim submission, acceptance, denial and reimbursement rates.
    • Track patient demographics, appointment history and billing information.
    • Analyze appointment scheduling and no-show rates.
  • Mobile Capabilities: Schedule appointments, send patient statements, bill insurance, document patient encounters, access lab results and more from iOS devices like iPad, iPhone and Mac.
  • Telehealth: Patients can join the telehealth visit from their computer, tablet or smartphone using the link provided in their email reminder. Providers can share their screens with patients to review medical records, lab results, X-rays or educational materials.
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Product Ranking

#45

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#11

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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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Clinical Charts Clinical Documentation Dashboards And Reporting Electronic Prescriptions Medical Billing Mobile Capabilities Notes And Templates Patient Engagement Platform Capabilities Platform Security And Compliance Telehealth 100 94 88 91 94 81 100 88 90 96 73 0 25 50 75 100
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User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 953 reviews
Great User Sentiment 529 reviews
75%
of users recommend this product

athenahealth has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 75% when considering 953 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

80%
of users recommend this product

DrChrono has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 80% when considering 529 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

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1.5 (3)
3.5 (102)
4.2 (39)
3.8 (836)
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4.0 (487)
5.0 (1)
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3.6 (14)
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Awards

we're gathering data

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated DrChrono and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Platform Capabilities.

Platform Capabilities Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Streamlined Workflow: Reduces manual data entry and automates tasks, saving time and improving efficiency.
Improved Patient Care: Enhances communication and collaboration between providers, leading to better patient outcomes.
Enhanced Reporting & Analytics: Provides real-time insights into practice performance and patient data, enabling data-driven decision making.
Mobile Accessibility: Offers mobile app for charting, scheduling, and patient communication, improving flexibility and accessibility.
Customizable Interface: Allows tailoring the platform to specific practice needs and workflows, improving user experience.
Positive User Reviews: Consistently praised for its ease of use, intuitive interface, and helpful support team.
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Ease of Use: Navigate patient charts, create shortcuts and access billing info without a steep learning curve.
Customization: Tailor the system to your specific needs and preferences like customizing templates, workflows and reports.
Easy Medical Coding: Find and assign ICD, CPT and HCPCS codes to patients' bills to save time and reduce coding errors.
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Learning Curve: Initial setup and training can be time-consuming for some users.
Cost: Subscription fees may be higher compared to some basic EHR systems.
Glitches and Bugs: Occasional reports of technical issues and bugs in the platform.
Limited Customization Options: Some users wish for more granular control over customization features.
Integration Challenges: Integration with certain legacy systems can be complex.
Customer Support: Mixed experiences with customer support response times and quality.
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Contractual Obligations: Canceling subscriptions can be challenging, potentially leading to early termination fees. Automatic renewals may also catch you off guard.
Subpar Customer Support: Long wait times, unhelpful responses and unresolved issues from customer representatives might disrupt your processes.
Occasional Glitches: System crashes, slow navigation and difficulties with scheduling and other functionalities can cause frustration.
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User reviews paint a compelling picture of athenaOne's strengths and weaknesses. Many users laud its intuitiveness and efficiency, comparing it favorably to Epic in particular. "Charting a patient in athenaOne takes half the time compared to Epic," one user shared, highlighting the streamlined interface. Another user raved about the integrated functionalities, stating, "The way athenaOne links billing and scheduling saves us so much time compared to our previous system, which kept everything siloed." However, some users expressed frustrations with limited customization options and occasional hiccups in customer support. "I wish athenaOne offered more granular control over customizing templates and workflows like you can in Epic," commented one user, seeking greater personalization. Another mentioned, "Customer support can be a mixed bag. While they're sometimes helpful and prompt, I've also had experiences with long wait times and inconsistent responses." Overall, user reviews suggest athenaOne shines in user-friendliness, comprehensive features, and workflow efficiency, rivaling even industry giants like Epic in these aspects. While some limitations around customization and support exist, athenaOne remains a strong contender in the EHR market, offering a user-friendly and feature-rich experience for healthcare providers looking to optimize their practice operations.

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So, I got the chance to get a free trial access to DrChrono, and here are the key highlights: The platform stands out for its intuitive design, extensive features and customization capabilities. The software is accessible on any device with internet connectivity. Data import from other EHR systems is supported but with certain limitations. It offers four pricing plans and a free trial is available for potential users.It's a cloud-based system, which means you can access it from anywhere — your laptop, tablet, even your phone! And it covers everything from electronic health records and patient scheduling to billing and telehealth.One of the things that really impressed us was how customizable it was. You can create your own templates for notes, forms and even entire workflows. This means you can really tailor it to fit your specific needs and preferences, which can save a ton of time.And speaking of saving time, they've put a lot of thought into their billing features. They have tools to help you code things correctly, submit claims electronically and even track your payments. Anything that helps you get paid faster and with less hassle is a win, right?However, learning to navigate the billing and insurance modules could take time. It’s a bit confusing to understand how the billing workflow works and how to set one up. Also, you can’t import billing data from your old EHR system.If you're looking for a comprehensive, user-friendly system that can be customized to your practice, we'd definitely recommend taking a closer look.They offer four different pricing plans, so you can find one that fits your budget, and they have a free trial so you can test it out and see if it's a good fit for you. It's always good to try before you buy, right?We’ve discussed more about the features in the See It in Action section. Do check it out to know how the system works in different scenarios.

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