athenaOne Reviews

Very easy to pick up and get going.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

I got my weekends back!

Comments: Amazing...I have no plans to change at this time as Athena provides me with the best EHR experience I have had in many years!

Pros:

Athena saves me so much time in the day to day operations of patient care and office management. So many features have been set up to same time for providers that many of the task are a few clicks! Like prescribing, referrals, encounter plans and faxing directly from the EHR. And so much of the patient check in, appointment reminders, result notification and scheduling is automated which helps as I am one provider practice without staff.

Cons:

I wish there were more areas of customization to allow for more unique practice set ups as my practice is boutique. There are tons of areas where you can customize but some of the patient facing messaging is hard coded and I would like to see those areas gain more options for customization. Additionally, I would like better communication and prioritization transparency about fixing coding bugs that impact Athena's capabilities.

Patient care in your hands

Comments: It has been awesome to manage patients information, appointments and telehealth visits

Pros:

Easy to manage patient information and user friendly for teleheath appointments

Cons:

It does not work properly sometimes (15%) with Safary/IOS users and there seems to be no answer from athena.

strongly prefer other platforms over athenahealth

Pros:

i can see my upcoming appts and send messages to my doctor

Cons:

there seems to always be an issue when i try to log in. It also never lets me do any action in the system as it never works

Athena Review

Comments: Athena one is such an easy site to use from a healthcare standpoint. Scanning in orders is so convenient and everything is easy to sort through.

Pros:

I have used so many different electronic health sites and Athena is by far the most user friendly and hardly ever has tech issues.

Cons:

Sometimes when the site is down there is no communication about it and you have to figure it out on your own.

Going in to second year with Athena

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.

Athena doesnt stand behind product

Comments: Poor, we were promised that it was going to do machine learning so that it would learn our protocols and tendencies, I have seen none of this.

Pros:

Ability to fax reports directly to providers

Cons:

Minimal to no responsiveness from the company, basically plug and play, and skim percentage of your profits. Awkward interface.

Not a good choice for Behavioral Health (psychology, psychiatry, counseling, etc.)

Pros:

It is fast; automatically saves most of what you type in; does not crash very often (3-4 times/year); email support requests usually answered within 24 hours; online help knowledge base is comprehensive and it has a good search engine.

Cons:

Not designed for mental health EHR, patient management, communication. Primary care clinicians say it's "pretty good" although "EPIC is better". Most behavioral health clinicians do not like Athena (based on support forum polls and Athena even admits it if your decipher the corporate-speak.) Athena rarely designs workflows, templates, and processes for Behavioral Health. They cobble together features and processes used by primary care clinicians and staff and tell us it's designed for Behavioral Health. If Athena employs mental health professionals I've never seen them on video presentations or as authors of "how to" resources or anywhere else.

User Friendly

Comments: Overall, my experience has been good. No complaints

Pros:

It is user friendly. I like that it alerts you when patients information needs to be updated.

Cons:

It is not easy to update patient insurance information.

Best EMR out there, but pricy

Comments: I did like the system. It was wonderful working with during my PMHNP preceptorship.

Pros:

The ease of use, ease of charting, ease of e-prescribe

Cons:

Setup cost is insanely expensive. Also, telemed is strange.

Nickels and Dimes!

Comments: Some good, but everything is too automated and what's important easily falls through the digital cracks.

Pros:

Admittedly, the software is easy to use and offers meaningful use suggestions. The five step patient visit is simple to understand. The patient portal is nice, however, the patient facing portion could look more modern. Billing is easy from a practitioner standpoint. It also is starting to integrate with other EMRs so occasionally we can pull labs and imaging from other participating systems.

Cons:

Setup was arduous to say the least. Also, once claims are submitted, that's another story. I was sold that this software was all-in-one. They LIED. This is NOT the software for a small practice. They act as if I have an army of billing people when they told me that Athena was all I needed! For example, there was functionality that we needed to be aware of to find an important document from medicare. NO ONE told us and this document languished in some digital box. If we were a hundred person organization, I could pay someone to sit and manage the 20 or so boxes where they put communication. As a result, we got kicked off medicare for THREE months until I found out and remedied the cause. I was assigned a 'customer success rep' and had to find out who it was because she never scheduled a call. The previous THREE other reps were no better. They treat small practices like we don't matter. If you have less than 100 employees, FIND ANOTHER EMR. I'm in the market for another.

Excellent product, poor onboarding implementation.

Comments: AthenaOne allowed our business to consolidate many of our third-party apps into one complete EHR system.

Pros:

AthenaOne is an all-in-one EHR system that has most, if not all, the features one could want in their EHR. If you wish to consolidate your softwares into one product, AthenaOne is a good option.

Cons:

The worst part of AthenaOne was the lengthy onboarding process. While it is to be expected when switching EHR systems, our original sales representative did not give an accurate impression of just how extensive and lengthy the implementation is. Expect to need several full time employees working only on integration for several months.

Medical practice--My way

Comments: AthenaHealth EHR is an affordable way for a small practice to have a quality EHR. I pay a percent of my collections. I like the tie between what I get paid determines what Athena gets paid. That gives Athena a healthy interest in my business' financial performance.

Pros:

I love that I have the ability to customize my order sets and templates. I also like that I can draw on the expertise of other medical practice templates so that I didn't have to re-invent the wheel in many instances!

Cons:

Sometimes there is a hesitation in changing "pages". It is a cloud based software so my local internet and the internet where the software is located do play into the speed of use.

AthenaOne

Comments: We really like AthenaOne and are learning new things about it monthly. It is convenient and easy to use once you learn it. There are so many ways that AthenaOne makes everything easier that you almost get spoiled once you learn how to do something the easy way.

Pros:

I like that AthenaOne is easy to learn and once you can navigate the different fields, you can know everything that you need to know about our patients.

Cons:

AthenaOne has a lot of different fields and functions that are available. Learning everything there is to know and how they can help with your practice is almost a full-time job.

Better than the rest

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

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Sea change

Comments: When we selected athenaOne, we requested an (unreasonable) implementation within one month. They (appropriately) warned that this was not recommended but went along with us and WE DID IT. There were definitely issues that had to be addressed going forward but it was accomplished fairly quickly and smoothly and we were moving onto process improvement within the two months of implementation. We did identify and make improvements. Implementation for our Ortho group was 3/1/2019 and for the GYN group was 5/1/2019. In 10/2019, our accountant reported that we were better than we had been in 20 years! This is the sea change that occurred. The amount of clinical work and number of patients was not significantly different and despite high staff turnover, a location change, and a new EHR, the improvements that we were able to identify and implement moved us from being underwater to riding a wave of success.

Pros:

The most important features of athenaOne which have produced a SEA CHANGE for our practices are 1) easy access to demographic, clinical, scheduling and billing information regardless of your role, 2) remarkable and rigorous data collection and report functions that allow optimal decision-making and tracking of business functions, and 3) an optimal platform for developing and implementing PROCESSES which improve efficiency, reduce human work and reduce human error.

Cons:

The only thing I don't like is that I don't optimally use all of the features because I haven't learned what they are yet! We have been using athenaOne for a little over three years and there are still a large number of features and processes that I could implement or use in our small practices. There is always a better way!

Athena creates EHR efficiency for medical practices

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

5 Star Review

Comments: Our office went live with Athena Communicator and Collector in September of 2013. We had previously used 2 other billers and schedulers/management systems at that point and I have to say we are all glad that we chose Athena. The customer service department and our implementation team were beyond helpful. We appreciate that Athena is ever changing, and always looking to improve the ease of business and quality of care. As we know, no product is ever perfect, but Athena comes pretty darn close. The team at Athena actively listens to concerns and suggestions from their customers. I have dealt with many companies who "understand your struggle" but can't do anything about it or "are very sorry, but that's just the way it is". Athena, is NOT that type of company. They have interactive message boards that you can talk to other practices having issues and also Athena team members, so together a plan can be created to alleviate the problems you are having. Not to say EVERYTHING can be as perfect as you want it, but there have been enough changes in Athena where the direct action was taken from a concern or complaint that makes us as a customer feels valued and understood. A real testament to Athena should be that we looked at their Clinicals product in 2013, but our provider didn't see enough of what he was looking for to change from our current EMR to Athena Clinicals at that time. However, at the end of 2016 we revisited the idea and did some more demos, the Clinical product has changed so much (in a good way) that we have chosen to switch and are looking at implementation in March of 2017. All of our office staff and our providers feel that Athena is a solid product that helps us streamline our workflows and provide better patient care. We are very excited to embark on our next Athena journey and couldn't be happier with the products and support.

Pros:

Ease of Use, Rarely any system downtimes or system issues, Receptive customer service and account managers, Transparency you can see everything that has happened and who did it

Cons:

This product is the most costly that we have used, however, we have definitely made more in revenue by using Athena than not.

Ready to pull my hair out!

Pros:

Customer support is really responsive and easy to get ahold of. Unfortunately, the level of expertise of the customer support staff is variable, so often, they do not know the answers to the questions we have. Billing is a pretty common area of issue here.

Cons:

I was assured that this program had a lot of podiatry based templates and that they were simple to modify. However, there are very few templates for my specialty, and trying to make or change a template is frustrating! It takes an hour at least to do one template. And, you cannot use the same template choice more than once in a template, so if you are trying to chart two feet, good luck! The EMR takes forever to implement (11 weeks). I think that our implementation manager did not do a very good job of setting us up, so we have been having to try to learn everything on our own, which is frustrating and time-consuming when we are busy trying to see patients. There is a lot of typing that has to be done during patient visits, which takes a lot of time and slows my pace and ability to see as many patients as I would like. Trying to just put in CPT codes takes forever. Also, save your work every minute because there is no auto-save on this program and I have lost so much information! Do not believe it if you are told that Athena does your insurance credentialing for you. We have had to do it all ourselves. And you cannot pick and choose what claims are dropped for payment; it is all or nothing, so have a lot of working capital available while you credential. EFT (electronic funds transfers) have to be done through US Bank. We use Wells Fargo, so I have to do money transfers, which take a couple business days to process, and that is a real pain. We have also found out the hard way that unless we track each individual claim ourselves, secondary insurances may fall through the cracks, leaving money on the table that we have to find and process ourselves. I fear that our income is not going to improve (contrary to their claim that they improve collections by 8%) and, in fact, that we will potentially lose money. Our paper usage has increased substantially. You cannot just scan documents into the program. You have to fax them to Athena, and they sort them and place them into the patient's chart. However, you have to have a front cover and back cover bar code for each fax you send them so that a one-page fax becomes three pages. E-prescribing is hit or miss, so I have to double check that all e-scripts actually have gone through. Also, we get numerous complaints about how complicated the patient portal is.

Its All My Fault

Pros:

Software is web based and accessible from any computer connected to the web. Integrates document handling as well as notes and billing into one package. I reviewed a lot of products over the years and the basic design principle is what I was looking for.

Cons:

Our experience was simply unfathomable. We were on this product for just less than one year. Training and setup takes 3 months, not unreasonable but also they don't really understand small practices and how to train them. While various types of software are something I'm familiar with, and I found templates easy to make as well as modify, we were misinformed about what we were getting, and many of the bad experiences posted here were also experienced by us. We vetted this product as well as we could. We did a site visit, everyone we talked to was very happy with it. However, about the time we went on the product we understand that we were not alone in what followed, but it took weeks of searching to locate the others. Prior users, who had been happy also reported to us that they were struggling with it now. Another clinic in our town was struggling, one of their staff told me that they "hated it" but they apparently are not willing to speak out openly. We were experienced EMR users, having used more than one product and having 13 years of experience. Vendor training and support staff do not really understand their product, nor can they really help with other than simple questions. If there is a functional problem, you are just out of luck. They are just wasting your time online much of the time. We spent hours on the phone, week after week after week. Months of heavy, unbelievably hard and long days, working 15, 18, 21 hours in a day, and still unable to get encounters done. Over 100K in unsubmitted billings, unable to close the encounters. We kept customizing the workflow, adding encounter plans, adding templates, and the system kept getting slower, and slower, and slower, by the last month we were getting dropped off 20-30 times a day and the system was not responding to us for agonizingly long periods of time. Tech support absent, like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, saying everything is functioning well. We had one good month, only one, which deluded us into continuing to try to work with them. Three account representatives in 8 months, none of them did anything but the last one, who actually visited our office and told us we had not been informed of a problem using our OS and Athena, and that we "should have been told." Later, he retracts everything while on the phone with his supervisor saying "I was wrong." My patients repeatedly told me that the patient portal was so slow that they just stopped using it. They blamed our ISP first (we used it from 5 different locations with around 18 different computers), then it was our network, my staff, me, and in the end it was "something wrong with" my equipment but not a problem on their end. Complete and utter denial of a problem with the software. My staff hours rose by a minimum 20-30% on Athena, not decreasing as we expected, my hours nearly doubled, my ARNP quit because she wasn't able to see patients fast enough to actually make an income, she was working 8-12 hours a day to see 8 patients. Staff informed me that misfiling of documents by Athena and their having to refile them was taking 2-3 times longer than if they simply filed them all themselves. This misfiling continued despite our efforts to get it corrected and despite some documents having the actual filing category in large bold print at the top of the page so they wouldn't have to figure it out. We spent unbelievable amounts of time logging in, getting kicked off, getting unresponsive screens, and watching the "Wheel of Time" (apologies to the late Robert Jordan but he and his writing team haven't seen anything like the "Wheel of Time" that we experienced). It could take longer to submit a billing than it actually took to see a brief patient. It could take longer to document a visit for a complex patient than it took to see them. This product could do it, but it was nonfunctional to much of the time. We tried to get to talk directly to the technicians, they would not allow us, we tried to get in contact with the higher management and the people we were working with terminated our contract 11 months in, giving us the required three months notice. Three to four weeks later the system became essentially unresponsive most of the time, we had to either close immediately and declare bankruptcy or go back to our old EMR. We went back and pulled out of the mess. It was to late though, I closed my practice just 10 days ago, after 14 years, I was not able to accumulate enough financial reserve to attempt another transition before ICD 10 goes into effect. In my office, a 14 year old server, lowest cost Dell from 2001, single processor, 2 GB of RAM, handling outgoing faxes, importing incoming faxes from a Brother MFC, all incoming documents, an entire record system, a document handling library service with literally scores of thousands of documents in an electronic filing cabinet, with literally probably hundreds of thousands of pages of documentation, and my entire library of documents from 1998 onward, was able to easily outperform the Athena product. I worked hard to make sure we had a good platform on our end, we had a gigabit network, new cabling, gigabit switches and ethernet cards, SSD's on all our PC's, and more ISP bandwidth than a nearby 90 bed nursing facility has for their TV, PC's, and their staff to use...all for a small 1.4 FTE solo practice with 5 persons using it. It didn't matter, the system was not responsive.

Great reports, poor customer service

Comments: Athena has a great and robust reporting module especially helpful for practices attesting for meaningful use and PCMH, the problem with this is that it is difficult to do on your own and requires a Customer service ticket which takes a long time to get answered. The charting is easy once you get your templates setup. If you do not do this on the front end (during implementation) getting help to do later is impossible and you will need help as it is not very intuitive. Many templates were lost during one of their upgrades without warning so it has been difficult to rebuild them. We have grown and added locations while on Athena and because they are your primary biller if they do not verify all of the credentialing that you send them you cannot bill. This was problematic because you cannot directly talk to the persons doing this there is always a go-between with Athena. I love the EPCS for patients requiring a schedule, as a pediatrician I have quite a few ADHD pts and nice not to worry about assessing where prescriptions really lost! No need for paper. However, with one of their upgrades, I can no longer save medications so must write sig and quantity for every medication each time which is time-consuming. Lastly, the promised billing has failed our practice. The workflow was to be we would not need a biller and get increased revenue with clean claims. We see a large Medicaid population and were not told that they had virtually no experience with that and even going to them with specifics as to the problem it would still take upwards a month to fix. Not only have we not gotten rid of our biller but increased his time as many Medicaid claims he submits thru the portal yet Athena charges us for this. The account managers are unavailable in meetings vacations or no longer with the company.
Pros: Reporting, Easy charting once template is created, EPCS, Integration of charges to the superbill
Cons: Customer support, E-prescribing, Not reasonable expectation to not need a biller, Overpriced, not a good fit if you are a practice that adds services, providers, or locations, must use their bank to receive payments and then it takes 1-2 days to get transferred to your business account

I am a provider and have used this system for over one year.

Pros:

The prompts that help with RAF scores and star ratings is useful. I like the minichart feature and the meds data that pops up so I know what meds pts have been filling or getting elsewhere. I like the format for the assessment/plan and ordering of labs/studies/meds. I like that you can trend data like vital signs and labs.

Cons:

THE BOX TO VIEW RESULTS IS A SMALL WINDOW IN WHICH YOU CAN ONLY SEE A LITTLE PART OF THE LABS AT A TIME AND HAVE TO SCROLL FOREVER TO SEE THE WHOLE THING. PLEASE ATHENA CHANGE YOUR VIEWING SCREEN FOR LAB RESULTS. The scrolling action for everything is cumbersome and wastes so much time; there should be tabs that take you to each part of the note- the "jump to" feature is not the same and only works when you're working from the "exam" tab. It's hard to find old labs/notes/results unless you scroll, scroll, scroll through past notes. The more times the pt has been there the more scrolling you have to do to find things. There is no tab for imaging studies/labs/consults, etc. **There is also no way to mark the incoming labs/documents/etc in your inbox to know that you've already viewed them; you may want to hold on to them for some reason but if you can't label that you've viewed it, the next time you open your inbox you keep reopening the same ones to check if it's an old or new document. This wastes time because each click takes a while to load. The system often seems slow even though our internet connection is fine. Jumping from one thing to another causes you to lose the window you were in. There is no easy way to mark charts you want to make reminder notes for yourself on; you have to make a pt case each time and that crowds your pt case box. When someone replies to a pt case or sends a lab/imaging result back with notes it ends up back in my box but not marked as read or unread and sometimes I dont open because I think it's still the same old note/result I'm saving. If I want to make suggestions to Athena there's no one to talk to about these things.

Bait and Switch

Comments: The athena account manager position ( or title de jour) has been a revolving door. We have never had a meaningful relationship with them before we are assigned a new manager.

Pros:

The EMR was initially easy to set up. The billing functionality was adequate at first

Cons:

Any requests for improvement are completely ignored. For instance, from the start we were told that an android app was just around the corner. That is still their position 13 years later....it will never happen. We are just told to "put it on the suggestion board". However, the reason for my review today is that the price has suddenly jumped in a huge way. Even though we have been told that the price (Percentage of GROSS collections) will drop over time, they have just raised the percentage that they take again. This is being blamed on "inflation" but obviously inflation alone will increase their withholding since they are on a percentage of collections basis. They in fact are just taking a bigger piece of the pie. Totally dishonest. And it is being done against our will, with no contract negotiation.

Our "Alliance" with Athena

Comments: As a smaller local hospital we did not utilize Athena for our hospital ERM however our physicians network did. The system utilized by the hospital and Athena utilized by the physicians network did not communicate therefore information would need to be manually obtained for a patient who had a primary care physician within our own network that had been admitted to our hospital. Confusing for both nursing staff and the patient who was having to give a complete history and physical all over again. I was granted access to the Athena to act a liaison between hospital and physician. I found while utilizing Athena that it provided a valuable quick overview of patient demographics, medical history, medications, etc. However, while reviewing things such as medications I found that the system allowed not only for duplications but for entries to be saved as "free text" or saved while incomplete (missing drug strength, frequency, etc.). I was also disappointed to find that while I had access to this information, there was no quick way to share the information with other providers other than to print and fax or hand carry to patient chart on the hospital floor. A positive thing about Athena was that is was very easy to navigate so when a patient was admitted to our facility there was no digging through the last 12 months of patient follow-up visits to locate what they were last seen for, what medications they were prescribed, etc. Ease of use was certainly not the issue.

Pros:

Fairly easy to navigate, allows for a quick overview of patient demographics, medical history, medications, etc.

Cons:

For whatever reason coding allows for a lot of duplication or for information to be incomplete.

Athena makes my job mostly easier.

Pros:

The workflow of Athena is excellent and uses common sense. E-prescribing, integrated fax, communication among office employees is a must.

Cons:

There are a lot of steps to go through from chart completion to claim submission. Sometimes it feels like there is a lot of double work happening. Athena does not know much medical terminology and often tells me that I am misspelling things when I know them to be correct. I wish that the dictation portion were free.