athenahealth
Practice Better
| Feature | athenahealth | Practice Better |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Contact sales | From $25/mo |
| Free Plan | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Rating | 4.1 / 5 | 4.6 / 5 |
| Best For | medical-practices, small-clinics, physician-groups, ambulatory-care | nutritionists, health-coaches, naturopaths, wellness-practitioners |
| Founded | 1997 | 2014 |
| Ehr | ✓ | ✗ |
| Medical Billing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Patient Engagement | ✓ | ✗ |
| Telehealth | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reporting | ✓ | ✗ |
| Interoperability | ✓ | ✗ |
| Client Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Scheduling | ✗ | ✓ |
| Billing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Protocols | ✗ | ✓ |
| Client Portal | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ athenahealth Pros
- Cloud-based
- Good revenue cycle
- Automatic updates
- Network intelligence
✗ athenahealth Cons
- Percentage-based pricing
- Interface learning curve
- Customization limits
✓ Practice Better Pros
- Purpose-built for health practitioners
- HIPAA-compliant telehealth
- Client portal with meal plans and protocols
- Integrated payment processing
✗ Practice Better Cons
- No free plan
- Limited customization of forms
- Learning curve for full feature set
The Verdict
athenahealth is built for medical practices and small clinics, with a focus on ehr and medical-billing. Practice Better targets nutritionists and health coaches and leads with client-management and telehealth.
athenahealth uses custom enterprise pricing, while Practice Better starts at $25/mo — a tangible advantage for teams with a fixed budget.
Neither tool offers a free plan, so factor the subscription cost into your decision from the start.
Practice Better edges out on user ratings (4.6 vs 4.1). While both are well-regarded, that gap reflects real differences in user satisfaction worth considering.
Bottom line: Practice Better has a slight overall edge — but if cloud-based matters most to you, athenahealth may still be the right call.