AdvancedMD Medical Software Review

Why AdvancedMD Is Best for Large Practices

Large medical practices often need all kinds of tools, but some medical software platforms that combine electronic medical record (EMR) systems and practice management software (PMS) with medical billing software lack the most-sought-after features while including others that aren’t needed. However, the best medical software offers healthcare organizations plenty of choices and customized packages, which is where AdvancedMD stands out. This vendor provides many of its services and features a la carte, so customers pay only for the tools they need.

With AdvancedMD’s a la carte model, the average customer saves up to 40 percent on their medical software costs. Once you’ve set up your custom suite, you can get up to 28 hours of hands-on training. After this training, you and your staff will be equipped to use your new medical software tools, all of which are features you’ve specifically requested and actually need.

Usability

Among the medical software platforms we’ve reviewed, AdvancedMD’s interface ranks highly for user-friendliness. That said, it isn’t perfect. For some users, AdvancedMD’s vast suite of features, templates, workflows and shortcuts may prove more confusing than helpful. During our best medical software research, we ultimately found solutions that have better usability. Read our full Tebra review to learn why it’s our top pick for ease of use.

Still, AdvancedMD realizes that medical software can be overwhelming, and the company will gladly provide your team with one-on-one training (for a fee). It also hosts a library of online setup resources. Nonetheless, AdvancedMD is so heavy on features and customizable templates that the learning curve may extend long after training.

AdvancedMD Features

Here are AdvancedMD’s key features, with more details below:

Charting and Notetaking

We liked that providers can customize patient charts to cover medications, problem lists, allergies, notes, encounters and demographics. You can also load your patient’s vitals quickly at the beginning of an appointment and access the patient’s basic information, like recent health insurance plans, just as easily through exportable reports. 

AdvancedMD offers customizable chart and notetaking templates for each appointment type. In our test of the system, we especially liked that when you’re taking notes, typing isn’t your only option. You can use hotkeys and voice-to-text to streamline note taking.

During appointments, you can search AdvancedMD’s ICD-10 code library and add relevant codes. You can then send your finalized notes to AdvancedMD’s billing team, who will manage your revenue cycle thereafter if you’ve signed up for AdvancedMD’s medical billing services.

The AdvancedMD medications view shows a patient’s medication history and flags potential drug interactions. Source: AdvancedMD

E-Prescribing and Labs

AdvancedMD’s e-prescribing suite is accessible via desktop or mobile app. You can use it to view prescription benefits, cost information, formularies, electronic prior authorization forms, prescription cancellations and patient history. This information can be crucial to know before you send prescriptions to pharmacies.

AdvancedMD’s pharmacy search tool helps you link patients with their preferred pharmacy by type, including retail and mail order. The system also presents alternative prescriptions if a patient’s insurance doesn’t cover the original medication you’ve prescribed. The software flags concerning medication interactions before you complete prescriptions.

In addition, AdvancedMD offers Electronic Prescribing for Controlled Substances (EPCS) — that means 2FA, security validation, one-click signing and audit histories — to keep your e-prescription data secure.

The AdvancedMD e-prescribing interface makes it easy to manage patients’ prescriptions. Source: AdvancedMD

EMR Dashboard

AdvancedMD’s EMR dashboard includes five groups of quick access icons at the top. This simple top-bar navigation is seen in some other medical software, but it feels especially seamless and organized in AdvancedMD.

The AdvancedMD dashboard is well known for its standout “task donut” feature. When you click these donuts, you’ll immediately be sent to certain tools. Such possibilities include being directed to AdvancedMD’s HealthWatcher, which assesses patient risk and suggests health plans to guide your patient encounters. With these convenient task donuts, you can streamline the work that comes before and after

AdvancedMD’s task donuts provide an at-a-glance overview of key practice operations. Source: AdvancedMD

Interoperability

With AdvancedMD, your EMR, practice management and patient experience tools are linked in the cloud for peak interoperability. This interoperability function lets you share immunization and meaningful-use data with health registries while eliminating the need for manual entry due to auto-posting and real-time updates. The system also facilitates the basic interoperability task of sharing data with third-party practices and providers. 

Medical Billing

AdvancedMD’s billing tools include medical claims management features for capturing charges and reimbursement claims. The billing suite also has an integrated clearinghouse with connections to 1,800 leading payors to streamline your claim uploads and remittance downloads.

We appreciate that AdvancedMD’s Claim Inspector tool automatically scrubs all your claims to catch carrier-specific requirements, HIPAA, Correct Coding Initiative, Local Coverage Determination and Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Database. The Proprietary Claim Inspector runs 3.5 million edits and guarantees a 95 percent first-pass claim acceptance rate. The company also offers claim denial software and auto-populates your claims and copay data.

Patients can use AdvancedMD’s billing platform as well, where they can pay bills online, over the phone or with the credit card on file through the intuitive interface. In-person payments and payment plans are accepted as well, and the software streamlines the process with instant information on patient eligibility, copays and more.

Patient Reminders

AdvancedMD sends patients automated reminders prior to their appointments. Through these reminders, patients can more easily cancel appointments. This way, providers can quickly fill last-minute time slots. However, for those who want to keep their appointment, providers can send automated reminders with confirmation links to verify they’re still coming in.

The voice, text and email patient reminders are also available in Spanish, which is very valuable. In either language, AdvancedMD can organize and filter all patient communications, including intake forms, reminders and marketing campaigns, easily.

AdvancedMD intake forms are available to patients through a patient portal and linked to patient reminders. Source: AdvancedMD

Reporting

Through the AdvancedMD Report Center, we gained access to over 150 standard financial reports and approximately 500 custom reports during our testing. Medical and accounting experts designed these reports to help you drive your practice’s financial performance, making them extremely useful.

AdvancedMD suggests the best reports to follow, but these recommendations aren’t specific to your practice because all software users see the same reports. You can also search for any type of report needed through the Report Center’s search bar and the moment you start typing, results will appear. If there are certain reports you use frequently, the recently run log will show your previous 12 reports.

We particularly liked that whichever reports you choose will prioritize your organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs), such as cancellations, no-shows, accounts receivable, collections (including collections by Total RVU) and patient demographics. You can also save these reports to your computer and open them in Excel to analyze the data. [Related article: Setting and Measuring KPIs]

This is an AdvancedMD sample report of collections by provider. Source: AdvancedMD sample report

Scheduling

With AdvancedMD’s appointment scheduling interface, you reduce the frustration of navigating crowded calendars substantially. You also get simple, quick tools at your fingertips for patient copay collection and check-in. The schedule snapshot tool displays your daily appointments based on resources, location or provider. The appointment scheduling tool also lets you perform instant insurance eligibility checks on one or all of your appointments.

You can click appointments to see their type and duration. The quick-look summaries also display the patient’s clinical notes and contact information. Whenever and wherever you spot openings in your practice’s calendar, you can easily schedule new appointments.

AdvancedMD also has recurring appointment tools so patients who need more than one visit can be booked swiftly. This feature lets you modify individual visits or add patients to waitlists. The system automatically moves patients from your waitlist to your calendar when an opening appears.

On appointment day, the software has patient room tracking, so you can track patient office visits and use key metrics to shorten wait times. This function leads to a smarter staff distribution among patients.

Telehealth

AdvancedMD offers HIPAA-compliant telehealth tools for connecting with patients who can’t see you in person. It’s great that the telehealth suite fully integrates with the EMR platform. In doing so, it gives practices a telemedicine appointment dashboard and tools for storing call screenshots in patient files.

Patients can also chat with their provider through a secure two-way video call to get help from anywhere. What’s even better is that there’s no software patients need to download to connect on the cloud-based telemedicine platform. Patients only need to click the link sent, and they’ll connect instantly.

AdvancedMD Costs

With AdvancedMD, you can build your suite of features to cut your costs by up to 40 percent. Alternatively, you can choose a standard AdvancedMD bundle or ask for a custom quote. The vendor offers a free two-month trial to its patient engagement bundle. But if you want to see how every feature works, you can request a no-cost personalized demo video.

AdvancedMD operates on the same pricing model as many other EMR and PMS vendors, charging most users on a monthly per-provider basis. Encounter-based pricing is also available for certain practices. If you choose AdvancedMD’s encounter-based model, you pay per encounter per month and most likely need to reach a minimum of monthly encounters. 

While AdvancedMD doesn’t list out its pricing online, fees for the per-provider-per-month model start at an estimated $729 for the a la carte Rhythm suite. This excludes medical billing services. Our research shows you can also choose PMS features instead of EMR, which starts at $429 per provider, per month.

However, these options lack many features that come standard with most other EMR and PMS platforms we reviewed. Add-ons that cost extra include appointment scheduling, EPCS, credit card processing services, insurance eligibility checks and lab interfacing. The more features you add to your package, the more expensive AdvancedMD will be. This may not be a problem for larger practices that can save money via the a la carte options, but it could be cost-prohibitive for smaller ones.

AdvancedMD’s revenue cycle management feature is also available as an add-on. You don’t pay for this service at provider- or encounter-based rates. Instead, it costs 4 percent to 8 percent of your practice’s monthly collections.

AdvancedMD Setup

Upon signing up with AdvancedMD, you can opt in to 28 hours of training, which can take one of two forms. You can either choose one-on-one guided training or browse AdvancedMD’s library of online setup resources for self-service implementation.

However, the first option of guided training isn’t included in most of the pricing plans. It costs extra. When we contacted AdvancedMD, a representative told us that a one-on-one training package is available for a flat fee of $5,000. This option includes setup, training and one-on-one hours with an implementation consultant. Implementation supposedly takes four to six weeks. However, some have noted it can take up to four months.

Customer Service

Customer support for AdvancedMD is available by phone, live web chat and a help desk ticketing system. We liked that remote access technical support is available to troubleshoot technical issues, and a customer support agent can take control of your device remotely to fix the issue.

On top of support from AdvancedMD, you can reach out to peers who use the platform as well on its self-service portal, the Hub. You can discuss products, give feedback and suggest new ideas.

Drawbacks

Despite its numerous features, AdvancedMD has some drawbacks:

• Costly add-ons: AdvancedMD requires you to pay extra for several features that other medical software providers include at no added cost. These add-ons include appointment scheduling, e-faxing, insurance eligibility checks, credit card processing and lab interfacing. For some practices, having to pay extra for these key features may be a dealbreaker.
• Overwhelming interface: Though it’s relatively user-friendly, the AdvancedMD interface can be overwhelming for some users. It’s packed with so many features, shortcuts, templates and workflows that the less tech-savvy users at your practice might struggle with it. Some users are known to face challenges even after completing AdvancedMD’s in-depth (and pricey) one-on-one training.

Methodology

We spent hours researching, analyzing and reviewing medical software to find the best products on the market. Our investigation included software demonstrations, phone interviews and customer service calls. We also considered customer service reviews available online, including those on the Better Business Bureau website.

For this AdvancedMD review, we pored over the vendor’s website and contacted company representatives for more information. We chose AdvancedMD as the best medical software for large practices because its choose-what-you-want model and potential cost savings are ideal for meeting the highly specific needs of big medical offices without overspending.

Overall Value

We recommend AdvancedMD if …

• You want to customize your practice’s suite of medical software tools.
• You want hundreds of report templates.
• You need an encounter-based pricing model instead of a monthly per-provider fee setup.

We don’t recommend AdvancedMD if …

• Your practice does not have the budget to pay extra for certain features.
• Your practice has more tech-averse than tech-savvy team members.