athenahealth vs Epic for Small Practices: What You Need to Know
Managing a small medical practice struggles with tight budgets, limited IT support, and the constant demand for delivering high-quality patient care. Adding to that, they have the frustration of selecting the right EHR system, through weeks of demos, incomplete reporting tools, and slow load times, and it’s easy to see why many health IT teams feel stuck.
To help you through the confusion, we’ve put athenahealth and Epic EHR in a side-by-side comparison tailored for small practices. We’ve broken down the key features, benefits, pricing, customer support, and interoperability so you can choose the right EHR for your healthcare practice.
athenahealth EHR (Features and Benefits)
athenahealth EHR is a cloud-based EHR designed for small to mid-sized practices, specialty practices that provide solutions for practice management.
- athenahealth EHR can be tailored and fit the requirements of the practice.
- Streamlines repetitive tasks and reduces administrative workload through cloud solutions. It features an intuitive interface that simplifies navigation.
- Providers can manage their tasks efficiently, and it was an easy implementation setup.
athenahealth has a fully integrated cloud EHR. Cloud EHR is accessible to healthcare practitioners from any place with a dependable internet connection. It offers a mobile EHR app that healthcare providers can access from anywhere via their smartphones. Because of its adaptable characteristics, medical practitioners may customize their workflow.
Epic EHR (Features and Benefits)
Epic EHR is a cloud-based EHR system that is suitable for large-scale practices and healthcare organizations. It includes functions such as appointment scheduling, medical billing, and provides real-time data insights.
- Epic improves patient care by enabling real-time access to patient data and allowing providers to work together for better care coordination.
- Epic ensures data security by adhering to HIPAA and using strong security measures. It improves interoperability, which makes data interchange easier.
- Strong reporting and analytical tools that enable healthcare practices to examine medical data.
Epic has a centralized repository for storing patient information, which includes demographics, medical history, and built-in results. It has built-in forms and templates to process, ensure workflows, and maintain consistency. It has tools for referral management and appointment scheduling. Manages patient scheduling, billing, and insurance claim processing.
Related: AthenaHealth EHR Guide: All You Need to Know
Comparison between athenahealth vs Epic EHR
Pricing
athenahealth’s basic plan starts from $140 per month. Data migration, order, transmission, training, and custom integration are excluded, and it depends on the size of the practice.
The monthly cost of Epic Cloud-EHR systems, like the Epic EMR system, ranges from $200 to $3500. Self-hosted solutions might cost anything from $1200 to at least $500,000. Additional costs include training, maintenance, and customization.
Interoperability
athenahealth offers comprehensive interoperability with ambulatory care. It integrates with various systems and devices. It offers API access, supports security standards.
Epic supports third-party integration through various methods. It enables seamless data exchange and process connections. A technology called Epic Community Link connects Epic with other healthcare institutions.
Health Tools
athenahealth offers home health to provide remote patient care and monitor patients via virtual calls. It lacks tools customized for home health care.
Epic offers a comprehensive array of health instruments for both remote monitoring and hospital-level treatment. It has features for therapists, nurses to coordinate with patients’ care.
Revenue Cycle Management
athenahealth automates billing and financial analytics. It offers integrated RCM tools with one solution. It has a centralized dashboard that helps to increase cash flow.
Large healthcare companies are the target market for the Epic RCM system. It calculates the estimation based on past procedures and insurance coverage. Epic has insurance verification and cost estimation tools.
Customer Support
athenahealth offers a customer success manager in addition to phone, chat, web, and email assistance.
Epic offers 24/7 customer service via MyChart, UserWeb email support, and phone.
Scalability
Ideal for small to medium practices as it offers scalable solutions. Its cloud nature expands the system to accommodate more users and is cost-effective.
Epic specializes in large health systems and allows organizations to add new features. It is highly scalable for growing healthcare enterprises.
Security and Compliance
athenahealth implements robust security protocols, featuring data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and security audits to safeguard patient information. It complies with HIPAA and other regulations.
Epic is recognized for its data protection measures, which encompass security assessments and access controls. It allows customization for both on-premises and hybrid deployments.
Related: How To Customize Epic Hospital Software: A Beginner’s Guide
Challenges in Customizing AthenaHealth and Epic
athenahealth have some challenges primarily due to their complexity, potential workflows, and limited adaptability. This leads to performance problems.
Healthcare providers need to work manually due to the limitations of customization and which increases the risk of errors. Over-customization makes the system more complicated to maintain.
CapMinds EHR/EMR Customization & Integration Service
CapMinds offers a comprehensive solution that can help streamline workflow for healthcare practices that use EHR/EMR systems.
We are a group of professional experts with years of experience in the field. CapMinds’ customizable solution can help to solve the common challenges associated with your EHR/EMR system.
- CapMinds can customize the Interface and workflows in your EHR/EMR to simplify navigation and resonate with your healthcare practice.
- Our solution includes building customized accounting and financial reports tailored to your healthcare practice needs.
- We also excel in RCM, Medical Billing, and collections for practice-based physician groups. Our service includes medical coding, claim tracking, denial management, online payments, and financial reporting.
- Our specialists provide EHR/EMR credentialing service that helps you to submit claims quickly, boost revenue, and avoid productivity losses.
- We can guide you through the entire onboarding process and provide a customized EHR/EMR solution to streamline your healthcare practice workflow.
- Our EHR/EMR integration solution includes integrating third-party tools and apps with your EHR/EMR.
Whether you want to experience the full capabilities of EHR/EMR or a customized solution tailored to your specialty healthcare practice needs, CapMinds is the best cost-effective choice.
Contact us and unlock the full potential of your EHR/EMR system with the help of CapMinds’ customization and integration solution.
