AdvancedMD EHR Software Review and Pricing

Why We Chose AdvancedMD for Ease of Use

We rated AdvancedMD as the best medical software for ease of use because of features like its color-coded navigation, which makes for an intuitive workflow and enjoyable overall experience. Its dashboard is readily configurable and easily able to scale and adjust to practices as your office grows. Users have a direct connection with the vendor’s product team to keep the system functioning as they want it.

The AdvancedMD global payments platform automates and streamlines your electronic health records (EHRs), scheduling, billing and patient engagement from one central dashboard, making it simple to communicate with patients and staff. Because AdvancedMD is so straightforward to use once you’ve received training, we found it well-suited for practices that prioritize ease of use when it comes to choosing medical software.

AdvancedMD software features “task donuts” that highlight where attention is needed. Source: AdvancedMD

Ease of Use

AdvancedMD stands out from other medical software in that it’s simple and fun to use, with a modern look. Its dashboard and navigation are color-coded for an uncomplicated workflow. For example, blue refers to patient care, red is for scheduling, yellow is for recording and green is for billing. That same color scheme appears in around 150 different customizable templates.

Some users have cited initial difficulties learning to use the platform’s shortcuts and templates. It does have a learning curve, but AdvancedMD provides ready support and a robust library of self-guided educational material to help you learn the system. Once you do, navigating the software is a breeze, which is why AdvancedMD stands out for its usability.

AdvancedMD Features

AdvancedMD’s features include practice management, EHRs, medical billing, patient engagement tools, telemedicine functionality, patient charts, reputation management, financial analytics and business intelligence reporting. The vendor lets you build your own package and decide which features to include in your subscription based on your practice’s needs.

While this a la carte model can be appealing, AdvancedMD charges for certain features that, fundamental as they are to practice management solutions, should be included. Charging for them makes this software expensive for startups and providers with limited means. On the other hand, practices with larger budgets can benefit from the flexibility of AdvancedMD’s add-on features.

Medical Practice Management Software Features

AdvancedMD offers a fully integrated medical practice management and billing platform. Top medical billing services are also available for practices that want to outsource their revenue cycle management (RCM). Here are some of the significant features of AdvancedMD’s medical practice management software.

The scheduler makes it easy for users to set, view and confirm appointments. Source: AdvancedMD

Scheduling

We liked the AdvancedMD scheduler’s user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, which allows staff to set new appointments on a color-coded calendar that can be organized by provider, location or other custom filters. Upon setting an appointment, staffers can register new patients or ensure their existing information is up to date.

We also liked that you can easily run batch insurance eligibility checks once appointments are set or verify eligibility on a patient-by-patient basis. Most competitors offer this critical tool, allowing front offices to save time and prune last-minute cancellations and no-shows.

On the provider side, a schedule snapshot shows their appointments for the day. We found it neat that the daily snapshot displays the location of a patient’s appointment for practices with multiple locations. You can hover over a set appointment for quick facts about the patient, including their name, address and insurance. The quick-view format also shows the type of appointment the patient is scheduled for and clinical notes from any recent visits.

Another helpful feature that few rivals offer is AdvancedMD’s appointment waitlist. Staff can fill open time slots in the event of canceled or rescheduled appointments as well as manage wait lists and assign new appointments based on a patient’s availability.

When completing billing activities in AdvancedMD, the tabs at the top of the screen flag how many items there are to review. Source: AdvancedMD

Billing

The AdvancedMD billing module, aptly described as “built by billers for billers,” offers powerful RCM tools. AdvancedMD integrates with 1,800 carriers and clearinghouse fees are included in the software’s subscription price. The software contains International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10); Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System; and Curricular Practical Training code libraries for convenient, rapid and accurate reference.

Once providers submit their invoices, the charges are pushed through to the billing module. If you handle your billing in-house, your coders and billers can review the charges to generate claims and submit them through the clearinghouse. With AdvancedMD’s billing services, you have access to a team of certified billers and the company’s claims scrubbing software, which guarantees a minimum 95 percent first-pass resolution rate. To learn more, read our full review of AdvancedMD’s medical billing services.

The system is transparent, enabling authorized stakeholders and team members to review communications from payers. This way, you can also manage denied or rejected claims and revise them before submitting them. AdvancedMD integrates with credit card processors for patient copays, debits and card payments during office visits. [See the best credit card processors for your business.]

The software’s mobile functionalities for billing (and patient management) include an app where providers can simultaneously check their schedules, notes, patient schedules and comprehensive patient face sheets on the go. AdvancedMD helps you see all patient notes when making collection calls, while a built-in claims inspector function of 119 million edits catches potential coding errors to prevent claims rejection. An add-on service helps you eliminate your billing burden with an MDS Medical medical billing plank.

Patient Portal

The AdvancedMD patient portal automates administrative tasks and provides two-way video telemedicine functionality. Users can streamline patient communications, prescription orders and renewals, patient payments, online appointment requests and more. Users can also accomplish these tasks via AdvancedMD’s mobile EHR iOS and Android app, which helps providers see patient details in real time, check insurance eligibility, send paperless faxes and more.

Patients can use the portal to ask for prescription refills, send messages to your office and pay bills online. They can also request appointments, giving their preferred date and time. Patients will have access to their medical history and see reminders for upcoming visits.

The patient portal allows patients to submit questions and view their medical records. Source: AdvancedMD

Reporting

AdvancedMD offers advanced reporting capabilities that provide insight into your practice’s financial performance, daily operations and clinical statistics. You can customize the reporting, adding sections, such as “missed visits.” These reports are configurable and scalable to 150 standard templates, with customized email templates for email newsletters, among other options.

A financial dashboard displays easily digestible information that can be filtered by provider, time frame, location and date range. Reports can also be filtered by collections, claims and more to give administrators a clearer picture of where practice revenue comes from. You can export reports to PDF and Microsoft Excel, as well as customize the financial dashboard to show your essential key performance indicators. The data is mapped out in easy-to-understand charts and line graphs.

You can configure the dashboards to show financial trends, such as your practice’s monthly performance, the leading payers for your practice and the number of days patient bills spend in accounts receivable. We appreciate that the reporting — more than 150 standard and about 500 custom financial reports — can also be generated and delivered to user inboxes on a recurring basis.

EMR Software Features

AdvancedMD’s electronic medical record (EMR) software includes a wide range of tools you can access in multiple ways. Here are some of AdvancedMD’s major EMR features.

Dashboard

The AdvancedMD dashboard provides a bird’s-eye view of your practice’s clinical operations. Using unique “donut filters,” which you can customize based on the information you want to see first, the dashboard displays data about charge slips, clinical notes, prescriptions, documents, images, lab results, pharmacy requests and more. For example, the HealthWatcher donut filter alerts providers to patients who need to regularly visit their practice. Its features allow you to set recurring visits, list the reasons for each visit and automate reminders to patients — all without leaving the dashboard. You can also use the dashboard to navigate to your inbox to see incoming and outgoing messages.

Appointment Scheduler

We like that AdvancedMD’s scheduler is a customizable, color-coded calendar that you can filter by provider, location, visit type and more. It can populate up-to-date appointments, providing an overview of how many patients the practice is seeing. These are standard features we looked for in every medical software platform we reviewed.

You can set all new appointments directly in the scheduling tool. AdvancedMD also enables integrated telemedicine appointments via a secure connection. Once the appointment is set, you can send intake forms to the patient. Patients will be notified that they have received certain medical forms via the secure patient portal or they can fill them out on an iPad when they arrive at the office for their appointment.

You can also check patients in and out with a few clicks directly in the scheduler. When you’re checking a patient in, the screen displays a feature that allows you to assign them to a specific exam room and notify providers that they are ready to be seen.

Providers can also review eprescriptions, pull in insurance information, message patients and communicate on HealthWatcher with features that include automated patient reminders and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) consent sheets. The status of a patient’s coverage is checked automatically every 14 days while lab alerts are flagged red for easy follow-up.

Clinical Notes

With AdvancedMD, you can tie specific note templates to certain appointment types. For example, if a patient is coming in for a consultation, you can set the necessary templates to pull up automatically when you select that appointment type.

The toolbar displays a timeline feature, which shows a patient’s medical history. It includes details of their past appointments, notes, lab orders and prescriptions. You can also drag and drop to connect items and review multiple data points simultaneously.

A quick view of each patient card shows the patient’s risk factors, the summary of any healthcare plans based on their recent visits (which you can double-click for details), problems the patient is experiencing and current medications. The cards also include educational material you can send patients through the patient portal to review on their own time.

AdvancedMD integrates with Surescripts to check patients’ insurance and see which prescriptions they have filled in the past year. This feature is common but not universal in the medical software space and it is highly useful for keeping tabs on patients’ medications. That information can be downloaded and imported into the EMR, so even if it’s the patient’s first time at your practice, all of their medication history will be available. [See our review of DrChrono to learn more about other medical software platforms.]

Patient Encounter

Once the patient is checked in and placed in a room and a nurse has captured their vitals, you can update the patient’s status to “Ready for Doctor” with a single click. Any intake forms they fill out before the visit will be available in the EMR. Nurses can add to these intake forms if needed.

The “Exam” tab allows you to pull up the notes associated with the patient’s appointment type. We appreciated that notes are customizable to suit your practice’s workflow. You can add information to notes by typing, dictating through software, such as Dragon or M*Modal or using acronyms and hotkeys.

You can add ICD-10 diagnosis codes to the note with the help of a “pick list.” The full library of ICD-10 codes is also available, enabling you to search for codes if needed. After you fill out and save an exam note, you can export it to AdvancedMD’s practice management module for billing

Telemedicine

AdvancedMD also offers telemedicine appointments, which are available via a secure, HIPAA-compliant two-way video functionality. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine has become an integral and expected part of medical software, and we looked for that option in all of our medical software reviews.

AdvancedMD Pricing

AdvancedMD offers three pricing models: software-specific, RCM and build a bundle. Each option offers add-on features and pricing discounts or specialty edition priced items. The build-a-bundle option will give you results in less than five minutes.

AdvancedMD is somewhat more expensive than some other solutions we reviewed, but it is also one of the only vendors on the market to provide the encounter-based pricing model. (There are sometimes discounts for custom bundles of up to 40 percent). 

For practices that require medical billing support, AdvancedMD’s medical billing service costs 4 percent to 8 percent of a practice’s monthly collections and includes access to the entire software suite and all add-on features. Experts scrub claims, manage claim denials and follow up on outstanding balances, but this excludes charge entry and coding, so you’ll need to hire your own reserve biller. The service reports a 95 percent first-pass acceptance rate and may follow up on rejected claims.

AdvancedMD, which is available on desktop and mobile devices, lets you stay on top of your practice’s financial performance by clearly breaking down the collections you receive. Source: AdvancedMD

Implementation and Onboarding

AdvancedMD charges a fee for comprehensive training and configuration. It includes more than 20 hours of basic one-on-one training, online training courses and basic custom configuration, during which the vendor’s team helps practices set up tailored workflows, templates, macros and more. The onboarding process also includes a dedicated account manager who oversees the implementation and follows up after the go-live date.

Implementation and training for AdvancedMD can take four to six weeks from the time your practice’s insurance credentials are received. Some have commented saying it took them four months to finish implementation. Make sure you allow sufficient time to ensure the system is fully functional and your staff is adequately trained before your planned go-live date.

There is also a free two-day on-site implementation for practices with collections above $200,000 per month.

Customer Service

AdvancedMD offers customer support via phone, help desk tickets and live web chat. The company also includes remote access technical support, which allows a support agent to take control of a user’s device to troubleshoot any problems.

Limitations

One drawback of AdvancedMD is that it’s one of the more expensive EMR platforms we reviewed, especially after you factor in the upfront implementation costs and monthly fees for indispensable add-on features.

Furthermore, the lack of a tiered implementation pricing structure, which AdvancedMD previously offered, means practices on a budget might not be able to afford the large expense required to start working on AdvancedMD’s platform.

Methodology

We spent hours researching, analyzing and reviewing medical software, including AdvancedMD. Our research involved software demonstrations, phone interviews and customer service calls. We also analyzed customer service reviews available online, such as those listed on the Better Business Bureau website.

When choosing our best pick for ease of use, we assessed scalability and flexibility, including the ability to add or drop individual features and tools. We chose AdvancedMD as the best medical software for ease of use because of its flexible platform and effectiveness in managing multiple locations.

Bottom Line

We recommend AdvancedMD for …

• Large practices with multiple locations and providers.
• Practices that are preparing to expand and scale.
• Practices that require flexibility and customization.

We don’t recommend AdvancedMD for …

• Very small practices with tight budgets.
• Practices concerned about implementation costs.