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Pros
Glad and pleased with my choice in trusting the team at Phoenix. They have always been there when problems arise and are very prompt in resolution.
Overall, this is a very solid company for the right size practice and presents a great value for the money. You can build a successful practice and scale with Phoenix as a partner.
We have been with Phoenix Ortho since 2015 and have been very pleased with the system and the technical support is top notch.
Their reviews are the same: a rock solid EHR and most certainly "Best in Class" (Orthopedic Only).
Cons
We have used the software for almost 3 years and since day 1,there have been problems with database issues, missing records,and overall things not working the way they are supposed to.
We are honestly scared when we update as what is going to break or not work. The reporting is terrible as the majority of reports are broken as well.
This is a problem if the injury was in another decade (such as 2009). When entering the date, you click on "Onset of Symptoms" then click on "Acute with Injury" then click on "On Date.
There were many problems with right/left when a patient came in with bilateral problems. When we would call for support, they would tell us that most of their users saw patients with only one problem.
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Showing 14 of 14 reviews
"Easy to Use and Cost Effective"
Overall: Great overall. It's a good system for the price. Easily comparable to systems that are 2-3 times the cost.
Pros: Ease of use to build and customize. Best value for your practice's dollars.
Cons: Customer Support hasn't historically had all the answers. I wish follow up was better on their part, less chasing on ours.
"Phoenix Ortho"
Pros: It is very user friendly and specific to each provider. This allows each one of them to, in essence, have their own EHR, built the way they want it. Being Ortho specific makes it easier to make changes that will make sense for all of their customers.
Cons: E-prescribing process does not flow well. It takes many steps to get an appropriate, current medication list in the chart for a patient.
Vendor Response
"Might be Ok if they ever finish it"
Pros: I have to say that due to problems with the software, my staff and I had several calls and emails into support, and they did respond relatively fast. Sadly, their response was usually that the software couldn't do what we asked and that we should try and find some workaround.
Cons: Although one could never expect any one piece of software to be a perfect fit for everyone, I believe that my experience would be typical, because I have a general orthopedic practice. The opinions held within this review were based on my use of the software for almost a year (I have since discontinued use of the software and returned to paper charts. I have also resumed my shopping for an EHR). My first main complaint is that although the software can handle a patient encounter with more than one body part, when you do have more than one body part, the software becomes much harder to use and errors get easily introduced into the record (mostly right <--> left). When entering the diagnosis, the side defaults to the body part selected on the "main" page. So if you want to enter a diagnosis for the right shoulder, left knee, right radiculopathy, etc., you either have to click back to the main page and select the body part or you have to make sure you change the side. On a followup visit, I asked them why the computer doesn't already know that the shoulder diagnosis is on the right, they said that I have to fix that each time. In addition, my surgery scheduler tells me that if a patient has a bilateral problem (such as bilateral shoulder injuries), when surgery is recommended, there was no obvious indication in the reports or order as to which side upon which I desired to operate. We had many complaints regarding the way the software handled patients with multiple problems at a single visit. For example, you couldn't post a surgery on a knee and a shoulder at the same visit. You can't order physical therapy on more than one area without editing the prescription each time. There were many problems with right/left when a patient came in with bilateral problems. When we would call for support, they would tell us that most of their users saw patients with only one problem. In my practice, I see a lot of major injuries. My patients rarely have one problem. It isn't uncommon for a patient to have a neck, back, knee and shoulder injury (as an example); this software was very difficult to use in that situation. Also, one odd problem with the software was that if the same exam applied to two body parts, sometimes the final report who show two different findings for the same exam. This is extremely embarrassing, especially when you have to explain this in a deposition. For example: if a patient has a cervical injury and a wrist injury with medial nerve numbness. In the cervical exam section, normal sensation will be documented; however, in the wrist exam, there will be numbness along a median nerve distribution. As far as documenting and reporting of the physical exam, there were several flaws with the software. With the cervical exam, it was difficult to document myelopathy. That had to be typed in the comment section each time. The physical exam section was minimally modifiable. In addition, if I saw a patient with a neck injury, it was awkward to document abdominal or lower extremity reflexes. Those are documented in the lower extremity or lumbar exam screens. As a result, you would have to add the lumbar as a problem (even if it wasn't) in order to document those areas. When I suggested various modifications to the exam the developers created, support told me that I had to use the exam as they had it and add anything else in the comment section. Also, many of my patients' diagnoses are associated with a particular date of onset (or date of injury). I need that in the history (especially in work comp charts). To have a date of injury in the history, you have to "click" on their data entry tree. This is a problem if the injury was in another decade (such as 2009). When entering the date, you click on "Onset of Symptoms" then click on "Acute with Injury" then click on "On Date." Then you are defaulted to a calendar of this month and year. So you click on "Year," and it shows you a list of years in this decade (i.e.. 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 etc.) so then you click on "Decade". Then you click on the 2000-2009 decade, then click "2009," then click the month, and then click the day. I asked them why the computer can't remember that the patient fractured their forearm in 2009. Why do I have to remind the computer of that each visit? Things like date of onset and side should be associated with the diagnosis so they don't have to be entered each time. Another issue is that to use some of the functions of the software, you have to give the user local admin rights on the computer. This is lazy programming. Check with your IT guy; he won't like that at all! They should have set up the software so that it only required specific privileges, not Admin privileges. Another major problem was that the reports had major formatting issues and they were not customizable by the end user. So the office notes generated looked amateur. Chiropractor software was generating more professional reports than mine. I was so embarrassed, especially if my report was being used as evidence in a personal injury case. Another problem was that each time I set up a surgery, I needed to send that "task" to a specific employee. So each time I'd have to select that person out of a 15 person pull-down list. Why can't the software remember that all surgery requests should go to employee A for scheduling? This may seem minor, but it is an example of how amateur this software feels. It is a generally accepted standard that when entering username and password, the cursor starts in the username field. You type the username, hit the Tab key, then type the password and then press the Return key - not with Phoenix Ortho. After entering the username, the first Tab takes you to a useless checkbox, and the second TAB takes you to the password field. So you have to be cognizant of that when you are working in Phoenix Ortho, because it is different than all other software. Also, there was no internal consistency in the software. Certain activities had contextual pull-down menus, whereas others had pop-up dialog boxes. As a result, the software was very annoying to use on a large screen, because in many cases where a contextual menu would work great, they'd use a pop-up, and I found that my mouse was chasing down pop-up boxes all over my screen. It is true that you can scan in documents (such as imaging reports), but there was no way to search for them; there was no way to add keywords; you couldn't even sort them alphabetically or by date. So results were in random order, and it took forever to get information out of the software.
Vendor Response
"Top Notch EHR"
Overall: We have been with Phoenix Ortho since 2015 and have been very pleased with the system and the technical support is top notch.
Pros: Great customer service team. Issues are handled in a timely and professional manner.
Cons: There has not been a time that I was dissatisfied with any of the Phoenix Ortho EHR operations.
Vendor Response
"Great system for mid-sized orthopedics companies "
Overall: Our experience with Phoenix has been great. We scaled from a 10-provider practice to 17 providers on this software. The support team is solid. They know the product. You will be dealing with one person, not an 800 number if anything goes wrong. They were built for ortho. The providers find it very easy to use and generally enjoy working in the system. The only knock is that it's not an all-in-one solution, which creates the need to bridge the clinical side of house to billing. We use an encounter form process to accomplish that, which works for us. Overall, this is a very solid company for the right size practice and presents a great value for the money. You can build a successful practice and scale with Phoenix as a partner.
Pros: -Ortho specific -Physicians find it easy to use -Training new employees is simple -Support is solid
Cons: -Not an "all-in-on" solution for PM and EMR -No option to have patients do their own HPI (but I believe this is coming in the near future)
"This has been a mess since day One"
Overall: We will be leaving as soon as possible.I get that a lot of these emr systems are a work in progress. Beta testing seems like an option either they can not afford or do not have the qualified staff to implement.As a Surgeon I don't like to be bothered with technical problems.And this has been a learning experience for myself and our staff.
Pros: Its simple,has an easy to understand interface,not overly complex.At first we as a practice liked this product, but it has gone downhill since the last year.
Cons: We have used the software for almost 3 years and since day 1,there have been problems with database issues, missing records,and overall things not working the way they are supposed to.They are always quick to blame the customer and are highly offended any time you bring something to their attention.Issues with Installers should have been a sign of things to come.We are honestly scared when we update as what is going to break or not work. The reporting is terrible as the majority of reports are broken as well.Also shows erratic behavior when charting.I can do the same thing every day and all of a sudden it does something weird or throws up some sort of error message.
"CFAR review"
Overall: Was an early adapter 15+ years ago. Glad and pleased with my choice in trusting the team at Phoenix. They have always been there when problems arise and are very prompt in resolution. They listen and act upon our feedback and requests. Couldn’t ask for anything more.
Pros: Everything is intuitive, visually simple and so Orthopedic focused. Not meant for every specialty and that is a good thing. Swiss Army knives are great but definitely not sleek or easy to use!
Cons: Pop ups but pop ups are good for comprehensive care and meeting criteria.
Vendor Response
"Phoenix Ortho EHR"
Overall: Overall, the experience has been ok. We have run into issues with updates at times but support is usually quick to resolve the issues.
Pros: The support is unbelievable. If you have any issues/problems, support is quick to respond.
Cons: The system can seem a little clunky at times. There are certain things administrators can and can't do that don't seem to align.
"Phoenix has many top features"
Overall: Overall we are happy with our choice of Phoenix.
Pros: There are a lot of features you get 'out of the box' as they say. There is a lot built in to the software that doesn't require us to make changes to. Additionally, many of the features can be customized to our specific needs.
Cons: Getting a response for support or a problem is almost impossible. The patient portal is also quite difficult to use. It would be better if the paperwork was more easily changed to fit our specific needs.
"Phoenix review"
Pros: They have a lot of cool features such as drag and dropping which works great for a busy schedule. Ortho office friendly, front office staff friendly. Well organized and easy to navigate to find things for patients.
Cons: A little difficult to figure things out at first, and have had some issues at least twice a week with some technical difficulties. The fax system is also not very well set up.
"Not user friendly"
Overall: As a front office staff, I would not recommend this EHR system for any orthopedic office.
Pros: I can appreciate the user friendliness of scheduling patients and being able to view the schedules well enough to not have to bounce between screens a lot. Also, it's user friendly in regards to data entry.
Cons: The ability to obtain faxes through this system is non existent and very hard to set up. We are unable to route properly and waste a lot of paper having to manually scan in to the appropriate patient. They do updates during open hours and we've had a few system breakdowns that caused interruption and deletion of faxes, new patient appointments, and even data.
"5+ years with Phoenix Ortho"
Pros: Phoenix Ortho ensures that you are very comfortable with the product by ensuring you have staff on-hand for deployment. Unlike larger EMR packages, Phoenix is perfectly suited to an Orthopedic Practice and allows for easy customization. Creating templates, pick lists, and setting up for visits takes a minute to sink in and is a breeze. Of course, if you ever run into issues, tech support is very easy to get a hold of.
Cons: I have nothing bad to say. Anytime we run into issues, we are quickly supported and can even offer suggestions for the next versions coming out. Phoenix Ortho listens to their clients' needs and does the best they can to implement changes that will improve their product.
"Phoenix is good for our practice"
Overall: Overall, phoenix is working for us!
Pros: The scheduling OPS is great. The scanning is very easy. The document filing can be customized and therefore is very friendly.
Cons: The clinical side can be cumbersome. The clicking of buttons isn't easy for our providers, and so we use dictation into the applicable field. The MA's have more work to do. There are a few things that could be automated to improve the software.
"Premier Orthopedic-Specific EHR"
Pros: Premier focus on orthopedics. Ease of setup and maintenance. Appears to follow (flow with) most routine and focused injury/disease exams. Technical support is five stars. I love how the program compiles the computer-generated exam into a concise, problem-specific patient encounter.
Cons: All EHR's are most certainly "a work in progress." They have to be with the constant government changes. This company is constantly modifying the program to keep up with reporting regulations and technical procedural changes. As far as the vendor goes, if they promise something, they deliver. Trust is an issue in today's EHR marketplace, but not here.