Practice Fusion Reviews

Pros

What I like most about this software is the navigation. Out of all the other EHR softwares, I grasp quickly to the ease of use. I like how the schedule, charts, task, messages etc. are layed out. It's a great EHR for first time Medical staff such as Medical Receptionist and Medical Assistants.

Cons

Well no EHR software is perfect but I can honestly say that the only thing I wish could be better is how to search for patients by previous encounters.

Pros

Practice Fusion is easy to use and a great way to keep electronic records. I love that it's web-based so I can get to it from anywhere.

Cons

There is not really anything I don't like about it.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Practice Fusion

Pros

It's easy to use. It has a lot of extra features that make a record keeping easy. Highly recommend to anyone.

Cons

The Times that they choose to do their scheduled maintenance.

Pros

The pricing is reasonable. The system has the basics of what's needed to document patient records.

Cons

The system lacks customizable reporting, layouts, and functionality in pretty much all areas of the EHR. For the cost, I can live with no customization. However the customer service is so lacking in this company that it will cause me to find another system when my renewal is up. They don't answer the phones, the live chats are non existent. They are selective on which tickets they respond to. Worst customer service I have dealt with in a very long time. Not worth the savings in cost.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Practice Fusion

Pros

The free version was ideal. Easily create templates and document patient encounters.

Cons

Doesnt track metrics visit to visit. You have to know what you're doing to make sure you're documenting correctly.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Practice Fusion

Pros

Easy to use for anyone at every level in the office.

Cons

Customer support, functionality and frequent breakdowns. Mostly NOT supportive staff, burning ( wasting) your time and not providing answers. I've used this platform for over 10 years now, and it's going from bad to worse. I'm already shopping for an alternative.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Practice Fusion

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Practice Fusion

Pros

Practice Fusion is the best. I have used it for over 8 years now... It is very user friendly... All staff get trained and use it right away because of how well it is organized and all the items are categorized.

Cons

It used to be for free... Now it's now... But it's still great to use...

Pros

The affordability! When starting the practice, it was most affordable to get practice up and running

Cons

It was not simple to use; with a lot of various steps to get things done. Not enough templates

Pros

It was easy to learn and when I got used to it, it was easy to teach others

Cons

We didn't use it for very long due to switching to a system that our billing department used

Pros

When I used Practice Fusion, I had a free version so as a start-up clinic, this was obviously very affordable. It gave me a web-based documentation system that was HIPAA compliant. Plus, it was better than me handwriting my notes because I can type faster.

Cons

There were no templates for physical therapy - just basic SOAP note format. I had to type everything! It was very time consuming. I understand that now the system is very different and the free version I had is no longer available. I am sure there have been many upgrades in the past few years.

Pros

I have used practice fusion for the last 5+ years at my office at love it. I especially like the ability to assign different colors to different appointment types in the calendar and the ability to e-prescribe prescriptions. Pinned notes are great and am happy they expended the ability to write longer profile notes. The overall look and ease of use it much better than other EMRs I have tried. I have recommended practice fusion to many colleagues.

Cons

For the most part there are no issues but there have been several instances over the last few years when the entire system is down and we can not log on for almost a full day which is devastating to our practice. Would be nice if there was an offline emergency backup option for the calendar system. The mobile version is also really terrible, but very rarely used so not a big deal. I also HATE that they are not integrated with anyone other than Updox for a patient communication platform. They need to expand their partnerships in this arena!

Pros

Ease of use, can create your templates, EPCS easy (when it works), relatively affordable, runs on multiple platforms (when it is up). I don't use the billing and scheduling features.

Cons

Nonexistent customer support (of any kind - Tech tickets ignored, phone support not available, your PF rep will just tell you they have no ETA when an issue will be resolved). Horrible is an understatement - you are completely on your own.
Problematic issues with eprescribing (primarily, EPCS), will pop up repeatedly, impossible to establish lab connection, poor rendering on mobile devices, too many screens to click through. Often slows down during peak hours (I have a FIOS 50/50 connection so not on my end).

Pros

simplistic design, customizable templates, integrated calendar that answering service can use for scheduling, used to be free

Cons

Labs do not get attached to referrals. As a Nephrologist immersed in lab results, this is a key function for me! When remedy ticket is created, the representative talks in circles, sometimes taking a week to reply. One rep finally acknowledged this was a known issue.

One year later, I contacted cust service to request a full data extraction to migrate to another EHR. Same run around. Tried the live chat, no one came to chat, not even a chatbot. Tried the service phone line. Following prompts for "patients and providers with accounts", the recording directs patients to their providers, then disconnects without even addressing provider issues. Tried a different prompt on customer service line, placed on hold by recording, then a live person comes on just to put me on hold for another 5 minutes before I get disconnected.

The direct messaging function for other PF users stings. The messages or attachments cannot be recognized as a consult or lab result etc, only as message.

lab or imaging orders that are still outstanding do not produce alerts. No shows do not produce alerts. Billing issues do not produce alerts. These factors make PF a glorified blog with minimal extra functions rather than a true EHR.

Their attempts at assisting in clinical decision making fails. It is geared mostly for primary care physicians. ex: If the patients last BP was suboptimal, there will be an annoying banner to tell you the last BP was suboptimal. I'm a Nephrologist, patients with easy to control BP do not get referred to me, I don't need a distracting banner for this, or to remind me to ask patients if they have urinary incontinence, or screen them for HCV. You can bank on a reminder to screen for lipids when they get an advertising account from a statin maker.

The fact that their previous CEO advertised that "PF is free and will always be free for providers", and now they are charging a monthly fee or will hold your charts indefinitely should tell you that PF is not a company to be trusted. There is a high likelihood of future drastic changes in cost or service since many clients are captive by the difficulties of changing EHR's.

Pros

Easy to start and use.
It was free and I chose it specifically because they advertised that it would "always be free" but that turned out to not be true.

Cons

Unable to put in an automatic reminder to patients to book a follow up appointment one year later.
Unable to easily download medical records when patients or other physicians request them-you have to download one document at a time. It can take 30 minutes plus to download a chart.
Reports are not reliable. Specifically in generating patient lists.
Horrible customer service. Do not stand by their word. Refusal to connect me with a supervisor.
I have been a customer since 2013 and the customer service has continued to decline despite the cost going up.

Pros

This software is a breeze to teach to new and existing employees alike. New features are few and far between but seem to be easy enough to implement. Software use to be free which was a real pro but the cost is not outrageous now. We are hoping that with the cost per provider, we will be seeing some feature upgrades that will make it more of a time-saver.

Cons

The cell phone 2 step login seemed like a great idea until I watch my employees waste time, potentially violate HIPAA/privacy policies because of the cameras on every phone now and because they have to re-sterilize after using their phones to log back in. You can't bill insurance companies directly, which is a con if you have a dedicated billing person that is capable of billing for less that what you pay the clearing house (Gateway). Lastly, the customer service is pretty bad. Another thing I'm hoping will turn around after having to pay for the service is the commitment to resolving issues and responding to feature requests. CRM is lacking as there is not electronic appointment confirmation in the scheduling so my staff has to still make appointment confirmation calls. Most softwares have this built in or allow a third party to integrate. Practice Fusion does neither

Pros

It allowed me to use it at no charge for many years. This was helpful for me as a solo practitioner with high overhead costs.

Cons

This software is not built with mental health in mind. There is no way to customize the interface for the specific needs of my occupation. There were a lot of annoying pop-ups that I had to deal with that did not apply to mental health providers. The most frustrating thing was attempting to work with the calendar. It was impossible to review my schedule on my mobile phone because the calendar was not optimized for mobile. Another feature that did not work well was the client search feature. No matter how many times I would type in certain clients' names, the search box would not recognize or find the client. Also, there was no quick way to add a client unless I had all of the pertinent client data on hand. Most solo MH providers are wearing all of the "hats" in the practice and are trying to schedule new clients during the one or two minutes they have between sessions. Sometimes all we have to go by during that time is a name and contact number. My biggest complaint is that client data cannot be exported via CSV or Excel format. This is a big issue when you have to change software.

Pros

It used to be free. Ability to make your own templates. The E prescribing was simple to use. Easy to enter lab orders and lab result integration was good.

Cons

From free to the whole amout annually paid in advance. The price increase has shut out many small solo practices. The cost is for one physician license +3 additional licensed employees. Wouldn't cost be much fairer if the cost was truly per user. I don't want to subsidize larger offices. Horrible customer service since late last year. The templates that are provided are a very low-quality including lots of misspelled words. New spaces for LGBTQ data but nothing for advance care planning and limited space to provide emergency contacts. Not very user-friendly for documenting geriatric patients. No structured section for preventative care with reminders when overdue. Immunization section was not updated routinely: new herpes zoster guidelines. Making a lab result flowsheet was terrible. Everything was à la cart: needed a separate clearinghouse for billing, needed to purchase up docs, etc. Hopefully they'll come up with a different pricing structure. Gone elsewhere for now. Might return if cheaper, charge people for using MIPS separately. Why should I have to pay for all the tech development of features that I don't use when basic items are missing?

Pros

It was free in the beginning which was cool, but I still find value in it. Once the templaters were done, things are simple and easy to dictate.

Cons

Would like a little easier way to chart and dictate and change things. I saw a mutate button on a competitor to change the order of the note.

Alternatives Considered

Switched From

Pros

The software is easy to navigate and has the basic features of an EMR. Being cloud based, it was easily accessible from any internet based pc. It was practice specific in many ways, with certain shortfalls. Vaccine inventory was very good.

Cons

As a pediatrician, I must record a patient weight in pounds and ounces, which you can't do with practice fusion. The basic templates can not be modified and you had to be careful when composing notes (I don't come across too many 2 month old infants with teeth!) either not to pick those elements or go back and really proof read the notes. Log in from a machine that you didn't use previously is a nuisance, in that you have to be verified with a security code.

Pros

Practice Fusion is a free EHR program. You do have to pay for doctor licenses obviously but for a generic EHR, you can't beat it. I like the visual view of the schedule when placed on "WEEK VIEW" and the fact that we have the option to log on when we are not in the office for emergencies.

Cons

Practice Fusion is not very user-friendly. It has gotten much better within the last year but it still has a long way to go. My least favorite thing about Practice Fusion is the process of scanning and uploading documents in to a patient's chart. You must scan, name and upload each individual file SEPARATELY. There are times when we have 10+ documents to scan in for a single patient and because of PF's process, we tend to get a little behind on our scanning. I wish there was a way to mass upload or mass name documents.

Pros

I customized templates myself to optimize the charting workflow in the past. It was much more efficient and accurate than the new EHR I just started to use (1/4 of time). I only need charting and billing for exam payment before. Now I need dispensary and manage inventory, I have to use a full EHR for OD. It was just about the timing PF stopped offering free version. So I didn't use the paid version. I can still view my previous charting and appointment records through PF. That is good. But I was a little bit frustrated with new way of maneuvering through charting. I even debate keeping both EHR to give myself peaceful mind.

Cons

Obviously not free anymore. Free forever? I didn't even believe it from the very beginning. It sounds right to get paid by advertisement. But, it is not something that is sufficient and guaranteed forever.

Pros

The software has been easy to use. Until now most of my questions were answered in a timely fashion.

Cons

Since introducing the subscription model this company has changed a lot. I have two locations with two separate instances of PF for historical reason. Since we have one Dr at both those locations i would like to combine them into one. I have already signed up for the subscription at our main location. However it is almost impossible to get someone from Technical Support to talk to. I am an IT person myself and am convinced that my problem will be solved within 5 minutes if only i could talk to the right person. The customer rep that called to collect my subscription has a phone number that just hangs up when called and she NEVER responds to emails. This is not customer service that I am used to in the USA - even third-world countries have better customer service.....

Pros

This is a free platform for medical offices. There are no hidden charges and it is easy to use. Cloud based, so you don't have to invest in servers. Easily link lab facilities to send and receive orders/results electronically.

Cons

I don't feel they are ready for CMS's quality payment program. We are already in June and don't have a dashboard for the Advancing care information (old meaningful use) yet. We need to gauge how we are meeting each measure before the start of the last available reporting period. The Quality measures (eCQM) are only geared towards primary care and we are a specialty with a specialty measure set. I have to connect with a Specialized registry to be able to report quality measure, and the data files are not adequate to download a CCDA file, so I may need to input ALL the data manually to be able to report and to get credit for the bonus points. We may need to switch EMRs if things stay the same.

Pros

It gets the job done... It covers the basics and is available online. It ports to billing software, and labs can send results, for a price.

Cons

1) Customer service is hardly available - phone call takes 1 hour hold. Tickets and emails don't result in solutions, just lots of back and forth.
2) Restrictive license agreement is not flexible for adding/removing providers from your practice
3) It's very bare bones - gets the basics, but not eloquently or intuitively.
4) Did I mention customer support for a paid product should be supportive? and it is not.

Pros

Practice Fusion does allow practices to pretty easily link up with multiple billing softwares, and it allows for simple tracking of patient records and note keeping. It is pretty simple to run a report and see why a claim is not populating into the billing software from PF.

Cons

The option to keep documents in a patient file is not entirely user friendly, as you have to scroll through all of them to find what you are looking for. I often run into glitches in the bridge built between PF and the billing software we use. I also have trouble with customer service at PF every time there is an issue, as you are not allowed to call any more (the automated message will hang up on you) and the online support ticket is slow and cumbersome. I would expect kinder and more efficient customer service now that practice fusion is a paid service

Alternatives Considered