Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Quest Labs and Sage Medware integration questions

I'm preparing to finally deploy AC after 3 months of reviewing, reading and evaluating countless EHR options... Finally that journey is over... Hooray! On to the new adventure: deploying and getting everyone on board!

Anyway, we currently utilize Quest for our lab service which we were planning on keeping. I'm planning on getting them to pay for the $500 integration fee because I thinks it's appropriate. The real question for you guys is how well does Quest integrate into AC? Draw backs that have been seen compared with other lab vendors?

Likewise we currently use Sage Medware for our practice management suite. Anyone have much experience with this software integrating? Is it pretty seamless or is it essentially like running two different programs and creating a good bit of duplicate work?

I think we will implement Phreesia in conjunction with these also.

Your thoughts/experiences are highly welcomed! THANKS!!!

I have never integrated PM software - I have my staff enter all aC data and do duplicate work on PM, but I feel this is a good check system and my biller (also my wife) says it is no big deal and she feels more comfortable having her be the only person who really dose the billing. I will say that billers who know what they are doing may also feel this way - they know what needs to be done and feel other people may not be on board.

I think that we are going to rethink this when I switch to AC as PM, as I really want to have pt. balances available and ability for staff to collect payments, but I hope that works and does not affect my billing. I am reluctant to let any other staff do much in the billing as it is a bit complicated - once I am using AC for full coding I will send lots to my biller to fully code as I still get confused with modifiers, shots, procedures with office visit codes, etc.

Our office has been using Sage (Medware, now Sage) since 1996. It is simple, and has never been a source of the frustrations I read about from other PM programs. It doesn't have a lot of "management" bells and whistles -- but how much of that is appropriate to a small practice anyway? You can do billing, scheduling, and manage accounts receivable very competently.

Backup is easy, and the rare crash is easily recoverable. Networking in a small office environment is flawless.

We started using AC on a regular basis about 6 months ago after dabbling at it for well over a year. I like it very well, except the PM part is useless.

Running Sage and AC separately really isn't much of a problem -- EXCEPT! -- Add Quest. Now we have to have patient insurance information for the "bridge" to Quest to work very well. They have spent a lot of time and money trying to get us integrated, and the HL7 files seem to work just fine even without insurance info in the AC database, they come into the AC accounts without a hitch. But we can't order directly from AC, because we haven't been adding or updating insurance information in AC -- just in Sage. Adding that much more overhead to the receptionist's duties seems a little too much at this stage -- maybe later on, or maybe there is some kind of interface that will allow the two to merge. There is something advertised to work, but it seems pretty expensive, and I'm not willing to bite at this point.

Do you need updox for quest to work well?

I will throw in that if you have newer systems and/or a newer server, the Quest interface won't successfully run on a 64bit OS install.

Been there tried that, burned up the better part of a week proving that they couldn't get it to work. 64bit version is supposedly in the works, but be forewarned.

For our client, they are using their Care360 account to get Quest orders/data - very un-integrated at the moment.

We import from Quest easily. We use UpDox to send copies to patients over the portal, but it is otherwise not needed. The patient demographics are kept current in AC as well as Medware, so when we print out a lab order slip from AC the demographics and insurance are current. Quest accepts this printout as their order slip with no other information required from us. We investigated a custom bridge early on, but decided the chances of corrupting data were too high, and it was safer to have to keep two databases updated. It does not seem to be a huge problem for my staff. Medware seems pretty bulletproof. We switched scheduling from Medware to AC.

On Quest. Yes, if you have Win 7 systems, make sure one pc is 32-bit so that u can get the Quest lab download. Or an xp unit.

David, when you make your lab orders, how do you print your sticky labels for the samples?

well that could be an issue. The server is SBS 2011 which is 64bit and this is obviously where I would want the Quest software. Without Quest integration it may be time to dump quest and move on to someone who is staying with the pack and keeping their software up.

thoughts?

With Medware/AC - can you schedule in AC and it will cross over to medware and back? (AC -> Medware, Medware -> AC) for scheduling, demographics etc?

Well tech support (or the sales rep) for medware is yet to call us back concerning integrating medware with AC. Can anyone explain how the integration happens? I've downloaded the HL7 setup application that downloads from the admin panel for medware and AC suggests medware is active but I don't see anything to confirm. How do I import my medware demographics etc?

We are running medware version 8.0.0

Many Thanks in advance!!!

We are using Sage/old Medware for our billing alone and using AC for notes and scheduling. I am most interested in the upcoming PM update from AC BECAUSE of the potential time savings AND the CLOUD back up. Sage/old Medware does not offer the CLOUD, which makes me uncomfortable. I back up Sage/old Medware to a large flash drive and assume that I am doing it correctly. How do you back up Sage/old Medware?

I'm looking forward to the potential improvements from the PM standpoint. Medware has yet to return my calls and is deferring to some sales 'specialist' to help me with this. At this point I just want to pull my demographics from medware and am really considering scrapping medware in general because their customer support is non-existent! Does anyone know how to export demographics from medware so I can import them into AC?

Jules, The other thing to consider is one of the online backup systems offered like back blaze or carbonite.

I called Sage/Medware approximately 3 weeks ago about the AC interface and was given a ticket #. I received a msg back from someone there last week who stated that they were not aware that such an interface existed. I also received an email last week stating that Sage is being sold off to a company called Vista Equity Partners. I haven't been happy with their tech support for some time, love AC tech.

I have been looking at Carbonite and will probably go that route ... for now - for backing up.

Thanks for the input. Glad to see I am not alone regarding Sage.

Uh oh. Sounds like they are being sold to an investment company to "turn them around" (translation: become profitable, not go ou of business.)

Holy @$%^. Medware now wants $7500 to interface with amazing charts despite Acs low price of $500!!!!! Are other folks here working with medware separate, how is the workflow for your front office? I'd rather change products or have my front office just input the data twice than pay $7500!

Call AC Support and have them "Properly" walk you thru the export... BUT if you already have est patients in AC I believe it is too late. The Idea with the AC Import of old demograpics was to quickly and easily populate a fresh clean NEW AC with all of your patients basics and to save you the double entry hassle. But once you have hundreds of your patients in there already, it maybe near impossible to go back in time and do it now....

And again that is why I strongly suggest calling Guardian Angel Support, and letting them get you thru this and let you know what can or can not be done for you and your particulars.... Good Luck...

Paul

Holy @?%^ is right! Workflow of front office will NOT improve $7500 with the interface, THAT IS FOR SURE!!!!! I see hockyref aka Paul says that interface works best with new AC. Well, guess I AM DEFINATELY WAITING FOR AC PM version at this point in time. Front office does not need to enter twice; coding and billing is completely separate - back office function for our office anyhow but there is some duplication and sometimes overdue patient balances are a bit more difficult to track but ... it has been this way for a while.

Ok. I'll get ahold of tech support at AC. I've been holding off on getting the entire office on board wit AC until I get all our old demographics imported. I've put a few patients in there myself and that's about it. We're talking a handful, not hundreds. I'll call AC on moray and see what they say. Appreciate the advice folks. No way I'm paying $7500 for this interface!

Any time table on an update for the PM side of AC? I've got 6.0.9 installed and running well.