athenaOne reviews

Very easy to pick up and get going.

Pluspunten:

The user interface is very friendly and everything is set up to guide you through easily while entering patient information.

Minpunten:

Sometimes the add on software like the label printer and document printer would stop working, but that is rare.

Athena review

Opmerkingen: For the most part excellent. Upgrades and updates seem to have slowed down and I think Athena has leaned more on the Market Place Vendors and less on enhancing included offers. I have made suggestions over the years and have given up as I do not feel the suggestions postings are something that Athena has been able to keep up with.

Pluspunten:

Claims scrubbing software. Our claims go out clean and are paid quickly. Support with MIPS. Reporting capability. Athena Text messaging. Versatility, software runs on any device. Athena text messaging. Monthly account manager calls and metrics. Partnership. Ease of creating order sets and working in clinicals. Market place partnerships are great and enhance the software and functions. Not afraid to be disruptive and things up looking for best and innovative practices.

Minpunten:

Collector and Communicator insurance card copy do not communicate. Hoping one day soon you will be able to interface with EPIC. The reporting is so good that sometimes I need more support to ensure I am selecting the correct criteria.

AthenaOne - not living up to its namesake

Opmerkingen: I have used AthenaOne for one of my specialty doctors, after having used a number of other patient portals from different providers, and I would say this one is the worst - it's not terrible, but there's a lot better options available

Pluspunten:

It's nice to be able to communicate with my doctor through messaging as opposed to messages back and forth with their support staff.

Minpunten:

It honestly just has I would say an "ugly" look and feel to it - it's not easy to navigate and isn't that helpful when many of the features are turned off

Bells and whistles

Opmerkingen: We are a Family Medicine Residency which makes managing the clinic more complex for us than most clinics because our providers are all part-time, there's Faculty over site of the Residents, and they are learning. We went live 2 1/2 years ago with 75 end-users and have been very successful with Athena. Implementation took about 2 1/2 months and was up to full schedules within 5 weeks of go-live. We've added on Dulcian CCM software which has helped us earn a lot of income doing CCM just documenting time we were missing in our old EHR. We've also implemented electronic check in which has helped get more historical information in our charts and more screeners completed on our patients. We realized a 1 FTE decrease in Medical Records and have realized savings in other areas.

Pluspunten:

There are lots of bells and whistles built into the software and they are moving towards releasing more and improving all the time. Free interfaces make life so much easier for us! Athena listens to users when developing the software, they are visionary with future software needs in order to meet MIPS requirements. Implementation was big but there were people helping us through each step. We have an amazing Account Manager and meet with him once a month to go over open issues and discuss financials. Athena is overall a very forward-thinking company. Athena Marketplace has lots of add-on features to help make your staff's lives easier. We've acclimated well.

Minpunten:

The tickler system for follow up visits are subject to user errors and need constant review. However, honestly, most recall appointment tools usually do because patients just don't return on time or try to get as much time in between visits as possible. Task assignment over rides (TAO) take some getting used to and are hard to filter for some incoming document situations. I wish there were more filters on the TAOs. Our patients feel like we over-communicate with them so if you go with Athena, make sure you start asking the patients their communication preferences from the first new appointment they schedule with you. It's important to get phone calls unchecked if they do not want reminders in several ways for the same thing. Call campaigns to get patients back in for visits are embellished with their wording and can contradict what you said in your message. ie: You do not need an appointment to get your labs drawn. Then Athena adds You are due for an appointment in the email and you don't even know they are saying that to patients so something to watch. All software has things we wish were different.

Athena EMR

Opmerkingen: Overall, very good EMR. Great price. Poor support and improvements on hospital platform

Pluspunten:

Lots of billing intelligence and assistance.

Minpunten:

They focus heavily on the ambulatory side, and not as much on the hospital side. Also- long wait times for customer support.

Good working system for claims management

Pluspunten:

I like the ease of navigating the system. It also has a lot of how to videos to help you with the system

Minpunten:

The manual part of hub g to create your own rules in order for it to work correctly

Going in to second year with Athena

Opmerkingen: Due to the number of posting errors, frequent changes of account service managers and the need for additional staff to handle the many issues that come up daily, I would never be able to recommend this product to any office.

Pluspunten:

There is really little that I can say about liking this software

Minpunten:

Everything to do with billing claims and posting the monies. In addition, Athena calls and texts our patients excessively, to the point that a lot of them have opted out of notifications. I have had several patients recently who wanted Athena's number to complain about their service. That is another thing, you do not have the phone number of that one go-to person for assistance when you hit a wall.

Tread Carefully and do not believe the sales rep

Opmerkingen: The EMR is ok to work with. I think combining with the RCM has really made the experience terrible. Please do not use their RCM or their billing service, you will lose money, miss deadlines for timely filing. They don't notify the practice if there is a large patient balance so you can't collect on time. They are so slow in updating patient and insurance payments so you don't know on time if your claims are denied early enough to take corrective action. This has been more frustrating. Once I took up the billing myself, life was so much easier. They also said you could downgrade at anytime, well there are stipulations to that, DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT THEY TELL YOU. They say you'll have CSM (customer service manager) to help make sure your billing is going well; well, that's if you ever get one to speak to you. They were supposed to reach out monthly to ensure you are getting all the money due to be paid to you, no one reached out to me. 3 months in, I started wondering so I reached out, then they switched me to someone else who was trying to sell me more products. I would not recommend their billing services or RCM at all. Just get your own biller.

Pluspunten:

The EMR has good templates, the patient portal is pretty good. Implementation was the worst, they use these people who live in other countries who have the most minimum knowledge so implementing this was as stressful as using their RCUM. I had to ask for someone else because my go-live date was due and this guy could not answer my questions.

Minpunten:

The RCM and billing service is the worst. Don't even attempt it.

Some good features, but bad layout

Opmerkingen: It served its purpose while I was in school and I think it was chosen because it worked with multiple disciplines, but I never considered it for my own practice after graduation. It was too slow and not customizable enough.

Pluspunten:

The templates and text shortcuts were probably the best part of this software. The ability to add drop down menus and text boxes to your text shortcuts was extremely helpful for creating templates. The ability to share those shortcuts was also very useful for providing the same template to multiple people. Epocrates, which is the prescription side of Athena was also very nice for looking up drug interactions.

Minpunten:

The layout of this software is terrible. Very confusing and it takes a lot of clicking to access any part of the patient’s chart. Not to mention switching between different sections of the chart requires the doctor who click and wait for the new page to load. This would have been much better if Athena used a more standard SOAP format all on one page.

athena one

Pluspunten:

I love this product it is great and easy to use at home or any where to get your records and be able to have them so you know your test resulted and talk with your doctor

Minpunten:

I have found only one thing they have no after hours service to help you if you need help other then that it is really good! I love it!

Athena creates EHR efficiency for medical practices

Opmerkingen: As stated above, since our Athena "Go Live" 2 1/2 years ago I have been able to reduced our medical practice overhead, reduce staff, all while increasing revenue, and providing to our providers and staff a manageable clinic day. At the end of each day, all messages and calls are returned to patients and the days charts completed.

Pluspunten:

I have worked with and launched four other EHR's. When people ask me what I like most about AthenaNet, I tell them that "Athena just makes sense." We have a very busy medical practice seeing over 35 patients each day in our clinic along with answering over 60 triage messages on the phone or through the patient portal daily. Since our Athena "Go Live" 2 1/2 years ago I have been able to reduced practice overhead while increasing revenue, all while providing a manageable clinic day for our providers and staff. At the end of each day, all messages and calls are returned to patients and the days charts completed. Our success has been mostly do to Athena's ability to streamline our patient visit process from check-in to check-out, plus communication with patients outside of the patient visit. Our check-in process with co-pays, scanning insurance information and updating demographics, day of visit medication updates, and insurance verification have significantly reduced check-in time. Providers are able to view imaging within the patient's chart allowing clinical decisions and patient concerns addressed during the visit, along with orders placed using custom templates and patient information printed with patient identification barcode on each page that we designed to create an efficient process at intake, exam and check-out all in the exam room. In addition, billing and dictation are typically completed either during the exam, or before the end of that day.

Minpunten:

The CSC process needs to get better. With the new CSC Create a Case process issues and problems are difficult to get resolved with one phone call. Many times my issue needs to be escalated, not able to be solved by the person on the phone.

Doing very well with athenahealth as our EMR

Pluspunten:

I like that athenahealth is always getting ahead of new changes in the medical community so that we are easily transitioned into, say, ICD 10. I like that athenahealth is really pro-active in helping the medical practices to streamline their office to meet these changes head-on without fear of being left hanging out to dry on, say, getting paid on time. I like that athenahealth provides you with a terrific support group of CSC folks who will take your calls or read your questions/inquiries and find the answers for you. I mean, honestly, I usually don't have time to go and look for the answers myself in the library and training videos (although for those who do have the time, these are great tools) so I am so very, very glad that I have a great support team behind me. I like that athenahealth allows us to share medical information for our patients, after their consent, to other medical practices and/or hospitals easily because the patient's medical care is the most vital aspect in this service community. I like that athenahealth is really very respectful of the fine line between helping the practice flourish and not stepping on toes or overstepping their role.

Minpunten:

Lately, when using the message board for asking questions that aren't too urgent, I find that the response takes more than a couple of weeks. It used to be that the turnaround time was a week at the most. When the response is so late, I forget what my questions were and I have to go back to re-investigate so I can resolve the issue. I've read a lot of other posts about calling in and being put on hold for a long time. When we first started with athenahealth, I did not have that trouble and I was calling upwards of 10x a day on a daily basis for a while. Lately, I rarely call but thankfully, I haven't been put on hold for more than 5 minutes. And I still do like having the ability to call when my question is urgent and I can get the help I need right away.

Consultant with AthenaNet in different practices

Opmerkingen: My business partner and I have had extensive experience with AthenaNet and EMRs, in general within a spread of different medical practices. AthenaNet is similar to any other EMR in that it works really well for some practices and not as well in others.

Pluspunten:

The billing component is extremely beneficial though, I have found that some of my offices have thought that is does ALL billing. (Again, I think it's a lack of understanding and initial training.) The access to helpline is great. Having a live person to talk to has been helpful. (It's sometimes can take longer periods of time to come to a solution but they normally stay patient until there is a solution. I've been on the phone with help desk for up to 3 hours before.) Educational videos are always available for staff to turn back to. Live in-office trainings would help AthenaNet to be more successful. (I had a cardiologist go-live with AthenaNet then 3 weeks later returned back to his original EMR. I believe it was because of the lack in training. Physicians don't typically take time to watch training videos.) The EMR continues to evolve based changes in health care. AthenaNet assigning scanned paper work to patient charts.

Minpunten:

Common complaints we hear from physicians, staff and admin - there is a lot of scrolling within a patient chart. Yes, you can jump using links but it takes a lot of retraining old habits. Quality Reports can't be adjusted - such as running reports for quality measures for different time periods for in-office comparison. Dates within reports don't show up in the header when printed. Defaults are practice wide and can't be adjusted.

Better than the rest

Opmerkingen: Our practice has been using Athena for our practice management software for over 10 years and we implemented the Athenaclinicals EMR in 09/2012.

Pluspunten:

Athenaclinicals has made Meaningful Use a manageable task by providing us with resources such as a checklist, status list and recommendations to meet Meaningful Use. Also they stay informed about the latest regulations and changes so that we can focus more on treating our patients and managing our practice. The billing functionality has definitely helped improve our A/R as well as assist us in tracking encounters to ensure we bill everything our providers do. Their credentialing functionality has also been helpful in assisting with enrollment and credentialing verification. The EMR and charting functionality is very comparable to other available software.

Minpunten:

The biggest issue we have run into in the past year is with regards to customer service. Athena has changed the way they handle issues that cannot be resolved by your initial CSC call. The only way to "speak to" or contact the people working on your issue is via Athena email. Unfortunately, this leads to miscommunication, confusion, frustration and delays in resolution. Completing certain tasks are more cumbersome than necessary, at least based on the opinions of our providers and staff. They feel they have to click more "buttons" and complete more "steps" to get to their end result eg. check-in, processing documents, charting. Athena has so many different features and functionality that it is difficult to make sure you are utilizing the software to it's fullest capabilities for your practice and specialty.

EHR for Doctors Office

Opmerkingen: We really have not had any issues on the EHR side with Athena. I have run into some issues on the billing side and processing of payments, etc.

Pluspunten:

The implementation was easy to set-up. Athena was a big help in creating forms and letters. The tempplates are easy to set-up and modify as well. Once the forms have been created you can also make changes to them as well. The order of the check-in through check-out process is set-up in a way that is easy to navigate and goes in order of how you treat your patient. The best part is that Athena takes care of the MIPS, MACRA, etc data that is needed for Medicare without adding additional work for the staff. I like the fact that there are less documents that require scanning, since all of our faxes go directly into the system and are attached directly to the patient's record. The reporting options are also very good with this system.

Minpunten:

I really don't dislike anything about the software, other than it would be nice to track letters that are sent to the patients. So you can print off collection letters or follow-up letters and it would automatically record that a letter went to the patient, without you having to make a notation.

truly the easiest EMR/billing system to use

Opmerkingen: 5 years ago, during the quality reporting for reimbursement, Athena made it so simple and easy that i was shocked to learn that it took a fellow friend 2 months to complete her reporting where it took me 30 minutes. providing patients with detailed information on their insurance benefits and the life of claim creates better communication and cohesion for the clinic/patient relationship. as a provider, the easy customization for templates, use of templates and the ability to actively follow medical orders (referrals, lab orders, pharm scripts) and their order created-results received "circular completion" making quick response corrections easier as well. having online doctor information, calculating by type of physician, practice, distance from your location and easy searches is a delightful feature for scribes and physicians alike. i have used an number of EMR systems, web-based and online, and this is by far the best i have ever used.

Pluspunten:

from the clerical input, insurance checking/info response, patient input, dx order features, sign off and the visual, detail of the LIFEspan of a claim, orders require "circle completion," the ease of quality reporting requirements...i could go on an on with the amazing functionality features of this program.

Minpunten:

it is expensive, but it eliminates the need to hire for areas of administration. what I would pay for 1-3 people to do, Athena provides an entire team of people, thus creating a quicker turn around time for appeals, the need to call insurance companies. the implementation period is overwhelming, and going live will make you question yourself and your desicion. but, so worth it.

Amazing ease of use for providers.

Opmerkingen: EMRs are dinosaurs and no other industry would accept the dysfunction that we do (because CMS forces us to). Athena updated in May 2016 and now it is even more functional. I have a solo practice. I have ADD and scanning up and down the page to add details was exhausting. Now the sections (Review/HPI/ROS/PE/A&P) are at the top and I can go back and forth easily. If the patient gives me more details during the A and P then I just click on HPI and add the details, then click on A and P again. No scanning. While I am working on the progress note, I can go to diagnosis list, med list, lab and x-ray results, previous visits without going out of the note. The day is much less painful. Unfortunately, I am paying way too much and they will not renegotiate so be aggressive before you sign up. Customer support is good. As the provider base has grown, the support gets less effective. I know more than many of the support staff. They tell me things cannot be done and I have to figure out, often by mistake, how to do what I want. The implementation coordinator did not understand much of what she was doing and after implementation, it is almost painful to fix basic things. Much of it has not been fixed. The first year I almost went under financially and I spent all my savings to survive. My revenues are still not what they were. It did not help that Athena lost $ worth of checks and did not help me get them re-issued.

Pluspunten:

Ease of completing progress notes. Really really easy referrals. Accessibility of lab and imaging results. Consult notes not lost. Nothing lost. Confirmations by the system. Eligibility checked repeatedly. They have an interface with all the labs already so you don't have to pay to reinvent the wheel.

Minpunten:

I hate the letter format and cannot get it fixed. The financial piece promised much more than it actually does.

Frustrating!

Opmerkingen: I started working w/Athena in Aug 2016. Since then our Admin has been advising me to call or web chat, search online & use the search features Athena has to offer. I have NEVER gotten a question resolved by calling. I end up walking the "helper" through the features & page. This was very upsetting. I've been put on hold for 20 minutes at a time while an "advisor" looks up a solution in their manual. As a result, I hung up in frustration. I then received an e-mail confirming my problem had been resolved. What a joke! That seems like it is just to appease the numbers needed. There are no training manuals, no courses to take & definitely nobody to teach a person how to use this program. A rep. who no longer works for Athena set us up years ago. This is not geared towards a specific practice, which is even more frustrating. Hopefully, you can respect the time I took to write this review & improve your program. It would be great to receive training as well, or at least an instruction manual.

Pluspunten:

billing features are simple; insurance program automatically runs insurances to see if they are active

Minpunten:

I've been in Ophthalmology for over 15 years. As a scheduling manager, the features are not user-friendly, as I have worked with 4 different programs. Look to NextGen for template applications & features. It would be great to implement them to Athena. There are color coded columns, ability to apply templates over templates without taking out exception days, ability to write a VISIBLE book note at the top of the doctor's schedule to alert the schedules, etc. Also, the features include looking a multiple doctors schedules at a time and even ability to view several different books or multiple doctors!

Streamlined is a Bad Product

Pluspunten:

It is cloud based. The Resource Hub connects you with other users that help you devise work arounds to handle the issues with the software.

Minpunten:

The Classic Version was very customizable, easy to learn, easy to use. The Streamlined Version is a washed down version of what their Classic was. Their idea of Streamlined is to limit the customization ability, to make each office workflow the same despite specialty and to code the program to look more like an App. You will be encouraged to post suggestions on an internal board for updates and changes but even if hundreds of users agree with you that won't mean they will make a change. You lose a lot of control. There are issues with offshore posting and you will not be able to talk to someone about these issues. The training is all videos that are not specific to your office type. Account managers change often and will route you to call the Customer Service Center instead of answering questions. The reps at the Customer Service Center after often nice enough but the internal training seems to be lacking because you are often waiting weeks for an answer to something and/or something that is obviously a big issue is disregarded and you will be told that it is working as designed. The streamlined roll out, support, and willingness to work with the clients is disappointing to say the least. They took a decent product and they wrecked it and give no option to delay or keep the product that actually worked right. Also there is no tech support for their patient portal which has a lot of issues and my practice fields a great deal of phonecalls from patients who have trouble accessing it.

functional but time-consuming EMR

Opmerkingen: Had a previous EMR from 2008-2014 that was much more pediatric-specific and pediatric-friendly. Had to make a switch when Meaningful Use happened, and Athena seemed the best of the options. It is not nearly as peds-friendly, and there is MUCH more clicking every day, every hour, every encounter. Whereas moving from paper to EMR originally sped up my work, moving from our first EMR to Athena did not speed things up and seems overall to slow things down in fact.

Pluspunten:

smart lists that know what orders might go with what diagnoses ability to remind patients of next appointments, vaccines, etc. ease of creating reports about anything integration of Portal with EMR

Minpunten:

no "office view". This is the single most frustrating part about Athena. In our old EMR, I could easily see what patients were in what room waiting for one doctor in the office all at once. THat's not possible with Athena, and without that, I will never feel completely happy with the system. I also hate how difficult it is to quickly look at recent visits, because the "Visits" tab includes phone calls, and other "encounters" that aren't the same as visits. The new streamlined version makes taking care of quality parameters impossible because of the time involved to click and wait on each one. (In the previous version, I could click on everything that was satisfied outside of Athena and then save it at once). Now I just ignore that tab due to time.

frustrated user

Pluspunten:

Easy charting. The billing software works well. There is little else positive I can say.

Minpunten:

There are multiple clinically important flaws within the software. The medication list that the patient sees has no resemblance to the true list that the physician sees. Inaccurate information abounds. The patient sees no instructions on how to take their meds. The completed clinic note is jumbled, with the HPI buried halfway between the Review of Systems and the Family History. It takes 15 clicks of the mouse to refill a prescription. When we send a refill authorization to the pharmacy the patient gets no notification that the work was done. If you order something from Amazon, you get an immediate order confirmation. Not so with Athena. The problem list in the chart is listed in some random illogical order -- so the diagnosis of cerumen impaction can head the list while something important like DM, CHF or COPD might end up at the bottom of the list. The fees that Athena charges are outrageously high. They take a percentage of your collections, so as you'd expect, they work very hard to collect every penny for you. They don't work very hard to improve the part of the EMR that provides excellent patient care. I could go on and on .....but the most discouraging fact is that when the company is alerted to software glitches, or issues that could really improve patient care, NOTHING IS DONE. Its not like it takes a few weeks to correct the problems. MONTHS go by and THERE IS NO RESPONSE.....NO CORRECTIVE ACTION.

The truth

Opmerkingen: I have no ill will or axe to grind.,
I honestly do not want any of my colleagues to go thru what I am still going through.
(Contract termination next month)
Hooray!

Pluspunten:

I like the apps.. the athenacapture , athenatext and athenanet apps for my iphone worked faster and more efficient than our PC’s in our office..; Some patients actually tell me they like the system..

Minpunten:

Whoo., where to start,, lets just say Athena is a big Con job.. Ongoing Suffering , pain, misery for over a year,, i think I will need therapy and counseling after this PTSD experience; Don’t believe What you see in their promo videos and fake online reviews ssy. I fell for them al.. They are devilish with their 75 page fine print contracts(beware) Lets just say nothing works like it should. The system has a behemoth amount of extraneous setup /customizable options however They are not easy to configure and nobody helps you even if you beg.. I just asked for basic family practice set up and that is too confusing for the system : The system has preset worksets so if your MA types chest pain as chief complaint It automatically pulls the EKG,troponin So lets just say you have to spend a great deal of time customizing this beast of a system and its never just right: No-one at athena believes in keeping it simple.. They are insincere, unavailability (east coast) They Don’t think like doctors and that is the problem..

Athena helps me daily

Opmerkingen: This would be a better question for my billing cycle manager.

Pluspunten:

As EMR systems go, there are many things I love about Athena. I am able to modify my templates for patient encounters VERY quickly and easily. I am able to work with the billing department to modify and adjust CPT and ICD 10 codes which helps the billing department keep up with the ever changing insurance rules and regulations - keeping us in compliance. I love the use of macros and the ability to structure instructions, messages, things I do and say routinely but don't need to be typed or dictated over and over.

Minpunten:

Not an Athena problem, but a global problem. The huge catalog of labs and imaging studies with their particular names and codes, can be hard to find when trying to keep up with charting on a rolling basis. I wish there could be a uniform catalog for labs.

Athena--sometimes feels like war.

Opmerkingen: Overall, the system is fine. (It's better than what we did have). Calling Athenahelp is usually a struggle that doesn't produce much result and leaves you disappointed. I think that Athena chat could benefit greatly from the ability to enter your extension or location. A lot of our doctors travel to different offices and when you need to reach the staff, it is hard to know where they are. It would be great it Athena chat, you could put a personalized status. Instead of just the drop down of "available, busy for 1 hour, etc". It would be great if we could personalize it to say "ext. 555" or something.

Pluspunten:

Printing school/work notes & visit summaries at the end of the visit is convenient. Automated phone calls, portal communication & ease are both very positive assets for Athena. Charge entry and the tools available to process claims are very helpful as well.

Minpunten:

"Tasks/buckets" and their routing leave a lot to be desired. Internal communications are not routed to the originating department & then must be asked back to them by other departments. Labeling documents could also use the ability to attach more than one order to results. When you have multiple lab results coming back on one fax and you can only attach it to one order, that leaves a lot of orders look as if they are unfulfilled.

Billing Specialist

Opmerkingen: This is by far the best medical software that I have used. It is very user friendly. I have used this software program with another practice over 6yr ago and it was great then and it has improved over the years. I really feel that anyone who tries Athena will not be disappointed.

Pluspunten:

It's user friendly. It is easy to tell who has access a pt account when that is necessary. Everything is time stamped. It is easy to do in house billing and follow up. There are many safe guard in place to prevent errors. The technical support personnel are very helpful and willing to find a solution to what ever question you have. I have never felt like a burden when calling for help navigating through the system. They always seem to be eager to assist me. Athena is always updating the software to make it even better.

Minpunten:

The first couple days after an update the system seems to run slow. We are unable to use the same email on different accounts with out linking the family together.