athenahealth — Local services in Boston

Because of constant medical practice mergers two physicians of mine now have patient portals via athenahealth. LIke any portals sometimes they don't work and that is not the complaint. But when that portal has no means other than calling the medical practice, if even that is available, to report login or whatever problems it is an exceptionally poor service. The medical practices because of mergers are already cost cutting and trying to take medical calls let alone have to turn around and contact athenahealth support. At a minimum athenahealth could have portal problem outage form that goes to athenahealth so their operations knows something is wrong. There can be all kinds of problem report pulldowns to categorize, filter, and route, and even better analyze problem patterns. On the athenahealth website the description for CEO Bob Segert says "with a passion for understanding and delivering on the needs of the customer, a relentless commitment to operational excellence" which at this point sounds unconvincing. Of course technically I'm probably not his customer, just a customer's customer, "ain't his problem". As I try to read a message from one doctor and upload more information on a Friday before quitting time it is a problem for me and I hope there is a "Come See Bob" meeting for his portal staff sooner rather than later...

Their password reset emails aren't properly authenticated (do not pass DMARC verification), so I just get emails that say their email was blocked. My provider said they're unable to help and recommended I contact Athenahealth for technical assistance. Their support number was useless, providing no one for patients to speak with. All you get as a patient is a recording of information you can find on their website and then they disconnect the call. When I finally got on with an operator and explained why I was calling, she connected me to someone in customer service but they refused to help me because I'm not a customer. He just ignored my inquiry and kept telling me to call the provider. Believe me, I will be calling my provider and telling them what terrible service Athenahealth is giving to their patients. That when issues arise that the practice can't resolve, Athenahealth doesn't care at all and will provide no recourse to resolve the issue, effectively blocking patient access to their medical records and test results. This company...

How could an organization with the reputation of AthenaHealth associate themselves with the likes of Jeffrey Immelt? Have they not been reviewing the horrific reports about what he did to GE as their CEO/Chairman for 16+ years? Just the other day in the media it was reported the GE Pension Fund is underfunded by $31 billion dollars! The list of his failures is too long to get into here, but the Leadership and Board of Directors of AthenaHealth should be ashamed of themselves for bringing someone like Immelt into their organization. Oh, by-the-way, do they understand Immelt will be spending considerable time in court defending himself against the litany of litigation currently being prepared against him and the GE Board? AthenaHealth should be prepared for serious negative feedback from their clients and partners and should immediately book massive reserves against future losses that Jeff Immelt will certainly...