OpenEMR Review - why 3.8 stars?

Shlomi Lavi / updated: Jun 22, 2022

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What is OpenEMR?

OpenEMR is a cloud-based and on-premise solution that provides electronic medical reports, patient scheduling, and medical billing services. Functionalities offered in OpenEMR help the medical team to provide reports on their patients, take notes during appointments with the patients that are then uploaded for reporting, and provides digital document manager.

With the on-premise software, it allows voice recognition as a security feature that keeps safe the patient records. Other major features in OpenEMR include e-Prescribing, lab integration, clinical decision rules, scheduling, and CMS reporting.OpenEMR is the company that develops and distributes OpenEMR software. The company is based in the United States.

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Who is it best for?

OpenEMR can be used by physicians in all the specialities as it is a generic medical software. The size of the facilities can vary as well, from individual physicians to large sized hospitals, though small to medium sized practices will benefit the most from it.

Main features and functionalities

The patient demographics feature of OpenEMR lets the physician know about a complete patient profile and from where is his patient coming from. This helps them in assessing the most important hotspots for their practice. Further, there is a patient portal that gives a more transparent treatment plan to the patients. The patient scheduling option allows the patients to book their appointments online.

There is also a section on clinical decision rules, which helps the administrator to set rules and regulations regarding the clinic and the tool operates following those rules and regulations. The ePrescription functionality is present as well.

Also, medical billing is incorporated in the tool as well and it can generate its own bills and invoices. The reports can be generated by the tool as well. Everything is customizable and can be configured according to the needs of the physician.

What is the actual cost?

OpenEMR is an open-source software solution and is free to download and use. However, its AWS cloud option, OpenEMR Cloud, incurs monthly AWS charges based on the following packages: Shared Hosting, Express, Express Plus, Standard.

The Shared Hosting package costs $5 per month, and it covers backup and recovery solutions. The Express package costs $10 per month and has all the privileges of the Shared Hosting package plus AWS Free Tier compatibility, AWS Marketplace, etc.

The Express Plus package costs $20 per month and is HIPAA eligible. The Standard package costs $75 monthly and has all the privileges of the other packages (except AWS Free Tier compatibility), plus modular and managed MySQL databases.

ITQlick pricing score is 2 out of 10 (10 is most expensive). Access ITQlick pricing guide for OpenEMR. You can also find here pricing information from OpenEMR's website.

Pros

• OpenEMR is an open-source platform that is free to download and use
• The software supports customization, making it suitable for practices across several specialties
• OpenEMR has both cloud and on-premise deployment options

Cons

• No telehealth patient engagement features are available on OpenEMR
• The software has limited ePrescribe and billing systems

How it stacks up?

Access a head to head analysis of OpenEMR vs alternative software solutions.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is OpenEMR right for you or your business?

OpenEMR is an open-source medical practice management and electronic health records solution for small, growing, and large-scale healthcare providers across all specialties. The software is free to use and customize and serves notable names like Peace Corps, Siaya District Hospital, and IPPF.