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EHR Comparison

NextGen vs Allscripts for Doctors 2024: Ambulatory EHR Showdown

NextGen Healthcare and Allscripts (Veradigm) are both long-established ambulatory EHR platforms with broad specialty coverage, but they differ on product roadmap stability and clinical workflow quality. We compared both on specialty-specific features, implementation support, and interoperability.

By MedTech Review EditorialUpdated: May 15, 20248 min read✓ Medically Verified

NextGen and Allscripts have each served independent physician groups and health systems for over 20 years, making them safe choices for practices that want an established vendor. However, Allscripts' rebranding to Veradigm and its pivot toward data analytics have raised product roadmap questions among existing customers. We evaluated both platforms across ambulatory specialty practices on clinical workflow quality, billing module depth, and customer support responsiveness.

Product Comparison

ProductRating
NextGen Healthcare EHR4.4View →
Allscripts Professional (Veradigm)4.0View →
Greenway Health Intergy4.1View →
eClinicalWorks4.4View →
athenahealth4.7View →

Pros & Cons

✓ Pros

  • NextGen's specialty content library includes pre-built templates for 30+ medical specialties reducing go-live customization work
  • NextGen's patient portal adoption rate is consistently above industry average at 55–65% across primary care clients
  • Allscripts' lower base pricing ($200/mo) makes it accessible for practices locked into legacy contracts managing budget
  • Both platforms support FHIR R4 APIs and are compliant with 21st Century Cures Act information blocking rules

✗ Cons

  • Allscripts' pivot to Veradigm data services has shifted product investment away from EHR feature development
  • NextGen's implementation timeline averages 16–24 weeks for specialty groups — longer than newer cloud-native platforms
  • Both platforms' mobile documentation apps lag behind DrChrono and Epic's mobile interfaces in physician satisfaction surveys

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Allscripts still a good EHR choice after the Veradigm rebrand?
Allscripts Professional (now marketed under Veradigm) remains functional for practices that already use it. However, KLAS Research data shows declining physician satisfaction scores since 2022, and several major health systems have migrated off Allscripts to Epic or athenahealth. New practices evaluating EHRs should prioritize NextGen, eClinicalWorks, or athenahealth over Allscripts as a first-time implementation.
What specialties is NextGen Healthcare EHR best suited for?
NextGen performs strongest in internal medicine, multi-specialty groups, OB/GYN, and behavioral health. Its specialty content library includes over 4,500 specialty-specific templates and order sets. For pure specialty-specific EHR depth (dermatology, ophthalmology, ortho), ModMed and Nextech still outperform NextGen despite NextGen's broader specialty coverage.
How do NextGen and Allscripts compare on value-based care support?
NextGen includes a Population Health module that supports MSSP ACO, Medicare Advantage, and commercial value-based contract quality measure tracking. Allscripts Professional's VBC tools are less mature. For practices in commercial ACOs or APM tracks, NextGen's care management tools are meaningfully better than Allscripts' current offering.
Is it difficult to migrate from Allscripts to NextGen?
Migration from Allscripts to NextGen typically takes 12–20 weeks and costs $15,000–50,000 for a 5–10 provider practice, including data migration, training, and parallel billing support. Patient demographics, problem lists, and medication histories migrate via CCDA export. Historical encounter notes and billing AR require separate data conversion services.

Our Top Pick

NextGen Healthcare — Best Established Ambulatory EHR in 2024

NextGen serves 155,000+ providers across 30+ specialties with one of the largest specialty content libraries available. Its stability and specialty depth make it the top alternative to athenahealth for mid-size groups.

Request a Free NextGen Demo

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