# myAvatar Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is myAvatar the right Mental Health EHR solution for you? Explore 37 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/209716/myAvatar/reviews --- myAvatar 2.3 (37) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/209716/myAvatar/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated April 14th, 2026 # Reviews of myAvatar Ease of use 2.2 Customer Service 2.3 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews MM Marc M Crisis Outreach Case ManagerMental Health Care, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “It's been an uncomplicated, user friendly client charting system, that lets the organization do both in-house customization along with coordinated development with NetSmart.“ September 10, 2024 BH Byron H Outpatient TherapistMental Health Care, 201 - 500 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “Crashes constantly, slow, looses data and forms, ugly looking and outdated user interface.“ August 1, 2025 FC Faith C Psychiatric Nurse PractitionerHospital & Health Care, 1,001 - 5,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Not reliable, crashes and runs slow with page load lags, patient information is fragmented, script ordering has a poor display and the history is organized by month, day, then year - it is IMPOSSIBLE to view prescription history in chronological order (needs to be year, month, day)- patient safety risk in my opinion.“ May 22, 2022 KC Kim C PsychiatristMental Health Care, 1,001 - 5,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “With each patient encounter comes an average of 4 system failures of various sorts, some show stoppers, some actual threats to patient safety such as displaying someone else's records randomly or simply erasing the detailed note you just wrote for that critical patient. And many failures are completely new after 6 years. “ January 3, 2023 EL Eric L TherapistHealth, Wellness and Fitness, 201 - 500 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months. “UI, inconsistency of design, buggy nature, readability, difficulty of use.“ December 22, 2023 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 37 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use BE Brett E. ESM Manager Mental Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Robust Software" February 15, 2018 4.0 Robust feature set makes it very flexible solution Pros The feature sets are nice. They provide both outpatient and inpatient features. They offer the ability to customize exiating forms or create your own. Cons The solution is java based and can be slow. Could require a lot of maintenance by IT staff if not in a Citrix type emvironment. Review Source FC Faith C. Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "myCrapatar" May 22, 2022 1.0 Pros There is very little to like. I have used other systems and all are better. I cannot even say it is reliable. Cons Not reliable, crashes and runs slow with page load lags, patient information is fragmented, script ordering has a poor display and the history is organized by month, day, then year - it is IMPOSSIBLE to view prescription history in chronological order (needs to be year, month, day)- patient safety risk in my opinion. Labs do not display correct dates - displays the date reviewed not date resulted (leads to patient safety risk). There is not a simple way to do anything in this system. You must approve each note you submit and then click away many pop-ups for menial things like “note filed” (just why?!). If I was to work somewhere else, I would not go to work for a company that had this software. It is driving me to want to find a company that uses something else. Review Source BN Brittany N. Physician Assistant Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Avatar for Mental Health EHR" July 11, 2024 2.0 Pros Ability to make templates, drop down bar at top to see other encounters, customizable home screen, autosaves notes into draft Cons Does not automatically carry over information such as past medical history from one note to another within an episode (admission), does not automatically import lab results into note, not connected with a lot of other medical facilities to see outside visits/notes Review Source NW Nathan W. therapist Mental Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Barely better than paper" November 17, 2021 1.0 It's made me very jealous of providers that use Epic. It looks nice, it's fast, and it seems to be laid out logically with the user in mind. Pros Avatar was the upgrade from our previous software SATIS, about 15 years ago. That felt like an upgrade compared to the MS-DOS like UI of SATIS. Cons Slow and clunky. Frequent outages would paralyze our ability to work. Running simple reports with few pages can take 30 minutes, and that may be on a fast day. We were just recently "upgraded" to the NX version, and wow...never have I seen an upgrade be such a downgrade. It's as if they surveyed users to find out what functions were most beneficial to an efficient workflow, then made a conscious effort to take them out...literally. There is no evident benefit to the upgrade other than a visual refresh. Efficiency was clearly not a focus as it now takes more time and work to complete tasks that could be done from the home screen. The scheduling calendar looks like it open 3-4 different pages before then looking like Netflix on shoddy wifi on a Friday night. Some information that used to be visible in one click has been made impossible to access without running a massively time consuming report for a few lines of info. Someone coming from paper charting might decide paper isn't too bad. The best part of NX is that it made me realize that the previous version wasn't so bad. I would only suggest it to people looking to frustrate their employees into resignation. I could blame my employer for choosing to go live with it in it's current state, but this is Netsmart's product, and it's horrible. Review Source RJ Randa J. SUD specialist Health, Wellness and Fitness Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Designer clearly never worked in the field" September 23, 2021 2.0 I can't imagine why anyone would want to buy it. Pros ???? Cool name? I can't think of anything this program does that is not better provided by other software. Cons The 72 hour deadline ensures that most people are putting in poorly witten and spelled garbage, because in real life emergencies happen and you can't always plan enough time for documentation on a giver day. The program is unwieldy to use: there is no way to set defaults to save time or enter multiple notes on one client without have to search the client, and enter all the same information again. You can't easily correct or add to a note once submitted. It's not user friendly- the software is sloppy. It is very difficult to find anything once you have put it in unless you know who entered it and the exact date. For the first time in over 30 years in the field, I almost never check notes , because it is no difficult to find anything. More than half of the note that comes up is repetitiuos garbage in tiny print, if you do make the effort, so it is hard to find the info that was input. If you enter anythingincorrectly in the calendar, you lose all the data and have to start over. In some reports you have to enter your last name and first initial, on others you get an error message if you enter your first initial. Some common client names are glitchy and do not come up when you search, so you have to look up their record number. Review Source CW Christine W. Not Important Mental Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "In FULL agreement with the other 22 people that left reviews" August 28, 2023 3.0 It has some positives, but overall it is very frustrating due to increased work load from a lack of efficient coding to provide better ease of use. Pros It is easier to use than the former EMR utilized. Cons It is not user friendly; it is clear that the people designing it have not ever worked in the field. There are too many clicks without efficiency. It creates more work because of that lack of efficiency within writing/coding the software. Review Source KC Kim C. Psychiatrist Mental Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "We've been using Avatar for 6 years and it still leaves me in despair." January 3, 2023 1.0 Daily despair, progressing more recently to potentially life-threatening arrhythmias. Seeing patients while documenting and looking for data concurrently is a torturous burden. With each patient encounter comes an average of 4 system failures of various sorts, some show stoppers, some actual threats to patient safety such as displaying someone else's records randomly or simply erasing the detailed note you just wrote for that critical patient. And many failures are completely new after 6 years. Every so often Netsmart upgrades the system, meaning we have to learn a very different interface, and also meaning that we need to concurrently use all of the preceding system iterations, because Netsmart has not included all previous functions that are necessary to see patients. Soon we will lose access to the iteration that allows us to look up past records quickly and easily, which may turn that function into evening and weekend projects if we value the lives of our patients. This likely contributes to loss of prescribing staff. I stay because I've already seen the human cost of patients going without consistent providers for long periods, especially in an information-challenged system. Pros Some parts of it look as though they might be a real medical grade EHR software. Cons It is not even remotely medical grade EHR software. Review Source MS Matthew S. Counselor Hospitality Used the software for: 2+ years ### "I've used others so I am aware what good looks like." January 27, 2023 1.0 They were supposedly designing the latest and greatest EMR but what we got was awful. To give you an idea of how bad it is, the software would often crash while in the middle of using it with a client/patient. Pros I am really trying hard to think of a pro. If I have to put that much thought into trying to come up with a positive I would have to say there probably is not much. This would be good software to use if your agency is shady and needs to hide to things because it is so hard from anyone from the outside to find anything on it. Cons Let's start with the no in-person support when we went live despite being told someone would be here. The biggest problem is it is not intuitive and very difficult to access things. It seems like the software was deliberating designed to not be able to find things as if we should be hiding things from auditors and regulators. The upgrade from MyAvatar to MyAvatarNX was actually worse. The software is so bad that it demoralized me to the point of looking for different employment after 7 years. Review Source PS Paul S. mental health therapist Mental Health Care Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Avatar: How to make large caseloads seem even larger." October 30, 2023 1.0 It pretty much got me fired. Pros It puts EMR I.T. people to work in the industry I guess. Cons The platform looks like something from the "dial up" era, its slow and will crash in the middle of a session. I eventually got fired for shouting out f-bombs in my office (no one in session but me and the computer of course..) Its easy to lose forms or drafts, making you have to fill it out over again. You can barely read a completed form if you find a way to complete it which is cause for celebration. When you do a CCAR or a simple R.O.I. you get error messages and you have to go back. Heck with this job, I'm going to find a way to get into private practice. No more community "McMental Health" for this therapist. This software makes all of the paperwork we have to do even harder. Even the supervisors and EMR techs didn't know how to use it. Review Source EL Eric L. Therapist Health, Wellness and Fitness Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Worst software I’ve used. " December 22, 2023 1.0 The worst possible user experience. Wastes so much time, makes me want to quit my job. Pros I can’t think of anything. It’s truly awful. Cons UI, inconsistency of design, buggy nature, readability, difficulty of use. Review Source EA ERIC A. Crisis Clinician Mental Health Care Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Absolutely the WORST!! " January 9, 2021 1.0 This system has doubled the amount of time we're writing notes and we are capturing a fraction of the information Pros Honestly? I like that I can change the color of my screen. Cons Impossible to navigate, you reenter the same information on multiple screens, the diagnostic feature is inadequate... the list goes on and on. No one in my agency likes it. It is clearly a vehicle to collect data. I would LITERALLY use an old typewriter instead of this. If you care anything about your patients, stay away from this platform! Review Source KC Kenneth C. Doctor Medical Practice Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Worst EMR I have ever encountered" June 17, 2016 1.0 Pros Nothing at all, this product literally has no redeeming qualities. Cons Completely ridiculous formatting that requires an extraordinary number of extraneous keystrokes to enter even basic information. Review Source Nathan D. Case manager Mental Health Care Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Absolute trash software" December 5, 2025 1.0 Avatar by Netsmart is a technological hellscape of inefficiency and poor design. It borders on self-parody. Pros There’s absolutely nothing redeemable about this software. It’s fundamentally lacking in literally every possible way. This software should be purged from the earth. Cons I’ve been in the field of social work for nearly two decades, and I can say without exaggeration that this is the most counterintuitive, clunky, and glitch-ridden software I’ve ever used. Basic, essential information—such as emergency contacts, diagnoses, and insurance details—is buried behind layers of poorly organized menus and cannot be accessed efficiently. Note sections must be completed in an illogical, forced order, and the system regularly deletes client signatures or blocks access to notes you’ve already written. Netsmart Avatar is so fundamentally dysfunctional that its implementation by an agency should be considered a red flag for prospective employees. It actively hinders productivity, jeopardizes documentation integrity, and adds needless stress to already demanding work. I would give it zero stars if that were an option. Review Source BH Byron H. Outpatient Therapist Mental Health Care Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Do not waste your time and money " August 1, 2025 1.0 Horrible. Truly a nightmare. This software is a joke. I cannot believe CCBHCs continue to use this garbage. Pros Nothing. There’s absolute no positive words to have for this software. It’s truly the most frustrating and disappointing EHR software in existence. Cons Crashes constantly, slow, looses data and forms, ugly looking and outdated user interface. Has wasted mine and my clients time causing distress. Review Source DW DUSHAWN W. Peer counselor Mental Health Care Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Great resource to have access to." August 26, 2025 4.0 My overall experience with the SAP was great, but when it's down it can make it your day long and hard knowing how much of the bulk of work we put on the App. Pros Ease of use. it helped me track my movements and the distance and the financial obligation. it is a great value for the money and a good tool for tracking all of our data as well showing the benefit and support of a great tool with a performance and speed that seems to be unmatched this is definitely something that has made my job more manageable because I work in the field most of the time and this makes my day breeze by because of the light Maintenace of me having to record every stop and go. Cons When most of the apps tend to glitch, when I stop my day and also have me to manually recording all of my travel time and day. Review Source LC Linda C. Account Receivables Mental Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Easy Navigation and User Friendly" July 1, 2025 3.0 I did like Avatar as it was user friendly, but wished it was geared more towards billing and hoped it would generate bills directly from the practitioners entries of services rendered. Pros I liked that it was easy to navigate within the billing portion in regard to demographics, insurance and posting payments. Cons I did not like how the billing statements appeared it took a lot of efforts from our IT department to modify and appeared to be confusing to the clients. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Dental Intern Health, Wellness and Fitness Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "No regret, glad I use it." February 25, 2026 4.0 It's good. It does what it needs to do and isn't insanely expensive considering all the features. It's very useful. Pros I can tailor the interface, workflows, and screen requirements to match any specific needs. There are many features. Cons Sometimes the software is slow and can be prone to crashes. I have also experienced lags with page loading. Review Source AH Adeline H. QMHP Mental Health Care Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "kinda glitchy but okay" July 29, 2025 4.0 it is doable I can use it daily at work and run into some problems, but they are able to be resolved usually Pros I like being able to have all the client's info easily accessible and being able to see the full note history Cons glitches, hard to learn at first, sometimes crashes or is really slow, has bugs like accidentally submitting double notes so billing twice Review Source BO Becky O. NUTRITIONIST Health, Wellness and Fitness Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "myAvatar: The Comprehensive System for Mental Health EHR" February 11, 2025 5.0 Overally i have had a rich experience with myAvatar because of its comprehensive system capabilities and customizable features. Pros I like that the system is flexible to customization which has made it possible to tailor work flow to specific needs. Cons The system learning is not very easy and so training staff on it can take quite some time. Review Source LJ Lolanda J. Community Navigator Mental Health Care Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Navigating AVATAR" March 28, 2025 5.0 Avatar was extremely hard to navigate for a while, but I am now getting the hang of it. Pros The ease of finding and adding appointments Cons locating forms to be completed for the clients having Mutiple screens open Review Source bN baylee N. Talent Partner Telecommunications Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "myAvatar review" October 17, 2025 5.0 I have used it for my own personal use and really enjoyed the product itself. I find the functionality very easy to use. Pros I like the features it offers I think are very unique and the integrations of the product itself is very unique. Cons I cannot say there is anything in particular that I dislike about myAvatar , overall it's a very good product. Review Source MM Marc M. Crisis Outreach Case Manager Mental Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Avatar for Clinic Use" September 10, 2024 5.0 It's been an uncomplicated, user friendly client charting system, that lets the organization do both in-house customization along with coordinated development with NetSmart. Pros Ability to customize the interface for teams of users to both limit access to information beyond user need and focus on providing client information in a clear fashion. Cons Display color and font size can be a bit faint and cause fatigue. Review Source GW George W. admin Capital Markets Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Terrible" November 28, 2023 1.0 Pros Nothing, it is terrible. I would not recommend this to anyone. Cons It is full of bugs and does not work well under the best circumstances. Review Source SL Susan L. Physician Mental Health Care Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Do not recommmend" April 3, 2023 1.0 Pros It has nice background colors. It is very basic. It is not complicated with fancy features that Cerner and EPIC have. Cons It is often non-functional. There is no way to search for studies such as imaging. It does not help track quality metrics. Review Source CW Chris W. IT Dir Health, Wellness and Fitness Used the software for: 2+ years ### "No support" March 17, 2022 1.0 Used to be good now it's poor Pros When we purchased it, it was very good but now not so much Cons Cost, no support from Netsmart, not able to make font size adjustment so you can read the home page. 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