Great medical charting software

Medical charting

Pros

Lots of templates and easy to click through to get notes done, with the items you need to bill insurance.

Cons

It took a lot clicking to complete a note and it takes time to learn where things are. The learning curve was too steep for me.

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.

Outdated

Overall it is a decent software platform. I have been able to create quality notes with the click of a mouse.

Pros

Once you get the hang of it it can be very fast to create a standardized note. This helps when I have to do group notes for 20 patients at one time.

Cons

The interface looks like it is from the 90s. It is hard to create individual notes because the software is not meant to have you typing in your own notes.

Very Basic Program , could be great but needs to be updated

It is easy to use and easy to train new employees to use it.

Pros

Overall it is simple to train new Mental health techs for our Mental health rehab ( community based services) It is easy to access from the field, but clicking is difficult because of the way you must click when using it on a tablet or smart phone. The system is relatively easy to use for those new to the industry. It is less expensive than many of the other integrated programs, BUT once you realize you now pay for the ehr/billing program and now you are gettiing a seperate bill for the clearing house and you are having to pay a monthly fee for each mental health tech and each licensed person both to icn and to a clearinghouse, it is suddenly much more expensive than using a high end integrated service.

Cons

The billing software is a horrible, with repeated problems and errors, very limited audit trail, very limited ability to speak with the best clearing houses, relegated to smaller, less advanced clearing houses, lots of lag, slow at times, notes that are saved disappear, lots of weird glitches that tech support has no clue on how to resolve the issues. It is too busy to look at, if you are dealing with it all day long, it is fussy and cluttered. The report system both on the ehr side and the billing side are weak at best. There are many reports that we used in our previous software that are not available, There is no end of day processing and end of day report available. It is built on an old coding platform and needs to be modernized, it could be the best in the industry, it does a lot of basic things right.. Uploading files and downloading files or reports is not easy, you have to log into a different website, which is again time consuming if you are attempting to run reports, export them into excel etc, it cant be done on the main website, you run the report, then rather than just export it, you have to click export then go log on to a different website to retrieve it. It needs more integration. Everything feels like it was added on and just hanging on in piecemeal fashion to the original ehr.. the ehr is solid, good and great to use. I wish it was abit more flexible where you could add fields or have a form uploaded and then be usable in the system