Home Forums Discussions IT, Networking, PCs and more Updox - Portal?

Who is using Updox, and what are you current impressions? The individual that is previewing it with me, bless his heart, is clearly new. I just want to know how decent the Portal is, how basic it is, etc etc. We are looking at the Portal, Efax, text messages, and forms. My other questions is whether or not their forms can map over to Amazing Charts. Ie, if someone fills out a form via the Updox form creator, does it fill in that information directly into Amazing Charts? If the Updox Forms doesn't do that, is there any Patient Forms interface that DOES do that? Thanks!

Welcome to the club. I do not personally use UpDox. I have always used Brother machines for the fax and imports. We have the pt fill out forms and just import them into the chart. I like the idea of the portal but as of the last time I checked it was very limited due to using Updox. If you want to look at using Brother Machines for the imports and faxes there are other posts in the forum that discuss this process. The best description for using a Brother machine was several years ago by Leslie. I hooked up the machine using her posts and never looked back. Good luck and hope others can give you perspective regarding UpDox.

Our practice has used updox with AC since we started (2012). We use the fax, portal, and telehealth. We haven't used the forms. When the forms are created they arrive in the updox inbox and from there can be sent to Amazing Charts.
Overall updox has helped with our practice efficiency. I recommend it.
Feel free to reach out if you have other questions.

The portal is abysmal. Forms do not map to AC at all. I don't use the forms feature at all. They are terrible. I use Jotform (doesn't map to AC either but way better in other ways). Text msg works fine but you must put the mobile number in the "cell phone" box in AC. That is the only number Updox will use for texting. Efax works great. We pay for the extra secure SMS feature, which works pretty well and patients like. Patients more likely to use secure SMS over Updox portal.

Do you find that the ability for things to 'live' in a portal is missed? In other words, my concern with the text/secure text is the patient that wants to be able to look back at prior labs and don't save those documents to their phone, etc.

I also was curious if anyone saw a lot of action in the appointment request area.

I have a different take on Updox...

We rely on it for document management.
Note that these comments pertain to the separate Updox product; not the one that "comes with" AC. It is very hard for me to know how the "free" version functions since we do not use it. When someone talks about Updox, it is important to know which version they have.

We get some snail mail, but the great majority of our incoming results, reports, and notes from other providers come as faxes. The same is true for initial visit and demographic forms completed by patients at home. All arrive and are viewed in Updox so the "inbox" gets a ton of activity. Everything is filed from there. In addition, our hospital and most of the physicians here use Epic. Anything viewed in Epic and wanted in the patient's chart is "printed to Updox" from Epic and filed from there.

Initially we rarely used the portal. We use it more now for communicating with patients. We do find it somewhat useful but it has serious limitations as noted by Serene.

Most of the problems stem from the fax that Updox was developed as a separate application. It was grafted onto AC and the two are poorly integrated. This is especially true for the portal. If a patient could complete forms online and have them smoothly inserted into AC fields, that would be huge. If saving communications was not so clunky, that would help. Like Serene, we use Jotforms which is a much more robust form filling application - another added cost though.

This version of Updox has increased dramatically in cost in recent years. I used to rave about it and recommend it to everyone; due to the significant cost increase, I no longer do so. If we were just starting out and not so dependent on it for our work-flow, I might not purchase it.

Between AC fees, updox fees and billling software fees, "top-of-the line" Athena is probably cheaper (8% receipts). Inertia and fear of the unknown keeps me here.

Anyone actually use cheaper alternatives RXNT or Charmhealth? Do they have enough national user base?

Sabbath,

In the portal - everything you've sent to the portal stays there. The patient can login and see all the old documents (?forever, I think). For the secure SMS, after they set the 5-digit pin, you can also see old documents if you log in again. If they ignore that first text msg and never set a pin, the msg will expire after a # of days. If they call back about the expire msg, you can search your inbox for that patient and resend that secure link. But if it's really old like several months, you'll have to redo that first msg.

We don't turn on the appt request.

If you've ever used Mychart (I have for my personal medical stuff), Updox is no where near that level. Nothing goes into AC as data. You can only import things into AC as PDF. Some AC data goes into Updox like demographics, that's it. Oh we use the Updox appt reminders - that's an extra fee - so appt info goes into Updox too but confirmed appts do NOT go back into AC.

We're stuck w/ Updox because it's the only program that works with AC. Our doctor absolutely does NOT want to switch from AC.

I’ve sorta given up the struggle on switching from AC. Plus, it’s growing on me. Like the crazy old Uncle at Thanksgiving, it may be clunky and graying around the edges, but it’s become family.

I really don’t mind it. Plus, I think if you really dive into the functions it’s not pretty but it gets the job done. ;-)

I don’t mind that it’s basically only what you’ve shared to the portal; my concern is only with simple communication. I guess at this point I’m trying to decide if simple email with Paubox for end to end encryption is any better or worse than the portal. Ya know?

I’m also extremely irritated that the forms don’t map over and populate. So I’m still trying to decide about that. I’m going to go with TotalMD I think for PM, and that has HL7 interface so that’s helpful.

Are your patient adult patients? The Updox portal doesn't work for us because we're pediatrics and the AC/Updox portal can only do 1 patient per email address. So once that first child has a portal account, the 2nd child's won't work unless the parent takes 10 extra steps to link them (I created a whole step by step instruction sheet and no one has ever done it). But I think the portal could fine if none your patients never have to share an email address.

I've thought about using other email services instead of Updox too but always just stuck with Updox because we like using it to associate documents with AC pts. We have to put a lot of files into Imported Items everyday and Updox is faster than using AC to import.

We are a family practice clinic; so we have patients from all age groups. That's a good piece of information to note! Thanks!