Not ready for mental health

If you're looking for a powerful billing platform this may be a good system for you to consider. However, if you're looking for a full PM/EHR system to manage a mental health practice this system is not ready and costs too much for what you get.

Pros

- Great billing platform with many ways to keep track of claims and payments
- We're able to manage 3 locations with a single system
- The system overall has a lot of great capability and most of the functionality we were looking for in a PM/EHR system. However, as noted below there are issues with how some of these capabilities work.
- Templates can be customized

Cons

- The EHR is not user friendly and leads to many new users creating notes that are not connected to a session as well as multiple redundant notes for a session.
- There is no easy way to track missing notes other than going session by session for each chart
- The standard reports are generally not very helpful as they provide few ways to customize and filter. The filters that are present are often not logical ways to filter data. What's more frustrating is that there are actually more useful reports that are in the system but they cost additional money to be added to a user's key. For example, a common filter type is to filter a range of providers alphabetically. AdvancedInsight does provide an enhanced reporting capability (for an extra cost) that relies on Internet Explorer and MS Silverlight all of which are old technologies. It is also somewhat difficult and time consuming to learn and still does not provide the ability to customize reports in the standard report capability. For that you have to pay AMD to make the changes or to add the report that already exists to your key.
- Printing chart notes requires a time consuming process of creating a Microsoft Word Merge template for each note template and then printing each note one by one. The Word Merge templates are complex to create and manage.
- Our sales rep guaranteed us a 95% first pass acceptance rate. After 7 months we are at 89%. There are several reasons for this and the company has provided us a credit but don't be fooled by the promises of their sales team.
- Adding new providers can take up to a month. Again we have been promised a 24 hour turn around time and yet sometimes have to wait weeks to get new providers added to our system. Note: we have the ability to add Users but only AMD can add providers.

PM is great, EHR is just okay

Overall, I am very happy with the PM and "2-3 out of 5" happy with the EHR. Once you become familiar with the difficult quirks, it just becomes second nature. However, what is "second nature" for me now would be appalling to someone who is familiar with a most customizable, more user-friendly EHR.

Pros

The scheduling part of Advanced MD is so intuitive. To move an appointment, just click, select "move", and click on the date and time you want instead. I like how you can customize the time intervals, color code appointment types, and assign each a default length of time. Adding a patient is easy. Making billing notes, sending messages/tasks, entering patient info, are all quick and simple. There are nice features in the EHR, such as being able to pull in medication history from a national database, look up pharmacies, customize acronyms and use pull-down menus to drop in often-used phrases.

Cons

Actually customizing the templates is quite difficult if you have not been formally trained by Advanced MD specialists, which costs extra. Trying to figure it out yourself online via training videos is next to impossible because it is not customized to your situation. Also, finding training videos to answer specific questions is also near impossible. In order to print a note out, you have to select a "WordMerge" option from a menu, then click several times until a word document opens up, which you can THEN print. Far too many clicks just to print out a note, in my opinion. I have not found a simple way to print out all of a patient's notes, so I end up repeating this process many times when an entire medical record is requested -- VERY time consuming. Advanced MD offers all sorts of conferences and trainings, but they all cost outrageous amounts of money, and most are in a location where you would have to travel to get there. I wish training was more accessible and not so costly. I wish creating templates were more intuitive and more easily done by a regular run-of-the-mill user.

great accounting & EHR program- easy to use, very detailed & avail 24/7-better w/ ea update.

more than I expected. The accountability for finance is complete. The EHR area is wonderful. Having the program available anywhere is fantastic. PC and Mac perfect!!!!

Pros

I am a manager and therefore have full access. There are many features I rave about. The work flow ease from front desk personnel to billers to providers is amazingly user friendly. I do like that there are access limits to set for each job title within the company. The accountability of each service date is complete financially as well as historically.
The scheduling module can be as complete as you design it. The fact that we are able to customize certain areas is absolutely wonderful. The EHR portion is very complete. I like that AMD allows additional information to be added at anytime to a patients record not effecting the scheduling.
I also like that we are able to access this program on our Ipads for quick usage.
I am glad we are able to export reports to excel to manipulate information as necessary. I rave about your program all the time! I have worked with three other programs and am the primary person that hand picked your company's program for Therapediatrics.

Cons

There are always quirks in any system. REPORT ACCESS* and referral/authorization areas could use improvement. I do find that important reports for business purposes such as for finance, current active clients, marketing, HIPAA, rx renewals, referral counts, etc are not accessible unless your purchase an additional module with AMD. There is not a report that pulls all current active patients. There is a report that pulls discharged or deceased, and there should be a report that pull all active only.
The referral area does not count referrals/authorizations the way the insurance companies count them, which is critical for our industry. Every single client comes to us by a script and could be accompanied by a referral or authorization. I would like to see this area reviewed to its usefulness for our industry.

Mostly Good

AdvancedMD has done a superb job with their support team, I really can't say enough about their level of professionalism, expertise and willingness to go above and beyond to help with almost any situation. I've used other practice management products and AdvancedMD is by far the most user friendly.

Pros

I really don't know where to begin with the Pros of AdvancedMD. I might have to say the Video Training Library is one of my favorite parts of AdvancedMD. It is a guide or a visual aid to assist any user in the practice by displaying and explaining how things work. After any formal training a user may have questions or uncertainties with regard to posting payments, processing claims, adding demographics, etc. With pretty much one click of the mouse or F1 you have access to training.
The ease of use is another Pro to AdvancedMD, you don't have to be afraid to experiment or test different aspects of the Practice Management piece. I like how the product has evolved over the past 5 years and their social media piece "NEST" shows their willingness to relate to a younger generation of users while making it user friendly for us old folks too.

Cons

I would have to say the reporting piece is lacking from an accounting point of view, and the idea that Advanced Insight is available at a per provider fee is definitely not the answer I want to hear. The financial health of a practice can only be measured in numbers, increase the subscription to AdvancedMD and throw in Advanced Insight, it's a win win!

Do not rrecommend

Pros

Templates are good. there is not much good to talk about. Any thing good is neutralized by amount of problems.

Cons

I am a physician that keep loosing my nosed when my medical assistant or front office go in to chart at same time save the chart before me. It also happens when some scans a documents and faxes a prescription on my behalf.
I have the RCM contract. EHR is Ok to use.. But they have multiple unscheduled maintenance during night time. Scheduled maintenance is only for 15 minutes and is very occasional. Unscheduled maintenance is very common and last hours. When you call them they make lot of excuses.
Billers are inexperienced. Lack knowledge of local insurance and Medicaid requirement. I have complained to them multiple times that they cannot bill medicaid clients for unpaid balances but still they keep mailing them statements. It is more than a year and they continue to bill my Medicaid patients.
Very bad on follow up after filing claims. My claims have gone past 95 days filing deadline without any update from advanced. You have to open a case with concerns that there is no claim on file with insurance and it already past filing dead line. Then they will file the claim and claim gets denied. Then we open case again to request them to appeals. They file the appeal and appeal gets denied and you lost your money.
They also do not apply payment correctly and you request them to fix the errors , they will not respond.
AdvancedMd does not take responsibility for claims being denied for going past deadlines. If you complain they do not respond to your emails.

I have been very happy with this product and support services for this product!

Ease of claim billing, scheduler, and faster payment and more consistent payment and entering of payment

Pros

Billing and ERA's

Very easy! I love the tech support. The fact that someone is there, speaks English and understands the problem and is able to resolve the problem by talking it through with you. I never feel rushed or feel like the problem wasn't important. Training and support at the beginning was amazing. I really enjoyed my support at the beginning of this transition.

This product allows the office to flow more easily. We continue to learn daily new items the product offers. It has made out claims processing more efficient . I get quicker and more steady payment.
I like being able to see what each user has doen throughout the day/entering billing, new patients/AR, etc.

Cons

I wish the ERA screen would be larger so much to read and it is on a small screen.
I wish there was a way to stop switching the responsibility from the insurance to the patient (bucket) when a claim is denied.
I am still having trouble pulling accurate AR reports due to the money being switched to Patient. Also if the dates could be in sequence on the invoices that would really help.

I do have to bring up that I am most disappointed with the contract and price. I have spoken several times with by sales rep. & client support about this and still to this date the problem and contract rate that we set together is not being honored. It is disappointing for a small business like myself because what I have budgeted for the year for the software I have already paid out + in less than half a year. Also I keep getting billed for paper claims and no one here is sending paper claims, I have asked them to stop and show me how to stop this as I do not wasn't any sent by paper and def. do not want to pay for them either. The company and program are definitely better than I expected over 5 stars but the invoicing is what is concerning and may be the ultimate deal breaker of whether I continue with Advanced MD in the future.

I am the coding/billing person for the office.

Pros

It is fairly easy to use, once you get familiar with the product.

Cons

I absolutely HATE the way charges with payments are processed. In this practice, there are many times when a patient is required to pay a co-pay AND a refraction fee. This system does not allow you to post more than one payment in the charge screen, which then requires me to go either to the patient's screen, or the "Patient checkout" screen. It would be much more time efficient if we were able to post charges and payments in the SAME screen, and by the charge, not by the "co pay"
instead of going to the patient check out screen, or the patient's information screen. This is too time consuming, therefore, not cost effective.
Another thing that I do not like pertains to the E-remittance and quick pay screens when posting insurance payments. It would be much more helpful if when posting a payment on a charge where the patient has also paid, and the insurance payment is more than the insurance balance, that DIFFERENCE is put in unapplied, NOT the entire payment. AGAIN this is time consuming, because I have to stop what I am doing, go to the patient screen, unapply the patient payment, go back to the insurance payment screen, and apply the insurance payment. And if the copay is required, and the insurance company applies the copay to a charge in the visit, but not the office visit, I then have to go back and re-apply the payment to the charge the INSURANCE company put the co pay. I can show you examples of this, if necessary. It happens primarily with Aetna claims.

Overall good billing software program

I am extremely disappointed in Advanced MD customer service. I have been using the product for about 8 years. They market the product as costing less than provider which is not accurate. I have 3 providers in my office and I have to pay /month. They admit to their mistakes in the software codes, but refuse to work with their clients when Advanced MD's mistakes cause significant harm to a practice.

Pros

It will find errors on claims prior to submitting them to insurance carriers. It allows for macro billing which saves data entry time

Cons

There are too many "add on modules" that you must purchase in order to get the functionality out of the program. There customer support is below average. We purchased an add on module that wasn't functioning properly. We noticed this 1 week after purchasing the module and made Advanced MD aware of the errors. It took them about 5 weeks to shut the program down and it caused financial harm to my practice and also upset many patients. The software was texting/emailing patients up to 16 times in one day. It was a significant error in the software code and Advanced MD refused to act quickly to shut down the module. In addition, Advanced MD continued to charge me monthly for the module even though it wasn't working correctly. They refuse to provide a solution.

Great Solution for Practice Management and Billing

Our practice (25+ providers) have been using AdvancedMD billing software for the past 9 months and have been very happy thus far. We switched from Kareo as we needed a more customizable product that could better handle the large number of insurance carriers we interact with. We found Kareo to be extremely limited when billing for patients with mu