Home Forums Discussions Amazing Charts Practice Management Looking into purchasing ACPM, thoughts?

Hi all,

There is virtually no useful in-depth available online, and if there is, its years old, so I thought I'd ask here. Do you guys recommend ACPM?

We are looking for a solution to aid our staff, and ACPM looks like it may do the job, but there were a few specifics that we'd want if we're shelling out 3k a year for it.

1. I watched a few videos regarding referrals and prior auths, but it was short and not very informative. Can ACPM send out PA's and referrals, or is it solely just for information keeping? Our current system of documenting these is chart addendums, but if ACPM only offers it as documentation only, it doesn't offer me anything more.

2. How intuitive is the billing functionality? Right now, my system is detailed, but time consuming. We use Office Ally right now, and it's fairly simple to export claims and upload them into OA, but keeping track of my claims takes me entering them into an excel spreadsheet, and manually checking every insurance website until they're paid, THEN I input the payments into AC. Its very time consuming, but it works. Will ACPM automatically input payments into charts? Will it give me a list of claims that aren't paid yet? Will it automatically apply adjustments?

I guess my main question is is it worth the 3 grand a year?

Thanks in advance!

We have had ACPM since December 2015. It is my understanding that AC/Harris is no longer selling the ACPM product for new installation. They will continue to do minimal operational updates for practices that have the product, but will not be rolling out major updates or new versions.

We were initially very happy with the performance, but over time have found it to be not very intuitive at all. Reporting is very basic and confusing, not robust at all. Posting of charges and payments is very easy, almost too easy (easy to screw it up). Yes it can automatically post payments and apply adjustments for insurance checks and verify insurance. NO, it does not send out PA's.

Our practice is at the point that $3,000 may not be worth the aggravation any longer...

Haven't heard that Harris is no longer selling ACPM. Where did you hear that?

I'd have to say I agree with KrisM's comments on ACPM, although we have adapted to the weaknesses with our own processes. There is a financial advantage to ACPM, since it's not charges per claim as many are, but monthly unlimited claims. The support is only email, which is slow, and only free a limited time after install. You do gain with scheduling & demographics sharing between AC & ACPM, so less double entry.

I agree with John. It works and has some hiccups and isn't very intuitive but is fairly easy and is a fixed price
I too was unaware they were not selling it anymore.
Support is slow but they do come through eventually

We were told by a salesman from Harris about the ACPM situation. We have recently begun to look into moving to their Caretracker product for practice management as we have become unhappy with ACPM.

Any word on how long they will continue to support ACPM if they are no longer going to be selling the product?

Hi Trista,
Harris Computer has a software for life policy so we will continue to support ACPM as long as customers are still on and using the product. If there are industry mandated requirements, we will continue to make those updates to the software but it might not have all the bells and whistles of some of the other products within the Harris portfolio. I hope this helps!
Regards,
Jeremy

Hi Kris,

I know nothing about how good ACPM is or was, but after reading about it, it sounds like it had its downside. While Harris only inherited the software, are you wary at all about using a product that is ultimately from the same company? Just wondering.

ACPM was ported from MedFx, another PM program in Rhode Island. I'm not sure if they bought it outright or just purchased rights to the software, but looking at the original MedFx's website I don't see a PM solution and now Harris has changed ACPM's name back to MedFx.

I am using ACPM. I'm comfortable with it. I've used a number of medical billing and PM programs over the years and all are somewhat clunky but most work fairly well at getting billing out and basic accounting. MedFx does that. It does integrate well with AC, but it's still clunky. Ultimately what do you want from your PM product, and how well will it integrate with AC

Interesting that they would push a different product rather than the one integrated with AC, this alone would make me wonder their longer plans for ACPM. Software for whose life span?

as somebody who just transitioned from acpm to harris caretracker, i can give my opinion. in general, we are happy with the move.

Caretracker is better for support, reports, incoming ERA's, insurance eligibility, checking claims, obtaining copies of ins cards, accountability of appts, easier posting of payments from insurances overall layout.

Caretracker cons: Navigation, applying patient payments to correct charge, correction of claims, not being able to change charges once committed, scheduling of appts (groups all the appts together). Scheduler is very confusing for staff

I know nothing about how good ACPM is or was, but after reading about it, it sounds like it had its downside. While Harris only inherited the software, are you wary at all about using a product that is ultimately from the same company? Just wondering.
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Hi Bert,

Sorry I'm just responding...just got my invite to this forum today...lol
We have a somewhat unique situation here in our practice where the other Dr. here uses CareTracker, while we use AC/ACPM for the pediatric practice. We have had the opportunity to work with CareTracker some in the years I have been here and I have to say that I agree with neuromd above about his pros and cons with the product. We personally are looking for much more robust reporting and it definitely had that, however it has the noted flaws as well. You will always trade pros and cons in a situation like this, but I feel like the CareTracker product offers the needed pros.

NeuroMD, how was the transition from ACPM to Caretracker?

Do you mean that all the providers have the same schedule, mixed together?