CareCloud

We are a three physician rheumatology practice in Miami Beach, Florida and have been electronic since 2004. Our experiences until CareCloud were frustrating, to say the least. Our previous EHR/PM system was horrible, despite being one of the biggest names around. It was (and remains) a legacy system, saddled with screens that were full of checkboxes and devoid of any intuitive menus. Simple tasks would take multiple clicks, and that's if you spent hours doing the training to learn what those clicks were. Our accounts receivable was ballooning, the result of a practice management system that would reassure us that claims had gone through, only later to learn when drilling down that they were still being held by the system or somewhere lost by the clearinghouse, which was another nightmare. In short, we were through with this system.

It took a lot to decide to move on to another system (there is quite a bit of inertia to overcome, to say the least), but I can honestly say, looking back, that switching to CareCloud was one of our best decisions last year. In terms of the practice management side, I am no longer in fear that my billing staff will quit on me. The interface is intuitive, adjustments are easy to make, reports are easy to generate, and most importantly, our AR is now back to our target. Our clean claims rate to Medicare is over 97-98%, in part, thanks to CareCloud. Electronic remittance advice is autoposting for nearly all payers (in our old system, we were manually posting most of the time because we could not trust the software to autopost correctly!).

As far as the EHR is concerned, I went into this understanding that CareCloud had just launched their EHR just a few months before I switched. The weakest link is probably its note composer. It should be a bit more structured. However, for me this works out perfectly, since the HPI and Impression and Plan are dictated by me using Dragon voice-recognition software. I've been told by the higher-ups at CareCloud that there is an entirely new revamp of the note composer that will fix all the weaknesses of the current one which should arrive any day now. I can say that the e-prescriber is far better than 2 previous ones I've used before. Looking up a pharmacy is intuitive and quick, and I haven't been called by a patient or pharmacy once to tell me the e-Rx never arrived. The scheduler is intuitive, easy to use. Many of my follow up notes are similar (we deal with chronic problems), so that it was important for me to be able to copy the old note into the new one, then make adjustments. We're able to do this with the simple click of a button. The whole interface is intuitive. I was pretty much set to go with about 3-4 hours of training, very different from the other systems that I used. I sort of liken this to the difference between working an iPad vs. an old PC running DOS.

The last thing I want to mention is support. I have been very skeptical about promises previously made. Half the support questions in my old system could not be figured out by the vendor, so my ticket got turfed to someone on the other side of the world. Needless to say, this was a nightmare, as those support staff had nary an understanding of Medicare, BCBS, Cigna, etc. It was incredibly frustrating. With CareCloud, whenever I run into a glitch I take a screenshot of the window I'm working on and email it to support, with resolution usually within the same day. They are also responsive to phone calls, and I don't get turfed to someone on the other side of the world that doesn't understand our medical and reimbursement environment. My billing staff and I have been very happy with CareCloud's support.

Lastly, I kind of figured out one of the reasons why CareCloud has to be able to deliver and why I'm convinced that they will. They are pay-as-you-go, so the onus is on them to deliver, otherwise, not I nor anyone else have any obligation to stick with the system. I made the mistake of signing a lease for my old system, for which I am still paying the remainder of the lease. I would strongly recommend to anyone else looking for an EHR/PM to avoid signing any lease or purchase contract.

I would like to make a specific mention of two stellar members of the CareCloud team, Elizabeth Kormesser and Michael Pepe. Elizabeth got us up to speed with both the EHR and PM and did a tremendous job of helping us fix the world of hurt that we were in early last year (2012). And Michael Pepe did a phenomenal job of making sure that we were ready to report for Medicare's first phase of meaning use. Looking back, man am I happy, satisfied, and once again, sleeping well at night!

Puntos a favor

Cloud-based, easy to use. Can log on easily in seconds from home computer or laptop. Reliable, easy for staff to learn how to use. Great for tracking product sales, analyzing revenue, charges, etc... Text reminders for patient visits very convenient. Seamless integration with my eHR (Modernizing Medicine) - that's perhaps the most important aspect for us.

Puntos en contra

Small detail but not insignificant for us- with the text reminders for appointments, if a patient wants to cancel their appointment, they're unable to do so the way CareCloud is set up now. This leads to no-shows for us because CareCloud can't reflect the patients' desire to NOT confirm their visit and cancel the appointment.

We have noticed errors when CareCloud records remittances. Only brought to our attention in certain cases when patients have asked about their bill, and when we reviewed their insurance payments/remittances, we noticed blatant errors during entry from CareCloud staff. Would be near-impossible for us to investigate how often this happens.

Wish CareCloud had better payment options for patients (to directly logon and make payment that would record accurately in their charts).

Consejos útiles

Obviously, try a bunch of programs, test-run them. I needed a practice management system that bridged easily with my EMR (decided on my EMR first and sought PM systems secondly). I love how easy the billing is (ICD-10 and CPTs flow instantly from my EMR to CareCloud). Has made our billing/collections much easier (we are a small office, started from scratch 3 years ago, never had an in-house billing staff, started with CareCloud concierge billing/collections from the very beginning and have NEVER looked back).

Have recommended CC to several other friends/colleagues starting Dermatology offices (because they also chose the same EMR). ICD-10 transition was NO inconvenience to our office at all- in fact, you wouldn't have even known things had changed because my EMR and CareCloud were so prepared. We didn't dread Oct 1, 2015 at all when we had to implement ICD-10- super easy for us, and no effect on insurance collections/payments.

Overall, I work in numerous systems every day and looking at the services compared to the price I think Carecloud is most definitely worth every penny. If you look at the seamless process of checking patients in and checking their eligibility, the system is extremely helpful compared to others. I always say, " You get what you pay for!" and Carecloud shows that on every level.

Puntos a favor

I like the all in one user friendliness! ERAs individually split up for billing secondary claims which makes them a breeze! Also, printing proof of timely filing from the patient screen helps out tremendously. The Collections app is probably my next favorite. I don't feel like I am stuck running reports all day. Instead, I can go in to my denial bucket and work the claims directly from there without having to run a report and then go to the patients one by one and then work the claims. I also love that it stores copies of all of the statements that I generate for each patient so when a patient calls regarding a balance and has a question, I can tell exactly what they are looking at!

Puntos en contra

The one thing I do not like about Carecloud is the inability to send claims on demand. If you miss pick-up at 8p.m. the claims have to wait until the next night. I wish we could get a change for this. Also, I wish when working with claims in the outbox that we could select as many as we want and then be able to change the delivery method all at one time, like printing without the claim form. It would save our office time as we have quite a few that have to go paper.

The customer service at CareCloud is exceptional!!!!! Anytime we've called they have always been pleasant, helpful and usually are able to solve our issues.

Puntos a favor

The billing and collections modules have increased our revenue. With the two modules we can immediately see if a claim has errors. Our old EMR system took weeks for us to receive a denied claim. The Appointment module is easy to use.
When we first started with CareCloud in 2014 the Prescription module was easy and quick to use. The main reasons we selected CareCloud was because of the Billing, Collections and Prescription modules.
We are extremely happy with the reporting module. We are able to get so much more information from the system than with our prior EMR.

Puntos en contra

I wish the system would alert you if you scheduled a physical to early (less than 366 days).
The recent upgrades to the prescription module has made it harder to use. With these changes now there is more room for errors to be made when selecting the medications. It takes us twice as long to fill prescriptions with having to search for the correct medication from the lists.

We have used Care Cloud since 2010 and a lot of improvements since then. My staff and I have loved to use
this system since day 1. We never thought to try another system all these years.

Puntos a favor

it is most user friendly system I have worked with in over 30 years. The notes module and reporting are awesome ...

Puntos en contra

maybe Charts and some of the analytics are not what I would like