Allscripts vs Epic: What Suits Your Practice Best

Allscripts Electronic Health Records (EHR) Software

The EHR software from Allscripts is a great system that is used by ambulatory healthcare facilities in the US. Earlier, it started as an electronic prescribing company.

But now, it has become a leader in population health, EHR, precision medicine, and financial management solutions. 

It is not just a straightforward healthcare solution but a comprehensive package with innovative features.

This software is best known for its charting, prescription, and quality reporting capabilities.

Allscripts EHR is a platform that is free to use and lets our practice talk to other practices and hospitals.

It also helps us integrate with other large-scale healthcare management systems, like electronic medical records (EMRs), practice management systems (PMSs), and health information exchanges (HIE).

Who Uses Allscripts EHR Software?

Allscripts is a global company with nearly 180,000 physicians. It also caters to about 45,000 ambulatory facilities, 17,000 post-acute organizations, and 2,500 hospitals.

Allscripts offers three outstanding services based on the type of care the practice provides.

• Professional EHR, designed for small to mid-sized organizations
• Touch Works EHR is designed for large and multi-specialty practices.
• Sunrise acute care EMR is designed for hospitals and healthcare systems.

Allscripts EHR Features—Admired by Healthcare Providers

We have experienced numerous Allscripts EMR software features that have helped improve our practice efficiency. We’ll go over some of the most important ones here.

• Clinical Workflow
• e-Prescription
• Lab Integration
• Medical Templates
• Patient History
• Patient Demographics
• Patient Portal
• Scheduling
• Voice Recognition
• Referrals
• Reporting and Analytics

Allscripts EMR: Key Advantages

The Allscripts EMR System is a fantastic tool for monitoring and simplifying practice workflows.

The software solution provides numerous advantages to its users. Some of the most significant advantages that we have personally experienced are as follows:

Check-In Efficiency

Front-desk staff can streamline patient check-ins via a guided, step-by-step process in EMR.

This guided process helped us better guide the practitioners in providing complete care and improving information compilation.

Telehealth Capabilities

Allscripts EHR allows us to conduct appointments with patients remotely with its telehealth capabilities.

This feature is especially helpful for our patients who face difficulty traveling to see us (their providers).

Patient Portals

Our patients can access their health information through the patient portal of Allscripts EHR. They can also schedule appointments, request online refills, and pay their medical bills.

Third-Party Software Integrations

Allscripts EHR offers third-party software integrations. It aided our practice’s use of Allscripts EHR in conjunction with other software systems.

Speed-Up Billing Feature

The billing feature of Allscripts EHR allows our practice to submit claims and quickly receive payments electronically. 

The solution is also valuable for tracking patient payments and producing reports.

Epic Electronic Health Records (EHR) Software

Epic is a healthcare software business established in the United States. It provides its customers with excellent EHR and practice management capabilities.

The software helps with patient engagement, automating coding and revenue, managing health insurance operations, and learning predictive insights.

Healthcare providers all around the globe use EpicCare EMR solutions to manage their daily operations, from appointment scheduling to payments and billing.

The EpicCare software suite offers functionalities catering to the needs of healthcare practitioners.

The EpicCare EHR software demo can guide you regarding the product’s functionalities and help you assess how it can benefit your practice.

Who Uses EpicCare EMR Software?

Numerous medical facilities and healthcare organizations across the United States employ Epic EMR software.

It meets the requirements of numerous organizations, from private practices and specialty-specific practices to large-scale medical organizations. In addition, the majority of Stage 7 HIMSS hospitals use Epic EMR software to improve organizational profitability and patient safety.

Epic EMR Software Features—Approved by Healthcare Providers

EpicCare EMR Software offers various features that aid in enhancing our practice efficiency.

Here is a list of EpicCare EMR features that we have personally experienced.

• Appointment Management
• Billing Management
• Clinical Workflow
• Document Management
• Insurance and Claims
• Lab Integration
• Medical Templates
• Patient Demographics
• Patient History
• Patient Portal
• Referrals
• Reporting and Analytics
• Scheduling
• Voice Recognition
• e-Prescription

EpicCare EHR—Key Advantages

EpicCare EMR software is an excellent system for managing and automating practice workflows.

In addition, the software solution offers numerous benefits for its users. Some of the key benefits that we have personally experienced are as follows:

Self-Service Capabilities

EpicCare EHR helps our patients access key health data, self-service capabilities, and health and wellness reminders through Epic’s EHR-agnostic patient portal.

Accelerate Payments

Epic’s scalable payment system lets users manage estimates and speed up payments with online bill pay.

They can also combine their unpaid patient bills into a single statement.

Predictive Analytics

With the help of embedded decision support tools and predictive analytics, we can better manage our resources and get a better idea of how much everything costs as a whole, which leads to better results.

Integrated Portal

The integrated portal by EpicCare EMR helps our community providers stay up-to-date with their patients. 

It also assists with submitting referrals, scheduling visits, ordering labs and imaging, and more.

Coordinated Care Delivery

Epic EMR helps our case managers find patients who are at high risk so that we can give them the best care possible.

It also helps with coordinating care delivery and closing care gaps.

Allscripts vs. Epic: Shared Features

Some of the features that are common among both software suites are as follows:

Billing and Invoicing

The Allscripts EMR and Epic EHR software suites assist healthcare providers with medical billing and coding to improve revenue cycle management in various medical practices.

As a result, workflows improve substantially, and practice personnel can devote more time to what matters most—their patients.

Patient Portal

MyChart, which is part of EpicCare’s patient module, lets patients access health information about themselves and their families from their mobile devices.

They can also communicate with physicians, schedule appointments, complete questionnaires, and participate in e-visits.

In-house patients can also use MyChart Bedside to view their schedule, request assistance from a physician, and access personalized treatment plans.

The Allscripts online patient portal lets doctor’s offices save time, cut costs, and make more money while giving patients services that are becoming more popular.

Patients can use the patient portal to make appointments, renew prescriptions, see test results, and do other common tasks online.

They can also send HIPAA-compliant encrypted messages to their healthcare professionals.

Electronic Health Records (EHR) or Electronic Medical Records (EMRs)

Allscripts and EpicCare System both provide EHR and EMR functionality. 

An EMR provides a more limited view of a patient’s medical history, whereas an EHR provides a more comprehensive picture of the patient’s overall health.

This means that an EHR has more data than an EMR.

Clinicians use these tools to record and store the medical information about their patients.

Both are made for specialty clinics and larger hospital groups, with different solutions depending on whether the practice offers outpatient or inpatient care.

Technical Support

Keeping IT solutions operational can take time and effort.

Healthcare organizations must manage all updates, upgrades, regulatory enhancements, disaster recovery, migrations, and business continuity.

It is even more difficult when you’re trying to minimize downtime and have critical skill sets on hand to leverage the solutions best. Technical and support services make all of this easier.

Both Allscripts and EpicCare software systems offer excellent technical support to their customers.

Allscripts vs. Epic Pricing: A Brief Comparison

Allscripts EHR and EpicCare EHR software are top-rated solutions now ruling the market.

Both software systems offer their customers good value for their money.

Allscripts EMR—How Much Does It Cost?

Allscripts offers two pricing options for their clients: Allscripts Pro and Allscripts Touchworks EHR. 

Allscripts Pro is designed for smaller practices with 2–24 physicians, while Allscripts Touchworks is intended for larger organizations with 25+ physicians. Pricing for Allscripts software begins at $299 per provider per month.

The price varies depending on the package you select. Implementation fees range from $5,000 to $50,000, depending on the features and functionalities required.

Still, the overall product price is relatively high. It also does not provide a free trial, which is rather disappointing.

Customers can contact the vendor to get pricing details for the product.

They can also contact the Allscripts sales and support team to get a customized quote for their medical practice.

EpicCare EMR—How Much Does It Cost?

The pricing structure for Epic is more complex than that of Allscripts because there are three different tiers available: EpicCare Ambulatory, Inpatient & ClinDoc, and Beaker & Cupid.

For each tier, different packages are available at various price points, as well as additional modules that can be added on top of that.

EpicCare EMR pricing starts at around $200 per provider per month with FindEMR.

The prices vary depending on the size of your organization and what features you need access to.

The implementation fees vary greatly depending on what type of services are needed, but typically run in the range of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

The EpicCare sales and support teams provide customers with customized quotes specific to their organizational needs.

Final Verdict

The main difference between Allscripts and Epic is affordability and scalability. Allscripts is more cost-effective and easier to implement, making it ideal for smaller practices. While Epic is designed for larger healthcare organizations due to its advanced features, higher scalability, and integrated care delivery. 

Allscripts focuses on user-friendliness, with lower costs, whereas Epic excels in long-term cost-effectiveness, predictive analytics, and handling large-scale operations

We’ve used both software solutions for our medical practice and made a list of things to think about.

• We found Epic to be easier to use, administer, and do business with when comparing the two solutions. On the other hand, Allscripts’ EHR has proven to be easier to set up.
• After looking at how well each product is supported over time, we decided that EpicCare is the best option.
• EpicCare met our company’s needs better than Allscripts EHR.
• Our team preferred the EpicCare EMR direction for feature updates and roadmaps over Allscripts EMR.
• Although EpicCare is slightly more expensive to install initially, in terms of long-term use, it saves much more time and resources. That is why our team is leaning toward Epic EHR.

It led us to conclude that, in the battle between Allscripts EMR and EpicCare EMR, EpicCare is the clear winner.