eClinicalWorks

We have used eCW for nearly 4 years and were mostly satisfied... until we decided to outsource of billing to their RCM (revenue cash management team). This decision single handedly nearly closed our practice as our collections plummeted in a matter of months. After 3 months we fired them. There are "tasks" sent to them 3-4 weeks ago for them to correct their posting, payment, etc etc mistakes and they have yet to fix them. Their managers blame us for their mistakes and they never take credit for anything. We've done our billing internally for years and after finally making the decision to offload and "delegate" I think we will never do it again. How is a small practice with one provider 150% more effective and accurate with billing than a billing company? What customer service culture allows errors (100's mind you... hundreds and hundreds) unfixed, unattended to, and no apologies given. Statements are sent out incorrectly to patients who've paid, patients are infuriated at us when we have no control to fix anything other than send the RCM team tasks that sit unattended for 3-4 weeks (still not addressed, so possibly even longer). Managers don't return phone calls or emails. Managers blame us for their own team posting payments incorrectly. No lie. They are nothing but incompetent. Their customer service is abysmal and as anyone can attest to who's been in similar situations, you're stuck, as transferring to a whole new EHR is painful.

I have thus far used practice fusion & eCW. I actually had much better workflow w/ the former.
Each update tht eCW has sent has made the workflow worse. MORE clicks, MORE windows, MORE time taken away from patients to document, MORE error messages, MORE effort put into getting ANY information. The documentation windows are so tiny you squint, the past history is even worse! I could go on and on. STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU LOOK ELSEWHERE!

Poor performance, fair customer support, upgrades are getting worse, web-based version is way worse than the desktop version

I'm a programmer who used to write EMR software. Because of this experience, I know more than most about EMRs and how they are written, designed, and supported. EClinicalWorks is absolutely one of the most disturbing examples of an EMR company I've ever seen. The software is buggy and constantly introduces new dangerous ways that patients can be harmed with every new version. Old bugs are rarely fixed. When they are fixed, it's often years after being reported and by that time it no longer matters because you've had to train in the workaround for so long that it's now just the new normal way of running the office. There are literally thousands of safety issues reported on their support portal so it is impossible to educate yourself on all of the potential minefields and how to avoid them. Tech support is a joke. You cannot provide tech support for a product when your techs are supposedly "not allowed" to access phi. Techs never use their own login for support because it is blocked from accessing any real phi. So instead, they access your production patient data under YOUR login and then want to spend hours unsupervised playing with settings and troubleshooting in your production environment. Tech support has literally made changes to real patients meds and more with absolutely zero consequences. This company is nothing more than a dumpster fire that does not take customer service or patient safety seriously.

We have been using eclinicalWorks since opening our private medical practice in 2007. We originally had our program on an internal server and ran version 9 successfully for years. Beginning last year (2014) we began to get information that they were going to "upgrade" their software to version 10 and it would be better served in a cloud setting. We discussed this extensively with our IT team at the time and with ECW. After thinking long and hard about it we decided to invest in the migration and new software in July 2014. In one word it has been FRUSTRATING. The program has never fully worked as promised. From day 1 we had multiple errors, slow processing, crashing computers and multiple mistakes occurring. We began a series of "tickets" with eCW that now almost 10 months later have not improved our service. We have refused to pay them, we have had multiple conversations and yet they do not admit that the problem is their system. We have upgraded computers, upgraded and go a dedicated fiber line to our office and still the system is bad. We have resisted legal action because we are a 2 person group that is growing extensively and quickly and we invest all we can in our growth. However, the situation with eCW is slowly killing us and has cost us close to 200K in lost time, investment and patient visits. It is unfortunate that as physicians we are asked to care for all at any cost and depend on systems like EHRs that truly make our jobs harder and frankly unsatisfying. EcW gets 1/2 a star and I'm being generous. We feel stuck.

The product simply doesn't work. The implementation failed COUNTLESS TIMES and when we fired them because implementation failed they tried to send us to collections for a random amount of money after we had already paid the specified amounts due to terminate our contract. We were very clear from day 1 what we needed out of the software and the staff assured us that EclinicalWorks would do exactly as they were CONTRACTED to do. However, I have over 75 emails and calls proving that the software does not work effectively for a surgery based office and it did not do what it promised to do. We could not bill with RCM because the go live date was pushed back three times and then even still they didn't have the capabilities to bill for the type of services we perform which is basic surgical billing. Also, the support was terrible. No matter how many times we told them what time zone we were in they would call from India late at night. Once tickets were opened they couldn't be closed because an issue couldn't be fixed because the technology didn't support it. Therefore, we continued to get calls (up to ten times a day) about matters that eClinicalWorks was incapable of fixing. Just don't use this software.

I signed with eCW after I was told that it is customizable, and easy to use, and the demo looked fantastic. The training ran pretty quickly. Now in real life, I am facing challenges with every encounters. There is problems in almost every section except PE. The ROS section is very time consuming, and organize very illogical way. There is problem in CC also. You need thousands! Of clicks, before you can finish your note. When I contacted for the help, they tried to help, but for many things they said that I have to write/request in new idea section, and if there is enough requests for the item, then they will try to incorporate it. Also they are very sneaky, that they start charging money from day one. Let me explain: my contract was for 2.9%. So you assume they will charge you 2.9% of the collection, or the minimum after a month. But for me they charged me at beginning of the month, and then right before the month, while they have not able to submit a single bill to HMO's/ insurances for a single day of encounters. I wonder how all these IM/FP MD's using the eCW!

Extortionist took our down payment, then eClinicalWorks refused to move on processes until we signed a blank document. A long legal binding form with "fill in the blanks" and all were blank.

Their project management, server build, and network teams left us hanging with none of the add on modules activated. We called, met, documented and stayed up graveyards working with lame ECW support staff with no correction. ECW sent trainers on site and trained with none of the add on modules working. They panned over the training on all the modules. Our "go live" date was coming fast, we had flights booked, provider time blocked, and committed to data conversions. The add on modules still were not working after ECW support staff confirmed we had followed all of their build specs.

We reverse engineered the module activation with a network sniffer. We found dozens of IPs and ports required to activate the add on modules. We opened the firewall after the reverse engineering and the add on modules worked.

The ECW team were in denial leading up to our "go live" date and took no effective action to resolve the issues. ECW gave us lip service for months and did nothing effective.

Terrible service with lack of transparency in billing.
Contract cancelation is an headache.
Buyer beware.

After old school paper medical charts for years, I joined a primary care medical practice already well ensconced in eClinical works. "You'll get used to it in six months" "It'll get easier" were the by-words. No matter one's past familiarity with EHR use, eClinical was the most inelegant, clumsy, mind jarringly crazy program I've ever used. Tiny icons of all shapes, sizes and manner appearing in different shape shifting forms in different screens while just trying to get your patient treated and out the door. Time sucking clicks while prescribing medicines that "don't compute" with its algorithms of how a med should be prescribed. I could treat five patients in the time it took to successfully get a couple rx's to the pharmacy for one. Don't get me going on the idiocy of the templates. I used to love the practice of medicine. I can clearly say that eClinical in one fail swoop killed this with their busy screens, maniacal clicks to get the simplest thing done, and unintuitive design plan. How did the profession of medicine let programmers, insurers, regulators, malpractice lawyers et al feed off our backs toiling hours more each day in data entry on these beta version programs.

I have used 5 different medical billing software programs and I have never experienced one as poor as eClinicalWorks. I am on the business side of the program, not the medical side. Payments that we send to eClinicalWorks to post are often missed, so I have to babysit each EOB and batch to ensure that a patient's account is accurately posted. EClinicalWorks does not fulfill their contractual obligations and post payments within 48 hours, reply to tasks within 48 hours, etc... they consistently drop the ball in customer service. If I have to double and triple check my patient accounts, the software is useless, which ECW is. With the main customer service hub being in India, there are countless inefficiencies with such logistics. Language barriers, time zones, a complete lack of knowledge about allowables/variances... I could go on and on.

We began using a new software system on 7. 1. 15 and I am forever grateful to be finishing up with eClinicalWorks. I will NEVER suggest that another practice uses this program. Our first "team leader" (provider representative) couldn't keep up with all of the inefficiencies and errors caused by her own company, so she passed our office to another provider representative. He is in India. Again, useless when we are on the west coast of the USA.

My company used eCW from 2005 until 2013 when we switched EMRs. I was attracted to eCW because it was one of the first affordable Windows based EMRs that integrated schedule, EMR, and billing functions in one platform.

The review by Mike C. Summed up many of our experiences, in particular that eCW was compartmentalized - like the referral function wasn't really connected to the schedule or EMR. It was very buggy and we had constant slowness and freezing of the application. The product was sold as a fully integrated application, but it felt like a patchwork of individually developed ones that didn't always connect to the database in the same or interact with each other fully. Support didn't do a good job of documenting our problems, so we needed to run through the litany of issues every time we called, as if it were the first time we'd reported the problems. We had the server on site.

The constellation of eCW abilities is impressive. However, it seems from the comments that this company continues its practice of over promising and under performing.