Encounter — Cloud EHR for ambulatory practices

Register, schedule, chart, and sign on one US cloud EHR — then create the billable visit from the superbill. Built for independent practices.

Primary fit. Independent and physician-led practices with about 3–20 providers and one to three locations. Billing companies and hospital outpatient departments use the same ambulatory jobs as they grow.

Why Encounter

• One product for the clinic day — Front desk, chart, sign, and superbill share the same patient record. A signed note is not cash — the superbill creates the visit your billing team works next.
• Ops that ship in the product — Scheduler with hours and check-in, staff fax inbox, roles you can tighten, and live boards are first-class — not a pile of side tools the practice has to glue together.
• Built so you can switch — Bring charts in with CCD or CSV conversion, staged preview, and reviewable skip counts. Practices move clinical data onto Encounter without a silent overwrite of the chart.
• Honest about revenue cycle — We ship the handoff from documentation to a billable visit today. Claim filing and payment posting are a later chapter — not sold as if they already run in every plan.

From registration through documentation and coding: the superbill creates the visit; fee schedule and display AR ship today. Claim filing, payment posting, and insights are later chapters — not sold as if they already run in every seat.

Mature capabilities

• Scheduler & check-in — Book against provider hours, locations, rooms, and holidays. Check-in rooms the patient and notifies the rendering provider — the clinician opens a roomed slot, not a rumor.
• Fax & staff inbox — Inbound fax and staff messages land in one inbox. Matching rules create a task card so someone owns the work before end of day — not a separate fax portal.
• Roles & access — Ship with a role pack clinics understand. Practice admins can deny screens and actions; they cannot invent rights beyond the pack. Locked admin roles stay locked.
• Live clinic boards — Schedule, tasks, chart lists, and notifications refresh for the practice so front desk and clinicians share one workspace without a full page reload.
• Chart conversion — CCD and CSV onboard with multi-file explorer, staged preview, and an explicit Accept before chart write. Review created and skipped counts — conversion never creates a visit.
• Eligibility checks — Verify coverage from the chart against the primary plan. Training uses a synthetic check; a live connection can be enabled when the practice is ready.

Connectors in Setup

• Fax — eFax and RingCentral adapters for outbound send and inbound sync, plus a synthetic mode for training. Wired through Setup → Communications.
• SMS — Twilio for practice SMS when live send is enabled. Credentials stay on the organization; the platform can force dry-run in staging.
• Email — Practice SMTP for invites, password reset, and staff mail. Auth mail goes through the same channel model as the rest of communications.
• Eligibility — External eligibility connection when the practice turns it on. Until then, synthetic responses keep training and demos honest.

From registration to the superbill

Hours, appointment types, and note templates are configured once in Setup. The same clinic-day sequence runs at every location: register, eligibility, schedule, chart, sign, then superbill. A signed note becomes a billable visit only when a superbill is submitted. Documentation alone is not cash.

Take the interactive clinic-day tour (synthetic patients only).

Clinical, front-office, and billing workflows

• Dashboard & tasks — See which patients still need check-in and which are already roomed. Task cards follow the appointment so outstanding work is visible on the board.
• Patients — Search by name, medical record number, or date of birth. Results are paged from the server. Advanced filters use the same fields as registration, including lookups and stored statuses.
• Eligibility — Run eligibility from the patient chart against the primary plan. Training environments use a synthetic check. A live connection can be enabled in administration. A missing member ID blocks the request.
• Scheduler — Book appointments for a rendering provider, location, and optional room or appointment type. Booking respects hours, holidays, and blocks. Check-in rooms the patient and notifies the provider. Cancel and no-show are separate statuses.
• Chart — Maintain allergies, medications, problems, vitals, coverage, documents, and prior encounters. Export a C-CDA (CCD) from Documents or import a C-CDA or CSV pack to reconcile lists. Updating the chart does not create a billable visit.
• Encounter — Document the visit on a published template such as office visit, progress note, behavioral health session, or psychiatric evaluation. Save a draft, then sign. Co-sign, addendum, and print follow. Documentation alone does not create a visit.
• Super bill — Select signed encounters, review date of service and suggested codes, and submit the superbill. Submission creates the visit. A signed note without a superbill is not a billable visit.
• Visits & claim prep — Work visits created from superbills. Claim scrub applies NCCI procedure-to-procedure edits and records modifier issues without deleting the visit. Your billing team keeps working that visit so revenue cycle stays attached to the clinic day.
• Inbox — Receive staff messages and inbound fax in one place. Matching rules can create a task card on the board so someone owns the work before end of day. This inbox is for staff — it is not a patient portal and it does not send marketing SMS.
• C-CDA and CSV conversion — Import a patient book from CSV packs or a C-CDA (CCD), and export a CCD from the chart. Administration runs the bulk job. Documents on the chart imports one continuity document. Conversion never creates a visit.
• Setup — Configure users, roles, locations, rooms, appointment types, hours, holidays, macros, review of systems, physical exam, and published templates. New practices can start from a catalog pack. Role overlays can restrict access; they cannot add rights beyond the assigned role.
• Fee schedule & show AR — Maintain the practice fee schedule with CSV import and export. Visit charges pick up published amounts. Show AR balances are read-only (charges minus imported payments or a snapshot). Claim filing and payment posting remain later.
• Templates & documentation catalogs — Publish note type overlays (office visit, progress, session, and more) plus macros, review of systems, and physical exam catalogs. Clinicians document on practice content — templates are configuration, not a separate app.
• Notifications — When front desk checks a patient in, the linked rendering provider gets an in-app notice with the patient name, medical record number, and a link to start the encounter. Only that provider acknowledges the alert. Application logs do not store note text.

Built for every role in the practice

• Front desk — Find the patient, verify coverage, book and move appointments, check the patient in, and turn inbound fax into owned work. Superbills stay with the clinician or biller.
• Clinician — Open the roomed encounter, maintain chart lists, document and sign on the published template, co-sign or addend, then submit a superbill so billing has a visit.
• Biller — Work visits created from superbills, review coding assist and fee schedule amounts, run NCCI scrub, and keep show-AR balances on the same record the clinician signed.
• Practice admin — Staff users and roles, publish hours and templates, wire fax and email connectors, complete go-live, and convert a chart book with human Accept.

Security and data

Charts are isolated by organization and reached over TLS. You can export a C-CDA from Documents and import a C-CDA or CSV pack from Administration. We execute a business associate agreement before production use.

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