Kareo Clinical Erfahrungen

Vorteile

The reporting ability and the ease of being able to explain a balance to a patient. Scheduling a patient on the right day/time is important and being able to time block and customize for 5 Drs has been beneficial.

Customer Service reps are always there when we need them to walk us through an issue, which isn't what we always experience.

Nachteile

Updates can be tricky. If we had notice of exactly what pieces were being updated, it would help out quite a bit. However, updates aren't that frequent and usually its for the better.

Vorteile

The software is user friendly. It has been easy for new hires to pick up and all staff in our facility including providers feel it is easy to use. They have made many daily features easily accessible such as ordering labs, sending referrals, sending msgs to patients, and scheduling. They give you updates on any new features added including links to videos on how to use new features. Issues have been minimal but when I do have issues customer support is always more than helpful, and the wait time to talk to a human on the phone is never that long. Overall best software I have had the opportunity to use in my career.

Nachteile

The referral loop system could use some upgrading in my opinion. Erx requests section has become a chore. For example, one patient will have 6 medications, and I have to click on each one and deny/approve each one individually, I would like to have the option to select multiple medications for one patient and select the response and submit. Especially when denying the medications, if I am denying one I am denying all, it is time consuming to go through each one. Also, the denial reason section is limited. I wish I could click "other" and have a section to type my response. It is almost always the scenario where the pharmacy is trying to refill and old Rx and a new escript was sent in that they are over looking. I would like to be able to leave a msg for them with the denial. Another minor issue is that when we are gathering patients history we have the option in the chart sections "social history, & medical history" to add "custom items" this section you can add but not delete items.

Vorteile

Documenting the H&P and progress note is pretty straightforward and easy. The superbill completion is also easy and seems to function well.

Nachteile

Where to start... first, it seems that Kareo expects that you and your practice should conform to their clunky set up. after the initial sales call (their sales guy is great), you're expected to schedule weekly phone visits with Kareo's on boarding coordinator. She made a point to say how busy she is and need to schedule far in advance so that she can fit you into her schedule. Really? The coordinator can't actually do anything for you but tells you how to work through the system and what training to do next. I stopped doing these calls after it was clear anything I needed help with, she was not actually able to do anything, so I had to contact the ones who could actually help me. The training is like 100 hours. Any program that needs 100 hours/ 1000 sections of training, is not user friendly. There are many many other issues (ICD10 coding while trying to order labs which have to be completely reentered in addition to the chart, my systems biller getting locked out of the system repeatedly due to issues with the web platform interfacing with the desktop program, significant issues of setting up e-scribe -hours on the phone), but probably the worst is that the patient portal is essentially non existent. I won't go into the details but if you want a functional patient portal, chose a different EMR.

Vorteile

Scheduling, Billing and ease of use with the EMR system (except for one issue).

Nachteile

Med Portal. Kareo uses a 3rd party at that controls how providers are allowed to send medications. We are a Pain Management Practice and at times need to be able to send pain medications outside the parameters that the Kareo 3rd party sets (1 pain med per 24 hours) this caused us set backs during clinic and we had to change to a different EMR system. We did not want to change but were forced to due to the parameters set by this 3rd party controlling the Medication Portal.

Vorteile

Kareo makes it easy to navigate through the system from start to finish

Nachteile

Sending medical records out, I wish there was an option to insert a date range.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

AnyDesk

Warum Kareo Clinical gewählt wurde

Total MD was what our billing company used, they had no knowledge of the EMR side of the product, so we just started researching and decided on Kareo

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Kareo Clinical

The easy of Kareo and the support

Vorteile

SOAP note format is intuitive, but generating charges is klunky, and then charges need applied in a separate interface, it has duplicated admin workflows rather than streamline it

Nachteile

Updated SOAP note working interface jumps sections down the page and trouble finding my place in the note; can get hanging text outside of a text box; sections accidentally deleted cannot be recovered and the whole note needs marked as error and start again

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

athenaOne und AdvancedMD EHR

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Kareo Clinical

pretty interface, price point

Vorteile

Inexpensive and easy to use. We had a staff person who used for a solo practice and was familiar.

Nachteile

Features are buggy. Patient messages and communication is hard to use and does not attach to the patient chart, schedule is unwieldy and buggy. You can’t see blocked time in day view. There is also no audit trail for changed appointments. Lastly they fired the sales rep and did not honor his pricing and tried to lock us into a long term contract.

Vorteile

Modern platform, ease of use and on-boarding options.

Nachteile

It's not for large organizations, that said it will fit most practices.

Vorteile

It is user friendly and they really lock you in initially with there support staff and training. There pricing is decent, especially if you have a small practice.

Nachteile

I was extremely disappointed with Kareo following my "90 day onboarding." As soon as that time period ended, which was right before I opened my practice, they disappear. Initially, they are more then happy to set up meetings and help you thru any issues, but anyone who has ever started there own practice knows you don't really know the issues until you go live. Once we opened, I started having issues prescribing DME, therapy scripts, Imaging scripts, etc... I reached out to my implementation coordinator asking for a "15 min meeting" just to clear up some of my questions. I got a response that basically stated after my 90 days they cant do meetings because they are "too busy." really? My suggestion is that if you choose Kareo you better make sure you know the insides and out before your 90 days. If you have questions after that you will be referred to the help line, just so you all know I put a query in 5 days ago and have yet to receive any help. If you are a small practice that really relies on good customer support, don't listen to the talented sales people, they will leave you without answers and give you a list of videos to watch, because we all have time for that.

Vorteile

Initial set up was decent but those only lasted about 3 months. Everything integrated was nice.

Nachteile

Poor customer support. I had several issues with documentation that were open for one year and never resolved. There is not a lower cost for alternate billing professionals like therapist, SUDPs, peer counselor. Quickly becomes very expensive. No customization of notes. Very difficult and cumbersome to do a larger note like an SUD assessment.

Vorteile

The office is using Kareo EHR. The platform is modern and fast. It is available on PC, iPad, and iPhone which allows easy use in and out of the office. Patients like electronic reminders. Since the EMR is working well, my biller will being using Kareo PM shortly.

Nachteile

The platform doesn’t have a way to order requests that are not labs or imaging studies but we have used a round about to address this. Kareo upgrades system monthly so this may be addressed in the future.

Vorteile

I really like that we have a success coach to help navigate the system. Someone who is checking in on me regularly to see if I have questions and to set up time to connect virtually to answer questions and go over the platform. There are many different options for help if you need it, Kareo help desk, Kareo university, live virtual tours. Ability for them to push information and market for you.

Nachteile

I can't say there is anything that I like least, it is fairly easy to maneuver and a lot of it for me is learning the system. I'm a little slow to learn, but there are so many ways to receive help. I will say that my success coach is wonderful, it was a little difficult initially to schedule appointments with him, but we came up with a game plan that resolved this concern.

Vorteile

As the biller for our office, I enjoy being able to send claims directly through the software as well as receive ERA's extremely fast. Our office utilizes the messaging feature on a daily basis to forward information between staff. We love being able to text and email clients directly from the software as well.

Nachteile

Features that could be improved are first and foremost with the patient portal. The portal does not allow scheduling/viewing appointments directly through it. Also it only allows one client to register per email, which causes an inconvenience for our clients who have multiple family members that attend. When integrating our information from the old system to Kareo, alot of the information did not go to the correct areas of the software and we have had to manually fix alot of it.

Vorteile

Karen is a very easy platform to maneuver. I like how you can find you client data with one or two clicks.

Nachteile

I would like to see patients that are made inactive be placed in an archive. By looking at names that are no longer a client make it takes longer for me to maneuver through the platform.

Also the charge for telemedicine sessions is ridiculous. I have to pay $7.00 per session. Telemedicine is about 80% of my business so I never can budget for Karen it is always a surprise at the end of the month.

Also if you put something on a Company Karen account you should have the capability of talking it off. Whenever I log on to my account I have to look at a Doctor who is no longer with my company but for some reason you all cannot take it off.

Your company will lock us out of the system without notification, yet our bill never adjust and we have to stop out business. I cannot perform any telemedicine sessions. If we can get a notice so we can inform our patients that would be great especially when we are talking about mental health patient with anger management and PTSD issues.

When you turn off notification for a client no one should make contact with them. The telemedicine side say they have to send out three notifications however they sometimes goes out in crazy hours. So when a company turns off notification we should know best.

Vorteile

Relatively simple user interface, ease of navigation, ability to send lab orders electronically, responsive customer support, engaged customer support specialist during on-boarding, the note structure is great because you can see all the note sections all the time, which makes concurrent charting a breeze.

Apparently the billing side of things is nice to work with (I don't work with that side of the software, though), On the patient end, it does a great job with appointment reminders, and the telehealth platform has proven relatively user friendly (though it does seem to have some audio reliability issues).

Overall, Kareo generally seems open to feedback and does seem to strive to make improvements, which is perhaps the most important thing of all.

I will gladly modify this review in the future if the application efficiency and usability improves, because I really do like a lot about it. There are currently just too many problematic areas for me.

Nachteile

A little context: My work computer is a MacBook Air (M1, 2020) that is running up-to-date Monterey OS. I have used both Chrome and Firefox, both up to date (the recommended browsers) to work in Kareo and both have problems. My computer is also about 3 feet away from a high speed, very reliable wifi router.

Issues:
Until very recently, there was no auto-save feature for notes, and if something happened - your computer died, your internet disconnects for a second, or Kareo closes for any reason - note gone, unless signed or manually saved. This was made much worse by the fact that I was getting error messages (Code: 500 - internal server error) constantly. Clearing cookies/cache did not help. Re-booting the machine did not help. I think these are Kareo-end problems, but even if they are due to something on my end, support did not have solutions for me, and i spent hours on the phone/email/screen-sharing.

To Kareo's credit, at least now notes auto-save as I work, so I don't lose more notes in a week than i had previously lost in my entire career, but these error messages still happen, forcing me to re-load the site regularly.

Also, Chrome (normally my preferred browser) will not let me use templates in my notes. I can open them and click boxes, but when I close the template form, the things I select do not populate into my note, rendering this useless. Mind you, these are Kareo-developed templates, not ones that our practice has created, so they should work.

continued...

Vorteile

Initially, the electronic software (EHR) was free, which allowed considerable forgiveness of the product. I initially appreciated the technical support from people who cared about their product and service. Unfortunately, the most common replies to questions from I.T. were apologies for not being able to provide what customers wanted and needed the most, see below.

Nachteile

1. Creating progress notes frustrating. Must save notes before changing screens, otherwise all information LOST. No auto-save. Saving data prior to change in screen, must save and CLOSE the document. Multiple steps to re-open again. Always inefficient.
2. Doctorbase is an "answering device for providers" to provide caller's phone number. The glitch for NEW callers: NO NAME provided, no message recorded. 10-15 "unknown" callers by end of day: 1/2 -3/4 were salesmen or bankers wanting to give loans.
3. When I changed companies, unable to transfer data in bulk. Had to transfer every patient individually. Other companies ALL had ability for bulk transfer. Would have to transfer emails individually, all 15,000.
4. Limited & unsophisticated ability to create progress notes to limit key strokes.
5. Requesting program upgrades: infrequent, rarely helpful, never quick or responsive even for minor change requests.
6. Initial support staff NEVER heard from again. I had to sort out problems by trial and error . I had 10 years prior experience in sophisticated programs before this disaster.
7. This is only a few of the problems I had before leaving. 6 months later, I received a call from Kareo asking how I would like to improve my experience & upgrade the system. They apparently did not know I was long gone.
8. Working with pharmacies never smooth or easy.
9. Many more issues, unfortunately, that I have suppressed.

Vorteile

It looks slick in a sales presentation and has numerous features for collecting bills.

Nachteile

1. There is no way to refill an eprescription.
2. There is no way to verify whether eprescriptions are received except to call the pharmacy which takes forever. At irregular intervals eprescriptions are not received. Patients are upset.
3. You have to manually enter your NDEAN for every single rx for buprenorphine. This is an incredible waste of time. The company doesn't care.
3. It does absolutely no good to call customer support and tell them there is something wrong with the software. They are not interested. They will tell you you can recommend a "future improvement". I even tried this and never heard back. You are stuck with it.
4. The fonts are designed to look artistic to an administrator but the contrast is low and hard to read (dark grey on light grey) to fonts are large and there is so much unused space you have to frequently switch screens.

Vorteile

I like that it’s link to the billing software which makes it easier for billing

Nachteile

Software frequently crashes, sometimes all day which means you have no access to patient information, cannot check in patients or collect co-pays. Basically you end up rescheduling patients which results in hours of lost work time and staff unable to work. We’ve lost thousands of dollars in revenue because of this faulty, nonfunctional and unreliable Kareo software. And don’t bother trying to call customer support because you will not be able to reach anyone live. You’ll hear the same prerecorded message saying “we are aware of the problem.” There are better and less expensive softwares out there for your practice. Do your due diligence and think twice about investing in Kareo

Vorteile

Pros would consist of the ease of learning the fundamentals of working the EHR. It is pretty self explanatory once you fire up the application.

Nachteile

Our practice is located in Arizona, and the time on our EHR is incorrect since the base of kareo is located in California our system is on California time as opposed to Arizona. We have brought this issue to kareo, nothing was done there was no resolution to this matter and the time is still incorrect. One major issue that we are having is, we use a desk top for the use of kareo and as well as an Apple IPad. We are having an issue accessing "labs and studies" on the iPad and every time we open up this tab our app not only kicks us out but does not allow us to access the labs from the iPad thus causing Dr. Patel to then have to leave patients room come to the front to look at the labs, majorly taking away from Doctor Patient time. This matter has been brought to kareo's attention numerous amounts of times, and still it is not resolved we have been having this issue now for a total of 3-4 months. We call and receive a very typical answer from them stating that "we have our engineers working on it and someone will give you a call" no one ever gives our office a call back. we are very dissatisfied at this point with kareo and cons definitely out weigh the pros with this system.

Vorteile

I have been using Kareo way too long. I will be moving to a different platform soon for sure. Every time there is an issue there is no customer service available. When I started using Kareo EHR in 2013/2014 it was for free and there was an excellent support. Now it's 2020 and I pay close to $700 for 1 physician and 1 PA with no customer service. You can call, submit a ticket or email but it either gets lost in cyberspace or customer service reps and not well trained or trained at all to handle issues.

Nachteile

no support and there are always problems, especially with frequent updates made.

Vorteile

Frankly, I do not see any

Nachteile

Everything

Vorteile

I have used Kareo EHR for a little over a year now and have found the software to be easily navigated. I like that it is interfaced with the Practice Management program to do the billing, accounting and reports which make the job more organized. It also allows me to be interfaced with the laboratory that I use to have the lab results within the patients chart. The chart format lets me see what part I would like to review such as history, accounting, demographics, etc.
Easy to apply payments. The ERA's are easy to navigate and apply payments.

Nachteile

The practice software has a few glitches that we have to call for assistance in getting corrected.
Getting set up with new insurance takes some time. There is duplicate billing on occasion.

Vorteile

The software is very user friendly and is easy to learn. It was fast to implement and to begin the ERA/EFT enrollment process.

Nachteile

Once something is entered into Kareo it is almost impossible to remove it. For example, providers that no longer work for the practice or adding a CPT code to an already submitted claim.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

EpicCare EMR

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Kareo Clinical

No, we use both with our clients

Vorteile

There are many reasons that this program is useful. A few is:
1) The ease of access to information looking for
2) The ease of program navigation
3) Customer Care quality (when and if there's an issue)
4) Fast response and how the issue is handled
5) The ease of inputting of information

Nachteile

The only thing that I find to be an issue is the "Rejection" responses to the Clearinghouse reports. For example, I have had a few claims that were rejected with "Remaining Patient Liability is required when Line Adjudication Information is not sent." I have gone over the COB from when I posted the payment and all the required information, payments applied, and patient coinsurance is all inputted correctly, but I still got a rejection notice. To me, that is a little confusing.

Vorteile

The sales lady who was mesmerizing and made it look like a dream EHR

Nachteile

Customer Service, note templates, ERx integration