Put 10 EHR websites side by side, and you’ll see a lot of the same features. Charting. Scheduling. ePrescribing. Billing. Patient portals. But a feature list can only tell you so much about what it’s actually like to use an EHR every day.

For this guide, we looked into 10 EHR systems physicians may be considering in 2027: what each one does well, where the tradeoffs are, what you can expect to pay, and which types of practices they’re built to support.

Tebra works with more than 42,000 practices across the US, with a focus on the independent practices this guide is written for. We build technology for their clinical, billing, and patient workflows, and we regularly survey providers about how they work, what takes up their time, and where technology is adding more work instead of taking it away.

Our research shows how much time and energy the work surrounding patient care can take. In Tebra’s survey of 219 US providers at independent practices with fewer than 100 employees:

The EHR is only one part of that picture, but it sits in the middle of a lot of the work physicians do every day. Choosing one has also gotten more complicated as vendors add AI documentation, billing automation, patient communication, analytics, and other tools. Terms like “all-in-one,” “integrated,” and “AI-powered” can mean very different things from one platform to another.

Tebra is one of the EHR systems included in this guide. We’ll tell you where we think Tebra is a strong fit, but we’ll also point out where another platform may make more sense for a particular specialty, practice size, or need.

EHR vendors often use the same words to describe very different products. “Integrated” might mean everything happens in one platform, or it might mean connecting several products. “AI-powered” could describe an ambient scribe, a billing tool, or a feature that suggests your next step. And a published monthly price may cover only part of what you’ll need.

Here are five areas where it pays to look more closely.

Two EHRs may both offer billing, scheduling, patient communication, and AI, but those tools may fit together very differently. One platform may let you complete a workflow without leaving the system, while another may rely on separate products, integrations, or manual steps along the way.

That distinction matters because your staff doesn’t use features one at a time. A patient moves from scheduling and intake to the clinical encounter, billing, payment, and follow-up, with information passing between people and systems along the way.

A checkmark next to “ePrescribing” or “patient portal” tells you the capability exists. It doesn’t tell you how many clicks it takes, what your staff has to enter manually, or whether the feature works the way your practice needs it to.

A solo therapist, a primary care physician, and a multi-provider dermatology practice may all need charting, scheduling, billing, and patient communication. How they use those tools can be completely different. 

Templates, prescribing requirements, coding, clinical workflows, patient intake, reporting, and billing complexity can all vary by specialty. 

“AI-powered” is becoming another common checkmark on EHR comparison tables. But an ambient scribe, coding suggestion, claim-risk flag, and automated patient message solve very different problems.

Where the AI sits in the workflow matters too. A documentation tool that creates a draft inside the EHR is a different experience from one that requires clinicians to copy and paste information between products. The same question applies to AI used for billing, scheduling, and patient communication.

EHR vendors don’t all charge the same way. You may see monthly subscriptions, per-provider fees, percentage-of-collections pricing, or a custom quote. And even when a vendor publishes a starting price, that number may not include everything your practice will need.

Implementation, data migration, training, payment processing, integrations, additional modules, AI tools, and other services can change the cost. Contract length and what happens to your data if you leave matter too.

We evaluated each EHR using the same criteria, based on current vendor websites, product documentation, published pricing where available, and other public information. 

For each platform, we looked at:

We used information that was publicly available as of October 2026. Because EHR features, pricing, and packaging change, practices should confirm current details directly with each vendor before making a decision.

The EHRs below cover a wide range, from platforms built specifically for small independent practices to systems designed for larger groups or particular specialties. Rather than ranking them from best to worst, we looked at where each one fits, what stands out, and what practices should look at more closely before choosing an EHR.

Best fit: Independent practices in primary care, family medicine, behavioral health, and other specialties, including growing multi-provider and multi-location practices that want EHR, billing, patient experience, and AI workflows connected in one platform.

Tebra is a cloud-based EHR and practice platform built for independent practices. Its clinical tools cover charting, ePrescribing, labs, telehealth, scheduling, and specialty-specific documentation, with billing, payments, patient engagement, and practice growth tools available in the same platform.

That broader approach is what separates Tebra from EHRs focused mainly on the clinical side of the practice. A patient can move from online scheduling and intake through the visit, claim, payment, and follow-up without the practice having to piece together a separate system for each part of the experience. Tebra supports more than 50 specialties and provider types, so those workflows can also be configured around different types of care.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: Tebra AI Smart Staff includes AI Note Assist for clinical documentation, AI Billing Assistant for pre-submission claim review, AI Voice Assistant for patient calls, and AI tools for review responses and patient feedback analysis.

Pricing: Tebra uses subscription pricing rather than charging a percentage of collections. EHR Starter begins at $99 per provider per month for eligible non-physician providers and $199 for physicians. EHR Starter requires Billing Starter, and pricing varies by provider type, claim volume, package, and add-ons.

Best fit: Ambulatory practices and multi-provider groups looking for an EHR closely connected with revenue cycle management and patient engagement.

athenahealth combines EHR, practice management, patient engagement, and revenue cycle management through athenaOne. Its model connects clinical and financial workflows and supports a broad range of ambulatory specialties.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: athenahealth offers AI for ambient documentation, chart preparation, clinical summaries, and other clinical and administrative workflows.

Pricing: athenahealth does not publish a standard monthly price for athenaOne. Its pricing model is based on a percentage of collections, with specific rates provided through a quote.

Best fit: Ambulatory practices looking for broad EHR and practice management functionality, including options for population health and value-based care.

eClinicalWorks combines EHR and practice management with billing and patient-facing tools. Practices can manage billing internally or use eClinicalWorks' RCM service, while additional products extend the platform into areas such as patient engagement and population health.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: eClinicalWorks uses AI for clinical documentation and other clinical, patient, and revenue cycle workflows.

Pricing: eClinicalWorks lists EHR-only software at $499 per provider per month and EHR with Practice Management at $599. Its RCM service is priced at 2.9% of practice collections. Additional charges can apply for certain services and larger implementations.

Best fit: Specialty and multi-specialty practices that need configurable clinical workflows and more advanced practice management capabilities.

NextGen offers separate products based on practice size. NextGen Office is designed for independent practices with fewer than 10 providers, while NextGen Enterprise serves larger organizations. Both connect EHR workflows with practice management and other operational tools.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: NextGen Clinical AI uses ambient listening to create structured draft notes, with additional AI capabilities available across clinical, financial, and operational workflows.

Pricing: NextGen does not publish standard pricing for NextGen Office or NextGen Enterprise. Practices need a custom quote.

Best fit: Practices in one of ModMed's supported specialties that want an EHR built around specialty-specific clinical workflows.

ModMed takes a specialty-first approach. Its EMA EHR supports 10 specialties, while gastroenterology practices use gGastro, bringing its current specialty coverage to 11. Practices can also add practice management, patient engagement, analytics, billing services, and other tools.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: ModMed Scribe 2.0 provides AI-assisted clinical documentation within EMA, with additional AI capabilities being used across other practice workflows.

Pricing: ModMed does not publish standard EHR prices. Pricing varies by specialty, products, and configuration.

Best fit: Solo and small-group behavioral health practices looking for an EHR designed around therapy workflows.

SimplePractice brings documentation, scheduling, billing, telehealth, intake, and client communication together for behavioral health and other health and wellness providers.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: SimplePractice offers Note Taker for AI-assisted documentation and Care Aide for additional AI-supported clinical and administrative tasks.

Pricing: SimplePractice plans currently start at $49 per month for Starter, $79 for Essential, and $99 for Plus. Add-ons and insurance claim fees can increase the total cost.

Best fit: Independent and multi-provider practices looking for a configurable EHR with practice management and medical billing options.

AdvancedMD combines EHR and practice management with scheduling, patient engagement, billing, and reporting. Practices can manage billing themselves or use AdvancedMD's outsourced RCM services.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: AdvancedMD's AI Clinical Assistant supports ambient transcription, note generation, pre-visit summaries, and other documentation tasks.

Pricing: AdvancedMD uses custom pricing for its core software. Its AI tools are currently offered as an add-on at $100 per provider per month for unlimited encounters or $0.99 per encounter.

Best fit: Smaller independent practices looking for a relatively straightforward EHR with a lower published starting price.

Practice Fusion focuses on the core needs of independent medical practices, including charting, ePrescribing, labs and imaging, scheduling, patient records, and a patient portal. It also offers billing software and billing services for practices that want to connect clinical and financial workflows.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: Practice Fusion has added AI-assisted clinical documentation, with its current AI offering focused primarily on the documentation workflow.

Pricing: Practice Fusion starts at $199 per provider per month with a required annual commitment. Additional products and services may cost extra.

Best fit: Behavioral health practices that need an EHR built for therapy and psychiatry, including groups with more specialized workflows.

Valant is built specifically for behavioral health, with clinical and administrative workflows for therapy and psychiatry. It also supports areas such as measurement-based care and more complex behavioral health programs, including IOP and PHP.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: Valant AI Notes Assist generates structured draft notes for therapy and psychiatry workflows inside the EHR.

Pricing: Valant doesn't publish standard monthly prices. Pricing varies by user type, practice workflow, and selected features. 

Best fit: Independent and multi-specialty practices looking for EHR, practice management, billing, and AI capabilities.

OmniMD offers a cloud-based EHR with practice management, billing, patient-facing tools, and specialty-specific workflows. Its portfolio also includes outsourced RCM and AI products.

Key strengths

Things to consider

AI: OmniMD offers ambient documentation as well as AI tools for front-desk, coding, and revenue cycle workflows.

Pricing: OmniMD uses flat per-provider pricing rather than percentage-of-collections pricing, but it does not publish a standard dollar amount. Practices need a quote based on their selected products and services.

We understand that’s a lot to compare, so to make it easier, here’s a quick look at how the 10 EHR systems stack up across practice fit, pricing, and AI.

Pricing note: Starting prices aren't directly comparable because included features, provider types, add-ons, billing services, and contract requirements vary by vendor.

A table can narrow down your options, but the real test is how an EHR fits the way your practice works. Here’s what to look at before you choose.

Another way to compare EHR systems is to look at which ones fit your practice's specific needs. Here's how the EHRs on our list compare across common practice scenarios.

Sometimes, the best place to start isn’t with a vendor or a feature list. It’s with the problems you want a new EHR to solve.

Our guide to selecting the right EHR for your independent practice walks through what to consider before making a decision.

Before comparing features, identify where your current workflows create the most friction. Are providers finishing notes after hours? Is the front desk spending too much time on scheduling and patient calls? Are billing staff moving between systems or re-entering information?

Starting with actual problems gives you a much better filter for evaluating an EHR than a long list of features you may or may not use.

Some requirements should eliminate an EHR from consideration immediately. That might include specialty-specific documentation, ePrescribing, certain integrations, billing capabilities, telehealth, reporting, or support for multiple providers and locations.

Once you know the non-negotiables, it becomes easier to figure out which capabilities your practice actually needs from features that simply look good in a demo.

A polished product demo is designed to show an EHR at its best. Make the demo more useful by giving the vendor a few scenarios your team handles regularly and asking them to walk through each one.

For example, ask to see what happens from online scheduling and intake through the visit, documentation, claim submission, payment, and patient follow-up. Pay attention to where staff have to switch systems, enter the same information twice, or complete a step manually.

Before signing, ask vendors for references from customers with a similar specialty, practice size, and billing setup. A five-provider dermatology group may have a very different experience from a solo therapist or a 50-provider multi-specialty organization, even when they're using the same EHR.

Ask those practices what implementation was actually like, what they wish they had known before switching, which features their teams use every day, and where they still rely on workarounds.

We’ve mentioned pricing a few times already, but it’s worth digging a little deeper. The price you see on an EHR website is a useful starting point, but it may not be what your practice actually pays.

Two systems with similar starting prices can end up costing very different amounts depending on what’s included, how the vendor charges, and which additional tools or services your practice needs. 

So before comparing the numbers, make sure you know what’s behind them.

A monthly price might cover the EHR itself, but what about practice management, telehealth, patient engagement, reporting, or billing?

The same goes for AI. Some vendors include certain AI capabilities in their plans, while others charge separately by provider, encounter, or product.

This is why comparing two starting prices side by side can be misleading. Make sure you’re comparing the setup your practice would actually use.

The number matters, but so does the pricing model behind it.

Some EHR vendors charge a flat monthly subscription or per-provider fee. Others charge a percentage of collections, particularly when billing or revenue cycle services are part of the package.

Run both models against your actual provider count and collections. A pricing model that works well for a small practice today may look very different as you add providers or your revenue grows.

Once you know the base price and pricing model, ask what else could appear on the bill.

Depending on the vendor and package, that could include implementation, data migration, training, integrations, payment processing, claims, ePrescribing, AI tools, additional users, or additional locations.

Not every vendor charges separately for these things. That’s exactly why it’s worth asking. A quote is much easier to evaluate when you know which costs are included and which aren't.

A good monthly price can look less attractive if it comes with terms that don’t work for your practice.

Find out whether you’re committing to a month, a year, or multiple years. Ask whether the price can change during that period and what happens to your bill when you add or remove providers.

While you’re there, check the cancellation terms and whether there are costs associated with getting your data out if you eventually decide to switch.

By this point, you should be able to ask each vendor for something much more useful than a starting price: what would this EHR cost for our practice?

Give vendors the same basic requirements, including your provider count, the products you need, your billing setup, the AI capabilities you want, and any necessary integrations. Then compare those quotes side by side.

That won’t make EHR pricing perfectly apples to apples, but it gets you a lot closer.

We keep bringing up AI throughout this guide as well, mostly because, by 2027, it’s becoming harder to evaluate an EHR without considering it. But the number of AI features a vendor offers probably isn’t the most useful way to compare them.

A better question is: What work will the AI actually take off your team’s plate?

If documentation is keeping providers late, an ambient documentation tool may be high on your list. It also helps to clean up your EHR documentation habits, such as templates and note structure, so AI drafts land in a simpler workflow. If your billing team spends hours reviewing claims, look at how AI is being used before and after submission. If your front desk is overwhelmed by calls, scheduling, and patient messages, clinical AI alone won’t solve that problem.

In other words, start with the workload, then look for the AI that addresses it.

An AI tool can be useful on its own, but where it sits in your workflow makes a difference.

For example, if an ambient documentation tool creates a draft note, where does that draft go next? Can the provider review and complete it inside the EHR, or does information need to be copied between systems?

Ask the same questions about AI used for billing, scheduling, patient communication, and other workflows. The fewer extra steps your team has to add around the AI, the more useful it’s likely to be day to day.

A good demo shouldn’t stop when the AI produces an output.

If it drafts a note, what does the provider need to review before signing it? If it flags a claim, who decides what happens next? If it answers a patient call, how does it handle a question it can’t resolve?

This is also where you can get past impressive demos and understand how much human review and follow-up the tool still requires.

And yes, we’re back to pricing for a moment.

Some AI capabilities may be included with the EHR or another package, while others are sold separately or priced per provider, encounter, or use. If AI is one of the reasons you’re considering a particular EHR, include those costs in the quote you compare, rather than treating them as an add-on you’ll figure out later.

AI is changing quickly, and the capabilities available this year will almost certainly keep evolving. Your EHR still needs to work well when no AI is involved.

Clinical workflows, specialty fit, billing, interoperability, patient experience, reliability, security, and support still matter. AI should make those workflows easier, not compensate for an EHR that doesn’t otherwise fit your practice.

So, you’ve narrowed down your options, sat through the demos, and compared the quotes. You may even have a frontrunner. But before you sign, there are a few questions worth getting clear answers to, especially the ones that don’t always come up in a sales demo.

Your practice is going to put a lot of information into this system. You should know how easily you can get it back out.

Ask what data you can export, what format it comes in, how long an export typically takes, and whether there’s a fee. And if you’re switching from another EHR, get specific about migration too. What will the vendor move for you, and what will your team be responsible for?

This may not feel urgent while you’re shopping for a new system, but it can become very urgent if you ever decide to leave.

You’ll see some version of “HIPAA compliant” on plenty of healthcare software websites. Don’t let that be the end of the conversation.

Ask whether the vendor will sign a business associate agreement (BAA), how your data is encrypted, what access controls are available, and how the company handles security incidents. Look for independent security attestations, such as SOC 2 Type 2, and verify whether the specific EHR product and version are ONC-certified.

If your practice relies on particular labs, pharmacies, clearinghouses, imaging systems, or other tools, don’t settle for hearing that the EHR “integrates” with them. Ask to see how the connection works for the exact systems you use.

Does information move both ways? Does the EHR support health information exchange (HIE) or APIs for sharing patient records? Is anything still entered manually? Is additional setup required, and does it cost extra?

If your providers prescribe controlled substances, confirm that the system supports electronic prescribing of controlled substances (EPCS), including any additional setup or identity verification requirements.

Implementation gets a lot of attention during the buying process. What happens a month later when someone on your team needs help?

Ask who you’ll contact, when support is available, whether support costs extra, and what training resources your team can come back to. If you’ll have a dedicated implementation contact, find out what support looks like once that person is no longer your main point of contact.

It may feel strange to ask about leaving before you’ve even signed up, but this is exactly when you want to know.

How long is the contract? Does it renew automatically? How much notice do you need to give? Are there termination fees? And if you leave, how do you get your data back?

Hopefully, you won’t need those answers for a long time. But if you do, you’ll be glad you asked before your signature was on the contract.

Finally, once you’ve chosen a new EHR, the next question is how to make the move without creating chaos for your team or patients. Most of that comes down to three things: the data, the people, and the timing.

Get a clear migration plan before you set a go-live date. Confirm which records and data will move into the new EHR, what may need to remain accessible in the old system, and whether anything will require manual work from your team.

This can also be a good time to clean up duplicate or outdated information instead of carrying it into the new system.

Your providers, front desk, and billing staff use the EHR differently, so their training should look different too.

Give each group time to practice the workflows they’ll actually handle. It can also help to run through a few typical patient scenarios before launch. That’s when you want to discover that someone doesn’t know where to find a migrated record or what happens after a claim is submitted, not during a packed clinic day.

There will probably be questions once people start using the new system for real. If you have flexibility, don’t choose your busiest day to launch.

Make sure everyone knows where to go for help and who on your team is responsible for escalating problems to the vendor. Then, a few weeks in, check with the people actually using the EHR. You’ll usually have a much better sense by then of what needs more training, a configuration change, or a call to support.