Summary

Pros:   Intuitive Note Taking, Fully Integrated Insurance Billing, Excellent GUI/UX

Cons:   Lack of Features, Price

It Might Be A Good Choice For Practices That: Have a big budget and desire a nice interface in combination with integrated ERAs and don’t mind the waiting on the missing features or are able to negotiate a new price.

Standout Features: Interface, Integrated Electronic Insurance Billing

Review

Update  In 2014, I was approached by Empathic about the potential for updating my review of their system.  I informed them that I’d be happy to, and that I’d previously contacted them to do so but had received no reply. A series of emails ensued between myself and several representatives of the company over the course of several weeks.  My sole goal was to be provided access to a demo account and new pricing information so that I could properly evaluate the software and update my review.  After several emails and a phone conversation with a member of upper management, it was left that they would “get back to me”.  I received no contact from them after that.

Empathic’s name and marketing is centered around it’s intuitive diagnostic and note taking features. For example, the program will suggest a diagnosis based on the information a clinician enters into the Diagnostic Assessment. The clinician can, of course, then use their own judgment to decide if is an appropriate recommendation. As with some of the other systems, information from the Assessment and Treatment Plan are pulled forward into progress notes, saving time on data entry. The Empathic interface is well thought out and the work flow does a good job of following that of a typical session. It’s also nice to look at. The program also features a fully integrated electronic claims filing features which includes ERAs being automatically posted to the correct sessions/clients.

Unfortunately, while these features set Empathic apart from many of the competitors, so does its list of missing features. Missing are abilities to: send appointment reminders, create recurring appointments, set a clinicians available hours, create a SuperBill or CMS-1500 and the ability to track canceled or missed appointments. There are also some features that could use further refinement. For example, one cannot create an appointment directly from a client’s screen. The only way to create an appointment is from the calendar where you have to choose the clinician and client each time. As with most of their competitors, Empathic reports missing features are on their development road map, but can only provide loose time frames for implementation.

When you combine these missing and underdeveloped features with the price point, Empathic drops into the realm of “Not Likely Contender” for most practices. At $3 per electronic claim, all but the smallest of practices will hit up against their cap of $300 per month. This simply isn’t competitive and the product doesn’t currently offer anything that makes the added expense worth the cost. They do report that they are willing to negotiate based on group size and other factors, but it’s unclear whether they will offer a competitive price.