Secure Messaging
Practice Fusion’s electronic patient referrals and secure direct messaging simplify communication between providers and staff. Referrals can be sent with attached chart notes, and customizable templates help streamline the process. Secure messaging allows for real-time collaboration, reducing reliance on faxes and minimizing communication delays. These tools help ensure more efficient coordination across healthcare practices.
Cerner’s messaging server security relies on a multi-layered approach, including network, hardware, OS, and application-level protections. Best practices include keeping software updated, limiting user privileges, and monitoring system activity. Security measures involve firewalls, secure protocols, and minimizing unnecessary software installations.
A proxy server can further enhance security by preventing unauthorized access. Proper firewall configurations, high availability planning, and OS security hardening help ensure a secure messaging environment.
Winner: Practice Fusion wins this round because it offers more efficient communication tools, such as electronic patient referrals and secure messaging.
Appointment Scheduling
Practice Fusion’s online scheduling system allows patients to request appointments based on available time slots. Providers can review, approve, or modify requests before they’re confirmed. Profile completeness, including provider photos and bios, improves search visibility, while FAQs help address common patient concerns.
Managing appointment requests regularly ensures accuracy and prevents scheduling conflicts. With everything integrated into the EHR, the process remains straightforward for both providers and patients.
Cerner prioritizes available time slots based on factors such as date, standing appointments, door preference, and resource identifiers to schedule appointments. The system dynamically displays feasible and infeasible options based on provided time ranges. Seasonal rule sets or default rules determine appointment applicability.
Appointments are ordered based on predefined criteria, including resource group, scheduling preferences, and availability. Feasibility is determined by meeting all constraints set by the appointment rule. Users can review and select appointment options, with details such as location, stop number, and timing displayed upon confirmation.
Winner: Cerner wins this round because it offers more dynamic and customizable appointment scheduling, factoring in multiple constraints for greater flexibility.
Access To Educational Resources
Practice Fusion provides patient-specific education resources, which are a key component of Meaningful Use compliance. To meet the requirement, at least 10% of patients must receive relevant educational materials based on their diagnoses or prescriptions.
Progress can be tracked via the Meaningful Use Dashboard, ensuring providers stay above the threshold. If necessary, catching up is possible by reviewing recent patient visits and distributing resources accordingly. Integrating this process into daily workflows helps maintain compliance and maximize incentives without last-minute scrambling.
Cerner offers courses to help organizations implement and configure the Help Desk efficiently. The Implementing Help Desk course from Oracle University covers key setup processes, including request management, agent assignment, and knowledge base creation. For those new to the system, the Implementation Foundation course provides essential training on setup, security, and best practices to avoid costly errors.
These courses equip teams with the necessary skills to optimize their Help Desk operations and make informed decisions. Ongoing learning through Oracle’s Cloud Learning Subscriptions further supports continuous improvement and certification.
Winner: Practice Fusion clearly offers more resources because it provides patient-specific educational resources that directly support Meaningful Use compliance.
Prescription Management
Practice Fusion’s prescription management system streamlines the medication process for both healthcare providers and patients. It enables electronic prescription transmission, reducing errors and ensuring fast, secure medication orders. Integrated with patient records, it allows providers to review prescription history, check for drug interactions, and comply with federal regulations, including MIPS reporting.
Patients benefit from easy access to their prescriptions through the patient portal, enhancing engagement and adherence. By automating workflows and eliminating manual entry, Practice Fusion improves efficiency and accuracy in prescription management.
Cerner’s Health Electronic Prescription Interoperability (eRx Interop) facilitates seamless communication between prescribers, pharmacies, and pharmacy benefits management networks. Supporting workflows like prescription eligibility checks, medication history retrieval, electronic prior authorization, and formulary lookups enhances efficiency in prescription management.
Through automated and manual accessibility evaluations, Oracle ensures its eRx Interop product aligns with industry interoperability and accessibility standards, promoting a more connected and inclusive healthcare ecosystem.
Winner: Cerner takes the lead because its eRx Interop enhances prescription management through seamless communication.
Cloud-Based Accessibility
Practice Fusion’s 100% cloud-based infrastructure ensures seamless integration and real-time updates. Practices always have access to the latest features and updates without the need for downloading software or managing hardware.
This cloud-based model eliminates the hassle of manual updates, providing automatic system improvements that keep practices on the cutting edge of healthcare technology.
Cerner’s cloud infrastructure delivers a comprehensive cloud ecosystem designed for flexibility, scalability, and cost efficiency. With over 150 cloud services available across 50 regions worldwide, it supports diverse workloads, including AI, analytics, and multi-cloud integrations with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Its distributed cloud model ensures seamless deployment in public, hybrid, and dedicated environments, while cost advantages make it a competitive choice.
Winner: Cerner is unmatched for its extensive cloud ecosystem, which supports global scalability and diverse workloads.
Customizable Charting Templates
Practice Fusion’s charting template streamlines medical documentation with intuitive features that enhance efficiency. Providers can seamlessly integrate past medical history, prior visit notes, and previous diagnoses into SOAP notes, while e-prescriptions can be generated directly from the Plan section.
Specialty-specific templates, built by fellow providers, allow customization to fit individual workflows. Time-saving tools like automatic favorite lists, Note Assist shortcuts, and fill-in-the-blank fields minimize manual entry and reduce clicks, making charting faster and more accurate.
Cerner’s charting template supports hierarchical data visualization with parent, child, and grandchild styles. It allows chart controls to be mapped within certain ID ranges, with the primary chart pre-assigned. Designed for seamless integration within Siebel CRM, this template also accommodates toggle applet relationships, displaying other toggle applets via a drop-down mapped to ID 2.
The template structure includes a functional toolbar followed by a graphical representation of data, making it a versatile solution for presenting complex datasets in an intuitive format.
Winner: Practice Fusion takes the lead because its charting template offers seamless customization and time-saving features that enhance workflow efficiency.
Integrated Billing Solutions
Practice Fusion’s integrated billing solutions streamline medical billing while enhancing patient care through seamless EHR integration. With a dedicated billing team boasting 30+ years of expertise, practices benefit from efficient claims management, credentialing support, and real-time financial transparency.
Automated claim submissions, denial management, and payer coordination help maximize collections while reducing administrative burdens. The cloud-based system ensures accessibility and effective business collaboration from any device.
Cerner provides integrated billing solutions to streamline billing management through seamless process integrations between Siebel CRM and Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM). Customer service representatives (CSRs) can efficiently retrieve account balances, invoices, and unbilled data while enabling payment processing and dispute resolution.
By dynamically fetching billing data on demand rather than replicating it, the system ensures real-time accuracy and efficiency. The solution supports automated rating of usage events, invoice adjustments, and payment validation, enhancing financial transparency and operational control.
Winner: Practice Fusion wins this round because its integrated billing solutions offer a more streamlined, user-friendly experience with expert support.
Dashboards
Practice Fusion’s dashboard serves as the central hub for managing and reviewing key EHR account activities. It provides an overview of setup progress and allows users to interact with various features like lab connections, e-prescribing, and user management.
The dashboard is designed to evolve, offering more dynamic, day-to-day functionalities to enhance user experience and streamline operations. It’s a vital tool that keeps users engaged with their accounts and encourages frequent interaction for improved efficiency.
Cerner provides dashboards that help managers with decision support by offering high-level views of team activities, key metrics, and real-time analytics. They feature tiles (or pagelets) that serve a common purpose, allowing users to drill down from overview information to detailed insights. With features like the Employee Self-Service dashboard and notifications panel, dashboards enhance efficiency. Users can easily manage and navigate fluid homepages, ensuring a streamlined experience for accessing and analyzing critical data.
Winner: Cerner takes the lead because it offers dynamic, customizable dashboards with in-depth analytics and real-time decision support.
Patient Portal
Practice Fusion’s secure online portal empowers patients by providing real-time access to their health records, including diagnoses, medications, immunizations, and procedures. Patients can schedule appointments, request prescription refills, and communicate with their physicians at any time. With the ability to track healthcare costs and view up-to-date information from anywhere, patients gain peace of mind and convenience.
This reduces administrative tasks for providers, allowing more time for patient care, and helps fulfill Meaningful Use of Patient Engagement measures, promoting active patient participation in their health management.
Cerner offers a patient portal that allows patients to manage their care with ease, offering access to health information, appointment scheduling, lab results, prescriptions, and bill payments. Integrated cloud applications streamline the patient experience, reduce administrative tasks, and empower individuals to take charge of their healthcare.
Features like advanced search, self-service scheduling, and simplified registration enhance convenience for patients, while IT administrators can customize the portal and track user engagement for continuous improvement. The platform ensures data protection and privacy, giving patients secure access to their medical records anytime, anywhere.
Winner: Cerner wins this round because its patient portal offers comprehensive features like appointment scheduling, lab results, prescriptions, and bill payments.
Support And Training
Practice Fusion offers exceptional support through multiple channels. A help ticket system is also available, where critical issues are typically addressed within an hour and non-critical issues the same day. Users can also chat live with experts throughout the week. For direct assistance, support is available via phone. This ensures timely, responsive service for all user needs.
Cerner provides comprehensive support and training through My Oracle Support. Available 24/7, it helps with product registration, technical issues, and service requests. For emergencies, the Customer Access Support (CAS) hotline provides immediate escalation and resolution of critical service issues.
Additionally, Oracle’s Help Center offers easy access to product documentation and guides, enabling users to find solutions and download resources. This ensures users have continuous support for troubleshooting and maintaining their Oracle Health systems.
Winner: Cerner takes the lead because it offers 24/7 support with emergency escalation and comprehensive resources, ensuring continuous assistance for critical issues.
Pricing Comparison
Practice Fusion offers a straightforward pricing model at $199 per provider per month, with an annual commitment. This subscription includes three signing staff licenses and unlimited non-signing staff licenses, along with features like customizable templates, e-prescribing, and free customer support.
Cerner's pricing is more variable and depends on the size and needs of the healthcare organization. For small practices, implementation costs range from $10,000 to $200,000, with monthly fees per provider between $1,000 and $3,000.
Mid-sized practices may face implementation costs between $150,000 and $500,000, plus annual maintenance and support fees ranging from $75,000 to $120,000.
Larger hospitals and health systems can expect implementation costs from $800,000 to $5 million, with annual maintenance and support fees between $150,000 and $1 million.
