Sunwave or Behave Health? Choosing the Best EMR for Addiction Treatment
Choosing a new behavioral health or addiction treatment center EHR is stressful! Everything about your decision will impact your bottom line, for better or for worse.
Today, we’ll take a close look at two “all-in-one” software options available to behavioral health organizations: Sunwave and Behave Health.
We’ll take a deep dive into what types of organizations are best served by these two platforms, and do a granular breakdown of the features and benefits of each offering. Armed with this information, you’ll be able to quickly discern which platform best suits the needs of your business.
Sunwave and Behave Health: DelRay Beach Suite vs. San Francisco Software
Sometimes it’s helpful to understand the context in which a business is run and the community it chooses to surround itself with.
Behave Health was created by software developers in San Francisco. The Bay Area is known for quality software development and innovation. It’s also known for effective evidence-based addiction treatment. Behave Health is designed to cater to all types of behavioral health businesses, but it is specifically targeted to addiction treatment and SUD treatment providers.
On the other hand, Sunwave is based out of DelRay Beach, a national hotspot for the so-called “Florida Model” of addiction treatment. The way Sunwave describes the “travel” process involved in admissions points to the fact that many of its clients are likely operating “Florida model” businesses. These addiction treatment centers often systematically entice patients from out-of-state to live in their sober living homes and attend outpatient treatment during the day. There’s been some accusation within the treatment community that this model is easily abused and can even become counterproductive to long term recovery. However, for addiction treatment centers that are choosing to follow this business model, Sunwave may be the best choice.
Behave Health and Sunwave Both Cater to the Behavioral Health Business Community
Behave Health and Sunwave both focus on addiction treatment clients, but they are both able to handle any type of behavioral healthcare setting. Behave Health offers another platform, Sober Living App, that is specifically dedicated to sober living home management, while Sunwave has no such corresponding option.
Specifically, Sunwave’s website states that it caters to organizations focused on treating:
Drug and alcohol abuse and dependency
Anxiety
Depression
PTSD
Bipolar disorder
Eating disorders
While Behave Health can assist with:
Inpatient addiction treatment
Outpatient addiction treatment
Residential addiction treatment
Partial hospitalization and day treatment
Medical detox
Behavioral health counseling centers
Small group practices focused on behavioral health
Halfway houses and transitional housing
Recovery community organizations
Social service agencies
Coaching and case management services
Peer recovery support services
Sunwave and Behave Health Both Offer a CRM, EMR, and RCM
Sunwave and Behave Health have a lot of overlap on the features they offer clients. Both platforms offer Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Electronic Medical Records (an EMR, sometimes known as Electronic Health Records, or, EHR), and Revenue Cycle Management (RCM).
Where they differ, however, is that Behave Health allows you to outsource your entire billing department to their billing specialists while Sunwave does not have that capability. Instead, behavioral health facilities that use Sunwave must retain their billing team and use Sunwave’s RCM to process claims. Sunwave calls their RCM a “comprehensive billing solution,” but that solution doesn’t come with the human resources to actually power the engine.
Sunwave and Behave Health Offer Other, Key Must-Have Features an Addiction Treatment EMR
Both Behave Health and Sunwave can offer clients built-in telehealth capabilities, alumni tracking and management, eVOBs, medication management, treatment authorization or prior authorization, and intake workflows. Both platforms can easily handle individual 1x1 clinical notes as well as group notes. Both Sunwave and Behave Health are fully HIPAA compliant and emphasize patient privacy and data security.
Sunwave Doesn’t Offer Enterprise Resource Planning for Behavioral Health Clinics, But Behave Health Does
The final key difference between Sunwave and Behave Health is that Sunwave doesn’t offer Enterprise Resource Planning, while Behave Health does. Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP, involves such capabilities as:
Behavioral health property management
Human resources workflows
Community organization indexing
Vendor indexing
Operations scheduling, such as maintenance, cleaning, etc.
Struggling With Choosing an EMR? 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.
Need help with certification? 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!