Software for Mental Health Professionals

I have not encountered business issues with ICANotes. They have excellent customer service. They provide ongoing training as needed and they take time to make you feel confident using the software.

Pros

This software has highly impressive features such as creating mental health forms such as screening questionnaires, creating treatment plans with measurable objectives, and very thorough mental health assessments. The case notes are very easy to create and include a comprehensive mental health status examination. Also, you can link your treatment plan to your case notes so that you can address the progress made in treatment when writing a case note. It has a comprehensive list of all psychotropic medications.

Cons

It is easy to integrate into your practice because it has all the necessary features for mental health providers, for example, CPT codes, assessment forms, consents, a fully integrated calendar with automatic reminders for the patients, and more importantly the capability to connect with a clearinghouse to submit electronic billing. It also has a patient portal. Very functional and extraordinarily helpful to create clinical notes. It has a telehealth platform too.

Using ICANotes for clinical practivce

Pros

ICANotes offers all the necessary features to document clinical notes and asessments and at the same time to be in compliance with regulatory mandates by insurance companies and the government.

Cons

A dasboard to track documented and unducumented sessions that would allow to track any undocumented session. Also,

A horribly misrepresented product

Regrettably I was sold a bill of goods. ePrescribe functionality with DrFirst was only partial of what the standalone DrFirst product offers, the integration with my existing credit card software was promised but after integration was useless and I reverted back to my old system anyway. Customer service was always available and helpful, but at the end I was charged for 2 months of access for using the program for just 2 weeks. They would not refund the 2nd month of charges because they do not refund for cancelations as a policy.

Pros

- the customer service was within the product and relatively immediate in response. This is helpful as you will need them a lot.

Cons

- ICANotes is noticeably slower relative to other EMRs and other computer programs. - There are places where you can get stuck and can't move. For example, creating a patient chart that does not have all the required information gives you an error message. - The actual look of ICANotes is grainy and unclear. It is a difficult program to look at throughout the day. - Scrolling is too fast. The windows of text are small and highlighting and scrolling through text within the text boxes is too rapid and you easily overshoot your selection. - copy/paste functionality is a deal breaker. There is an app-specific clipboard you must use as an intermediary. - the inability to easily refer to prior notes during a session. In the middle of a session, it is difficult to answer questions such as, "did we talk about sleep hygiene last time?" All the entries are kept together. - updating different areas of the medical chart can only happen through certain notes. I had one patient during a regular session tell me that she was recently diagnosed with a new medical condition. I had to start a new "complete assessment note" for that solitary piece of information for it to populate the medical history section, but then return to the progress note to finish out the session. - the active problem list is terribly difficult to manipulate and can only be done through cumbersome treatment plans. - there is a separate website just to upload documents to the chart. - no patient communication log

AN EMR DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR BEHAVIORAL HEALTH THAT DOES EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO PRACTICE.

We have been using the ICANotes program for 4 yrs. The customer service has been exceptional and courteous. They offer webinars and training for all aspects of the program and include tutorials on their website which is great when hiring new staff. ICANotes has assisted us with issues and accommodated our needs when modifications/adjustments were requested to suit our practice needs. The team at ICANotes has responded and implemented several options we suggested to improve our service delivery to clients. In addition, ICANotes has added many features to the program to meet the growing demands in the field of behavioral health. I love the fact this EMR was created by Dr. Richard Morgenstern, a psychiatrist. This program was specifically designed for behavioral health and not a modified version or altered from a medical model template. It is also a plus that one of the offices of ICANotes is within 30 min from our agency. Their staff was available to visit us and provide support when we opened in 2012. I have seen this company grow rapidly in 4yrs. since using this program which as benefited us in our growth as well. I gave ICANotes for every category primarily because it is well deserved for their hard work in keeping up with integration and the ever changing guidelines with coding, billing, and documentation etc., in behavioral health, which has made my life so much easier with running my business. However, the I gave for the value of money is a double edged sword.....And in no way do I want this to reflect as a negative connotation to the program. The rating is not entirely due to the cost of ICANotes program but also includes regulation guidelines set forth by many Insurance providers. The reimbursement rates set by insurance providers are not increasing at a rate they should be to providing services in behavioral health field. An increase in rates would tremendously help offset the additional costs accrued for agency's to remain in compliance with state, federal and local regulations thus, allowing agencies to add additional features that could really benefit service delivery. **Just an idea.......maybe to see some type of incentive programs offered to exist ICANotes customers who are growing and continue to add clinicians and features to their ICANotes program. That would be great. All in all, this is a phenomenal program, and I would highly recommend it to all behavioral health clinicians and practices.

Pros

The program does everything we need. All tasks can be completed with the features encompassed in the program.

Cons

Minor issues...... 1- I find the appointment book is extremely slow. I was told it would improve several months back but, the staff reports this most often and is the most reported issue that becomes time-consuming for staff scheduling and is frustrating for clients waiting on the phone. 2- Populating the Treatment Plan - when completing a follow-up treatment plan it populates every treatment plan into the new one created. This becomes costly if you have a client for 3 years + Ex. A treatment plan every 6 months for 3 years and an average of 4-5 pages per plan x 6 treatment plans printed for a client, the last treatment plan cumulates to 30 pages. It doesn't allow the plan to start over with a fresh slate for a new treatment plan without including the old ones as well. (Unless I haven't figured it out, which may be the case) :)

Finally, an EMR worth discovering!

I have been working within ICANotes for approximately 2 years, having transitioned from two different EMR systems. Overall, I have found ICANotes to afford a much broader spectrum of clinical flexibility for progress notes and new assessments. Care procedures, symptoms, medications, and historical data are all-inclusive and well organized for ease of use, which is vital for a fast-paced environment such as the one I work in. My particular job involves scribing for psychiatrists during back to back assessments for an acute psychiatric care hospital. This involves obtaining important historical data, current client concerns, daily medication changes, progress, and treatment plan options, all which have to be captured as quickly as possible as client is seated in assessment room. Having such an organized system helps me maintain an accurate and quick speed, which is crucial to my work. This is the first program I have used that caters to this need.

Pros

I appreciate the ability to build algorithms, to quicken my pace, and ICANotes affords me this ability. The various chart screens are easy to maneuver and contain clear and thorough guideline categories that require just a click of a button to incorporate into the notes. The medication areas are user-friendly and contain a broad selection of medications to choose from. At each chart front page, it is easy to see allergies and medical concerns in one glance, which promotes safety and easy recall to providers, when necessary.

Cons

A primary concern has been connectivity continuity. Our office has had to switch to a web based launch, as opposed to remote log-in, due to considerable interruptions and stalls, which were were very time consuming and frustrating, given the pace that my work requires to be maintained. However, the connection options we have now are much improved, overall. For the purpose of creating a tidy note, I also would prefer that categories to be left-align in each section so that the headers would not appear to be floating in the middle of the page. This may seem like a small thing, but, when creating over 30 notes a day and spending time left-aligning each category of use, this can be a time hindrance.