Comparing ICANotes With Behave Health: What's the Best EMR for Your Behavioral Health Organization?

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Are you comparison shopping Behave Health and ICANotes for your next behavioral health EHR purchase? 

This is a big decision and it can be difficult to compare platforms, especially with so many moving parts and considerations to ponder. Choosing a new behavioral health EHR means weighing what priorities are important to you and what “must-haves” aren’t essential to your business. This cost-benefit analysis takes time. 

Today, we’ll highlight some key differences between these two behavioral health EHRs (sometimes also called behavioral health EMRs) so that you can make an informed decision for your organization. 

Behave Health and ICANotes Serve Slightly Different Segments of the Behavioral Health Industry 

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Though they both serve the behavioral health industry, Behave Health and ICANotes do have slightly different target clientele. 

According to their website, ICANotes functions well in the following settings: 

  • Behavioral health 

  • Individual therapy 

  • Couples therapy 

  • Group therapy 

  • Family therapy 

  • Case management 

  • Inpatient settings 

  • Psychiatry 

  • Addiction treatment therapy 

  • Psychology

  • Social work

While ICANotes does serve the addiction treatment industry, it does not cater to SUD patients and clinicians exclusively. In fact, ICANotes serves a good number of general mental health organizations, as well. 

Behave Health, on the other hand, focuses exclusively on addiction treatment and other adjacent organizations, including sober living and coaching services. Behave Health is designed to specifically assist with:

  • IOP 

  • Inpatient 

  • Residential 

  • PHP

  • Medically assisted detox

  • Addiction treatment group practices

  • Recovery residences and sober living homes

  • Halfway houses, justice-involved housing and transitional housing 

  • Recovery coaching services 

Because Behave Health focuses exclusively on serving the unique needs of addiction treatment organizations, you won’t have to scroll through extraneous workflows and irrelevant menus to find what you need. 

Behave Health has everything behavioral health providers need -  and nothing else. The simplicity keeps our interface intuitive, simple and efficient. 

Behave Health Offers a Soup-to-Nuts In-House Billing Service While ICANotes Just Connects You With Third-Party “Billing Partners” 

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With Behave Health, you can easily shut down your billing department and outsource the entire operation to our expert billing specialists. ICANotes, on the other hand, simply offers to connect you with third-party “billing partners.” WHile both Behave Health and ICANotes offer serviceable Revenue Cycle Management functionality, only Behave Health offers a truly robust “set and forget” billing service. 

ICANnotes offers two options, neither of which are a fully functional billing solution. You can choose to either: 

  1. Continue to use your existing billing system - whether that’s a clearinghouse, a third-party billing service or a “billing application.”

Or 

  1. Opt to use one of ICANotes “billing partners:” Waystar, Ability, Change Healthcare or Etactics.

In either event, ICANotes can export a Billing Productivity Report to your provider, whether that’s your old billing team or your new ICANotes billing partner. What it can’t do, however, is replace your billing department altogether. 

Behave Health’s Telehealth Services Come Standard But ICANotes Charges Extra Monthly Fees for Telehealth Capabilities

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Both Behave Health and ICANotes can support full telehealth functionality. Video appointments, virtual treatment planning, ePrescribing and automatic appointment reminders are common features to both platforms. 

However, there is a key difference in the way the two software companies approach telehealth services: Behave Health includes telehealth functionality through Zoom for every client while ICANotes tacks on extra monthly fees in order to access telehealth services. 

On its “Telehealth FAQ” page, ICANotes explains that telehealth runs $10 per month for every clinician who needs access to the service. If, for example, you have a staff of 10 clinicians who need to access telehealth on ICANotes, you can expect to pay an additional $100 a month for the privilege of accessing virtual appointments. 

ePrescribing is Free With Behave Health and Costs Extra With ICANotes 

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It’s well documented that ePrescribing for controlled substances, like the medications used in medication assisted treatment for SUD, is on the rise. As MAT becomes more and more commonplace in addiction treatment settings, it’s important than your EHR can keep up with this vital component of evidence-based recovery. 

To that end, both Behave Health and ICANotes work with DrFirst to unlock native ePrescribing capabilities. It’s easy to prescribe on either platform directly from your phone or whatever device is most convenient for you. 

However, as they do with telehealth, ICANotes also charges extra for ePrescribing. A full-time ePrescribing license is $58 per month per provider on ICANotes, plus a “one-time activation fee” of $99.  

Ready to Try Behave Health? We’re Here to Help.

Behave Health is committed to making it easier - and more profitable - to operate evidence-based, results-focused addiction treatment centers.

Our all-in-one app puts clinical, administration, staff, admissions, alumni, residents, treatment plans, billing, insurance authorizations and more - all at your fingertips.

Get your free trial started today and see why more addiction treatment centers prefer Behave Health.

PS. Just getting started with behavioral health? Need help with certification, too? Behave Health can also help direct you to the right resources for help with Licensing or Accreditation by either The Joint Commission or CARF. Mention to your product specialist that you’re interested in this service after you start your free trial!