Practice Mate Software

Pros

I've used Office Ally for over 10 years, and in the early years it has worked very well for me, however, if I knew what I know about Office Ally now, I would not have started using it.

Cons

In the last several years, there have been more mistakes made by practice mate, claims that appear to have been submitted that were not. Fortunately, the Office Ally Tech support is usually very helpful when I call them, although in this case of some claims not going through, that issue has still not been resolved.
The biggest issue however, that I would urge users of Practice Mate to consider, is if you use this program to write notes, at some point in time, if you ever want to stop using Practice Mate, you will not have easy access to these notes. I was told that there is no easy way of downloading or printing these notes. You have to go into each session, and cut and paste each note onto another document. If you don't want to go through this trouble, and for me it would be thousands of notes I would have to cut and paste, it effectively locks you into using Practice Mate, and almost impossible to shift over to another billing software program. You can export patient demographic information to other programs, but notes cannot be exported. If I had known this when I started with Office Ally, I would not have started. Hopefully Office Ally will fix this problem which could easily dissuade users from wanting to sign on.

Pros

It's real easy to do billing here. Everything is well organized and I love how it connects to EHR. It makes it easy to look up patients information and uploads without having to switch over to EHR.

Cons

Sometimes I still get lost here. A better layout for all the tabs and functions could be implemented, but the way it is right now isn't too bad.

Pros

I like that this is a one stop shop for my small practice. It is great to be able to schedule, bill, take payments, make appointments and keep charts in one spot!

Cons

I don't like that there are a limit amount of notes. It was also a bit of a learning curve to get up and running.

Pros

I have used this service for nearly 8 years and have loved it for the calendar and insurance processing for insurance claims for my patients and clients.

Cons

They recently changed to charge for certain insurance companies an extra fee which has made the service more expensive than it was for the original 7 years. I am considering moving all this over to TherapyNotes to submit my insurance claims because I am a small practice.

Have utilized it for years and love it.

Pros

Love that there is no fee associated with electronic claims for a small practice. Easy to use and track. Really have had a great experience with the experience and ease of using this system.

Will continue billing though Practice Mate, we love it for our office...gets claims our fast and payment to us fast

Pros

How everything can be saved for billing and makes it go so much smoother, easy to add patients and easy to submit claims. Claims are processed very quickly!

Cons

Sometimes the billing shows a claim went successfully through, but then the insurance claim will say they never received a claim for a particular date of service. Has happened a lot.

Office Ally really needs to add and upgrade servers to meet the demands of its customers.

Pros

Low cost and intuitive system with features including interfaces with labs and imaging. Easy to use scheduling and EMR.

Cons

Consistently slow, and often completely unresponsive for long periods of time throughout the day. At peak times, the system experiences even more of a slow down.

Pros

The system has billing capabilities, that's all.

Cons

Not user friendly with scheduling when there is more than one provider
Will frequently get kicked out of the system and notes are not saved
Poor follow up with customer service
Terrible experience with Reminder Mate

Love the service and it's helped a lot with the business.

Pros

Easy to track claims. I love how there is a calendar that helps you understand when claims were submitted and when they were rejected.

Cons

A little hard to read rejected or processed claims. There needs to be some sort of portal.I'd like to see a list of all the claims.

Pros

It's cheap. The word cheap here represents all facets -- price, functionality, non-existent customer service. You get what you pay for.

Cons

- You have to sign up for each 'program' individually.
- The programs don't communicate with each other.
- While signing up for each program individually, you have to fax sheets. You will do this multiple times, have someone tell you they never got it, then give up and get another EHR. Then, they magically find your fax after 2 weeks, sign you up and send you a bill.
- While you are trying to sign up for everything, you will work with an awesome person with the payment processing/credit swiper who will sign you up and give you a good deal. However, once you give up on OfficeAlly and go with another EHR, the credit card people are rude and try to charge you a penalty for canceling your contract.
- As for functionality -- it's bare bones, lots of searching for what you want/need.
- Did I mention the down time??
- Ugh - stay away!

Pros

I like the ease of filing insurance, keeping up with client information and the reminder service. It was been a huge help that didn't hurt our bottom line.

Cons

Getting charged for an excess of Claims for a particular insurance provider. The software isn't always smooth to operate. It seems a little dated.

I found it somewhat awkward in design.

Pros

It provides an efficient clearing house for billing. The technical staff does attempt to assist your needs.

Cons

This software is not suited for mental health documentation. It is designed for medical offices. It lacks flexibility.

Pros

Access To help and software is very intuitive. Overall it's a great program with many great features.

Cons

Billing portion is not so great. And prescribing medication is not an option. I had many problems with checking eligibility as well.

We have been using this for the past 2 years. It is extremely user friendly and great for a start up practice that is trying to save time and money.

It is so difficult to deal with this program. It seems like the creators just stacked amounts of data creating a horrific, time wasting, not biller friendly program. On many occasions, I've called to get help. Depending on who I get, I'll get just enough of the information to calm me down, and I usually have to call again to suck out more. If I need an "Expert" it's it's usually a wait of 2-5 days. Seriously, who has time to wait? On top of that, the system is always crashing, and extremely slow. Nothing seems to be easy about this program.

Pros

I can send an email message to the doctors.

Cons

Where do I begin.... There's not enough space or time.

Advice to Others

If you like treasure hunts, geography, and have lots and lots of time to locate where things are at, by all means this program is for you.

It's easy to use but does slow down a lot. Speed would make it a lot better.

Pros

Easy to use, progress notes well set up.

Cons

Slows down a lot. Sometimes freezes and takes hours to do simple work.

OfficeAlly takes inordinate time to use. There are not many fast ways to do anything. It is the opposite of the iPhone in that Apple dynamically removes the clutter when they improve features... OfficeAlly just seems to add features that have led to a overburdened, bogged down, convulted practice management software system.

Pros

Cheap monthly fee. They have their own clearing house. Some MU/PQRS features.

Cons

Slow. Much down time. No batch billing. EMR and Practice Mate back and forth activity wastes time.

Advice to Others

Use this if you are a slow practice and looking for a cheap solution to EMR.

Likes Best

Price.They provide a clearinghouse.A one stop for everything needed.Training readily available.

Likes Least

Functionality/ Limitations. Customization's for superbil and more.. Accounting for payments.. Flowing from one section to another. Eligibility checks .Patient data profile.

Recommendations

Compare at least three companies that offer same type of service.Customer service is very important for the less tech savvy person.

Likes Best

Inexpensive, when many EHR systems cost tens of thousands of dollars

Likes Least

Takes about fifteen minutes to simply find a patient on the schedule and sign off on the exam notes.

Recommendations

This company took two software programs... scheduling and EHR... and never integrated them. So much time is wasted because of this.

Likes Best

It's free. Support is readily available. Once you have everything set up, submitting a claim is quick.

Likes Least

Some things are cumbersome to set up correctly, and the site isn't set up to easily find some things.

Recommendations

I don't tend to make recommendations involving software as I am a very low-tech person.