Practice Fusion

The main reason I left Practice Fusion was the companies customer service approach which consisted of deflecting from taking responsibility for their system glitches and shifting the responsibility for solving software malfunction problems onto others (either their subcontractor, a company called Updox or onto the consumer directly). You can imagine how dangerous this type of approach can be in an area which deals with the health of patients. I want to caution other healthcare providers to be careful. This is not a normal way to conduct business. I've switched to a much better company and have not had this experience since making the switch.

This is a very basic documentation system. Like any system it takes a while to get used to it. However, even after using it for over a year, there are still oddities that don't make sense. I wonder if they consult providers on their experience and possible enhancements. For a very small practice, it is okay at best. The other problem is their IT support/customer service. It is difficult to get a real person on the phone. They always want to have you submit an email instead of talking on the phone. When I was insistent on talking with someone, they couldn't even fix the issue on the phone.

Despite multiple attempts to work with Practice fusion, as an EMR it just cannot provide the tools I need for my practice. Namely, there is no national HIE that I can connect to and I was not even able to connect to the HIEs that I am enrolled in that are in other states. I have a small practice, where it's just me and an virtual MA, so efficiency is very important and so I am switching an an EHR that does provide national HIE integration. I also could not integrate with PDFs, make letters of medical necessity, and for my patient population (mostly patients with disabilities) I had to do a lot of customizations. For example, I had to write a custom RX for a prosthetic every time and then could not send it to the P&O clinic through PF. That said, I was on a month-to-month subscription. I cancelled my subscription, and without warning I now lost access to my charting, billing, and most importantly for me, my templates.

I have used PF for several years. Initially it was free but now they charge. There is essentially no customer service. I need to contact them regarding a new practitioner who will be starting in my office. I have tried submitting a ticket on PF but they have never contacted me. I have called and put in queue for long time and no one ever answers. I am going to get a different EHR company.

I first joined PF in 2013 when it was advertised as "free and will always be free". It was a straightforward EMR that was easy to use but didn't have a lot of normal functions that I had in my prior EMR company. But I was trying to cut costs and I tolerated the annoyances and they had a way to take suggestions and make you feel like it was in the queue to be developed in the near future.

Years with them free, they actually had adequate (not great) CR in that you could hold for 30 min and get help or "create a ticket" but now, with paid subscription, I’m just glad I worked out all the kinks then and now I ask them to do very little: only electronic prescribing incl controlled substance rx. You have to fill in a minimal "profile" information and designate a pharmacy which is a pain if you don’t have the zip code handy, but I do not use any other features. I have a feeling if I did, would be a huge hassle.

1- E-prescribing requires odd and bizarre input from prescriber. For instance: medication is clearly a tablet as that was the chose medication, yet you have to state in a box that it is a tablet. Takes time. 2- Customer support is terrible. They hook you up with a rep who sounds like an 18 yo person who just finished high school who would never address the issue and always escalates it but then you never hear back. 3- Technical support is practically unavailable to the client/customer. For instance, if you submit a technical issue ticket, they tell you "oh this is a known issue we have been working on", which is insane because they keep making these technical updates and useless new features and yet ignore the real problems.

We have been with practice fusion for a few years. Look, nothing is perfect, but we'd expect that a product with a 100+ million dollar valuation would get better over time, not worse. This hasn't been our experience. Minor bugs and glitches have found their way into the EHR, and common-sense, easy to understand and intuitive changes or suggestions I've brought to the company's attention are basically ignored. Sometimes the reasons are different, but the outcome is always the same - which is that PF isn't going to do anything about it.

I opened a solo practice in 2019 and had never shopped for EHR’s before. Of course Practice Fusion looked attractive because of the cost. First let me say that the cost does not include practice management software, so you’ll spend a minimum of another $400 a month for one of the two or three programs that integrate with PF. That’s the least of the issues with PF. The biggest issue, and it has been stated repeatedly, is the absolute worst customer support in the world. There is really no other way to describe it. They may get back to you 2 weeks later, but never with an answer. I have some issues I have reported 15 times and they eventually just ignore you as if if you are annoying them with the same problem. Well, I am, because they won’t fix it. They always follow-up their lousy customer service response with a quality survey which is a joke in itself. Even the surveys get ignored. Please, please, please do not purchase this EHR.

Their system is not performing safely when it comes to treat patients! I encountered numerous errors given from pharmacies as the prescriptions did not go through. The Practice Fusion customer service is INEXISTENT. You try to call and they tell you same thing all the time, that "its huge volume of calls and to send them an email", and then you email them and you get an answer in 2 weeks, but no... your problem is still unsolved. And be prepared when you realize this hardship is overwhelming and that you cannot prescribe medications to your patients and you decide to stop subscription, you will have extremely difficult time to have them let go, they will claim you have contract and that you are STUCK with them for years...