Every software application with a strong design focuses on one or two key areas.
For apps with some type of human interaction, this focus tends to be on a specific user.
Most of the electronic medical record (EMR) products we reviewed focus on either the health care provider or the practice manager.
Some other products, such as DrChrono and WRS Health, attempt to divide up the functionality based on the tasks being performed.
Honest, Objective Reviews
Daxdi.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.
Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
Practice Fusion (which begins at $99 per month per clinician license) has much more of a patient focus throughout the program and incorporates patient input as an integral part of the process.
It takes real skill to make complexity appear simple and to make a highly technical EMR or electronic health record (EHR) app easy to use.
To be successful, the app must be simply organized, visually appealing, and able to move the user seamlessly from one field to the next without confusion.
In so doing, the company has opened a technical medical portal to untrained laypeople.
One key indicator for any software app is the amount of training required to get a user to an adequate level of proficiency to complete required tasks.
The Practice Fusion user interface (UI) is intuitive and follows a patient-centric design theme.
The company's website provides a knowledge base repository of questions and answers to help get you past any roadblocks.
The company also offers webinars and continuing education to get new employees up to speed and introduce new functionality to the entire practice team.
We gave Practice Fusion an overall score of 3.5 out of 5, ranking it tied with CareCloud.
In contrast to our Editors' Choice winner WRS Health, which maximizes functionality for all levels of users across the app, Practice Fusion lacks the same level of functionality and does not currently allow multiple options for data input.
However, Practice Fusion keeps the information presented to a minimum, offering easy navigation both forward and backward within the app.
Pricing
Practice Fusion is a solid product for the lowest price of all the EMR managers we tested.
It starts out at $99 per month per clinician license.
This basic subscription includes advanced charting and e-prescribing as well as dashboards on compliance with the federal government's Meaningful Use, Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), and Clinical Quality Measures (CQM) guidelines.
The basic price also includes unlimited labs and imaging connections.
These dashboards give practitioners an ongoing view of their progress meeting the requirements for documentation of care to ensure they receive the highest rates of reimbursement from all payer sources.
The ability of the EMR app to facilitate increased reimbursement by monitoring practitioner data input points can more than justify its cost.
Even with Practice Fusion offering compliance dashboards, advanced charting, and e-prescription capabilities as well as unlimited labs and imaging connectivity, the cost of Practice Fusion is still less than CareCloud and WRS Health.
DrChrono does have a "freemium" option, but functionality with that option is limited.
Considering the functionality DrChrono offers, Practice Fusion is the most cost-efficient option of all the products tested.
Health Care Provider
Clinicians can access patient charts by clicking a name on the patient list from the Chart tab.
Patient charts open up to a Summary page, an organized compilation of pertinent patient data.
Along the top are tabs with the labels Timeline and Profile, as well as a current Encounter Date tab for note entry.
All of these contain standard data fields.
The Timeline tab stands out from the others.
Under this heading, we were able to view a list of all previous patient encounters, including the date of the encounter and details about the encounter, whether it was a visit or a phone call, and if there was a note written.
From the patient chart, you'll find an Action button with a list of possible actions.
These include the usual addition of labs or imaging requests, print options, and billing options, as well as "Copy link to patient" and "Invite to patient portal." These options seem to indicate more obviously than CareCloud or WRS Health an invitation to interact with the patient at a more involved level.
It appears the practitioner has the option of inviting patients to not only view their chart but to be involved in the development of their own patient history.
DrChrono did have an action button to "approve" patient request to interact, but the prompt for interaction came from the patient side as a request rather than from the practitioner side as an invitation.
To take the initiative to invite patients into their medical records is a bold stride forward in the history of medicine, which is traditionally secretive and protective of the medical record.
Providing health care professionals with links to invite the patient to involve themselves in the medical record communicates to the patients a level of confidence and assurance, both in the technology and in the practitioner.
Practice Manager
Like the others, Practice Fusion opens to a dashboard that clearly shows tasks that are completed and those that are incomplete.
The system also has e-prescribing functions, which provides a patient-safety function by letting the practitioner see what other prescriptions the patient has had filled.
This prevents duplicate prescriptions from being filled and lets the practitioner review for possible interactions that may occur between medications.
We also like the linking to imaging and laboratory sites specific to the practitioner's location, unlike CareCloud, which links to lab sites but not imaging.
DrChrono and WRS Health can also link to other facilities, but the linking happens more in the background, less obviously.
With Practice Fusion, the ability to visually inspect these links and then instantly "chart share" radiology and lab data with providers works well.
This efficiency promotes a sense of connection to the patient's whole care team even though the team may be in different practices and locations.
The Scheduling page looks standard as well as easy to read and navigate.
As with CareCloud, DrChrono, and WRS Health, it lets users see who will be coming in for appointments from the schedule screen as well as presents a visual graphic of what rooms are available and where the patient is in the process.
The Task page offers multiple tabs for unassigned or incomplete tasks along with specific tasks such as filling prescriptions.
This is the ultimate task list that helps to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Any help of this nature is always a plus for a busy provider.
Reports that draw information from the system and give a clear understanding of how the practice is doing both financially and clinically are important.
Financial insight helps in terms of adhering to quality measures, coding and billing correctly, and meeting MIPS performance requirements.
Clinical information lets practitioners evaluate overall success in prescribing safely and accurately, referring appropriately, and diagnosing correctly.
The built-in reports were easy to find and run.
They addressed all applicable monitoring needs that you should encounter.
On the flip side, we could not find an easy way to modify any of these reports or create new ones.
That's in sharp contrast to competitors such as CareCloud, which has a sophisticated back-end database that enables robust reporting.
Involving the Patient in Their Care
Practice Fusion has tapped into the tremendous success of Allscripts, its parent software, to provide all of the functionality that has become standard to successful EMR apps, from scheduling pages that incorporate pertinent patient data to e-prescribing to safeguarding a patient's well-being through management of medications prescribed.
The reporting function is adequate and relevant, too.
What stands out about this product is the patient's incorporation of the patient into the EHR.
The Timeline design, also noted in CareCloud and DrChrono, though not as obviously, is simple and therefore helps one to visualize a patient's progression of care.
While CareCloud links to laboratory partners, Practice Fusion has direct link capability to partner laboratory and imaging providers, which means data can be entered into the patient's chart directly and immediately.
The data entry can speed up diagnosis and lets the patient move through the system with the least amount of inconvenience.
The invitation to the patient to join the discussion, so to speak, serves to put the patient at the center of this system to the extent that the practitioner deems fit.
Practice Fusion provides all of the standard functions that serve to keep the patient safe and the practitioner organized, and helps drive reimbursement and compliance.
Practice Fusion does not offer all of the functionality that WRS Health doesThe WRS Health platform is designed to let the practitioner have maximum data input capability through innovative methods.WRS Health facilitates the manipulation of the charting screens at the point of care.Like Practice Fusion, WRS Health links to outside providers to maintain continuity of care across a continuum.All of that functionality and optionality in WRS Health, however, does come at a cost. Practice Fusion offers less startup and maintenance costs than any of the other EMR systems we tested.
Thus, Practice Fusion is an excellent option for an EMR solution that's comprehensive and patient-centered while also functional and cost-saving.
Pros
Connects directly to laboratory and imaging centers of choice.
Lets patients view chart and contribute directly to medical history.
Chart incorporates a patient encounter timeline.
Useful list of predesigned reports that is easily identified.
Lower starting price compared with the other products in our roundup.
View More
The Bottom Line
Practice Fusion is a patient-focused electronic medical record (EMR) application that provides solid functionality at the lowest price point in our review roundup.
Every software application with a strong design focuses on one or two key areas.
For apps with some type of human interaction, this focus tends to be on a specific user.
Most of the electronic medical record (EMR) products we reviewed focus on either the health care provider or the practice manager.
Some other products, such as DrChrono and WRS Health, attempt to divide up the functionality based on the tasks being performed.
Honest, Objective Reviews
Daxdi.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.
Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
Practice Fusion (which begins at $99 per month per clinician license) has much more of a patient focus throughout the program and incorporates patient input as an integral part of the process.
It takes real skill to make complexity appear simple and to make a highly technical EMR or electronic health record (EHR) app easy to use.
To be successful, the app must be simply organized, visually appealing, and able to move the user seamlessly from one field to the next without confusion.
In so doing, the company has opened a technical medical portal to untrained laypeople.
One key indicator for any software app is the amount of training required to get a user to an adequate level of proficiency to complete required tasks.
The Practice Fusion user interface (UI) is intuitive and follows a patient-centric design theme.
The company's website provides a knowledge base repository of questions and answers to help get you past any roadblocks.
The company also offers webinars and continuing education to get new employees up to speed and introduce new functionality to the entire practice team.
We gave Practice Fusion an overall score of 3.5 out of 5, ranking it tied with CareCloud.
In contrast to our Editors' Choice winner WRS Health, which maximizes functionality for all levels of users across the app, Practice Fusion lacks the same level of functionality and does not currently allow multiple options for data input.
However, Practice Fusion keeps the information presented to a minimum, offering easy navigation both forward and backward within the app.
Pricing
Practice Fusion is a solid product for the lowest price of all the EMR managers we tested.
It starts out at $99 per month per clinician license.
This basic subscription includes advanced charting and e-prescribing as well as dashboards on compliance with the federal government's Meaningful Use, Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), and Clinical Quality Measures (CQM) guidelines.
The basic price also includes unlimited labs and imaging connections.
These dashboards give practitioners an ongoing view of their progress meeting the requirements for documentation of care to ensure they receive the highest rates of reimbursement from all payer sources.
The ability of the EMR app to facilitate increased reimbursement by monitoring practitioner data input points can more than justify its cost.
Even with Practice Fusion offering compliance dashboards, advanced charting, and e-prescription capabilities as well as unlimited labs and imaging connectivity, the cost of Practice Fusion is still less than CareCloud and WRS Health.
DrChrono does have a "freemium" option, but functionality with that option is limited.
Considering the functionality DrChrono offers, Practice Fusion is the most cost-efficient option of all the products tested.
Health Care Provider
Clinicians can access patient charts by clicking a name on the patient list from the Chart tab.
Patient charts open up to a Summary page, an organized compilation of pertinent patient data.
Along the top are tabs with the labels Timeline and Profile, as well as a current Encounter Date tab for note entry.
All of these contain standard data fields.
The Timeline tab stands out from the others.
Under this heading, we were able to view a list of all previous patient encounters, including the date of the encounter and details about the encounter, whether it was a visit or a phone call, and if there was a note written.
From the patient chart, you'll find an Action button with a list of possible actions.
These include the usual addition of labs or imaging requests, print options, and billing options, as well as "Copy link to patient" and "Invite to patient portal." These options seem to indicate more obviously than CareCloud or WRS Health an invitation to interact with the patient at a more involved level.
It appears the practitioner has the option of inviting patients to not only view their chart but to be involved in the development of their own patient history.
DrChrono did have an action button to "approve" patient request to interact, but the prompt for interaction came from the patient side as a request rather than from the practitioner side as an invitation.
To take the initiative to invite patients into their medical records is a bold stride forward in the history of medicine, which is traditionally secretive and protective of the medical record.
Providing health care professionals with links to invite the patient to involve themselves in the medical record communicates to the patients a level of confidence and assurance, both in the technology and in the practitioner.
Practice Manager
Like the others, Practice Fusion opens to a dashboard that clearly shows tasks that are completed and those that are incomplete.
The system also has e-prescribing functions, which provides a patient-safety function by letting the practitioner see what other prescriptions the patient has had filled.
This prevents duplicate prescriptions from being filled and lets the practitioner review for possible interactions that may occur between medications.
We also like the linking to imaging and laboratory sites specific to the practitioner's location, unlike CareCloud, which links to lab sites but not imaging.
DrChrono and WRS Health can also link to other facilities, but the linking happens more in the background, less obviously.
With Practice Fusion, the ability to visually inspect these links and then instantly "chart share" radiology and lab data with providers works well.
This efficiency promotes a sense of connection to the patient's whole care team even though the team may be in different practices and locations.
The Scheduling page looks standard as well as easy to read and navigate.
As with CareCloud, DrChrono, and WRS Health, it lets users see who will be coming in for appointments from the schedule screen as well as presents a visual graphic of what rooms are available and where the patient is in the process.
The Task page offers multiple tabs for unassigned or incomplete tasks along with specific tasks such as filling prescriptions.
This is the ultimate task list that helps to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Any help of this nature is always a plus for a busy provider.
Reports that draw information from the system and give a clear understanding of how the practice is doing both financially and clinically are important.
Financial insight helps in terms of adhering to quality measures, coding and billing correctly, and meeting MIPS performance requirements.
Clinical information lets practitioners evaluate overall success in prescribing safely and accurately, referring appropriately, and diagnosing correctly.
The built-in reports were easy to find and run.
They addressed all applicable monitoring needs that you should encounter.
On the flip side, we could not find an easy way to modify any of these reports or create new ones.
That's in sharp contrast to competitors such as CareCloud, which has a sophisticated back-end database that enables robust reporting.
Involving the Patient in Their Care
Practice Fusion has tapped into the tremendous success of Allscripts, its parent software, to provide all of the functionality that has become standard to successful EMR apps, from scheduling pages that incorporate pertinent patient data to e-prescribing to safeguarding a patient's well-being through management of medications prescribed.
The reporting function is adequate and relevant, too.
What stands out about this product is the patient's incorporation of the patient into the EHR.
The Timeline design, also noted in CareCloud and DrChrono, though not as obviously, is simple and therefore helps one to visualize a patient's progression of care.
While CareCloud links to laboratory partners, Practice Fusion has direct link capability to partner laboratory and imaging providers, which means data can be entered into the patient's chart directly and immediately.
The data entry can speed up diagnosis and lets the patient move through the system with the least amount of inconvenience.
The invitation to the patient to join the discussion, so to speak, serves to put the patient at the center of this system to the extent that the practitioner deems fit.
Practice Fusion provides all of the standard functions that serve to keep the patient safe and the practitioner organized, and helps drive reimbursement and compliance.
Practice Fusion does not offer all of the functionality that WRS Health doesThe WRS Health platform is designed to let the practitioner have maximum data input capability through innovative methods.WRS Health facilitates the manipulation of the charting screens at the point of care.Like Practice Fusion, WRS Health links to outside providers to maintain continuity of care across a continuum.All of that functionality and optionality in WRS Health, however, does come at a cost. Practice Fusion offers less startup and maintenance costs than any of the other EMR systems we tested.
Thus, Practice Fusion is an excellent option for an EMR solution that's comprehensive and patient-centered while also functional and cost-saving.
Pros
Connects directly to laboratory and imaging centers of choice.
Lets patients view chart and contribute directly to medical history.
Chart incorporates a patient encounter timeline.
Useful list of predesigned reports that is easily identified.
Lower starting price compared with the other products in our roundup.
View More
The Bottom Line
Practice Fusion is a patient-focused electronic medical record (EMR) application that provides solid functionality at the lowest price point in our review roundup.
