Best EHR Software in 2026

Epic Systems is the largest EHR vendor by patient records. The company was founded in 1979 in a basement with three half-time employees and describes itself as employee-owned and developer-led; it states it has never made an acquisition and invests 35% of operating expenses in research and development. Its campus and headquarters are at 1979 Milky Way, Verona, Wisconsin.

More than 325 million patients have a current electronic record in Epic, and the software is used in academic medical centres, community hospitals, hospices, urgent care, payers and patients' homes. The company reports that it has been ranked the top overall software suite by the research firm KLAS for 16 consecutive years.

Epic's main strength is a single database spanning inpatient, outpatient, revenue cycle and patient-facing tools, which reduces interfaces inside a health system and gives patients one portal across settings. Its scale also produces a large network of connected organisations for record exchange. The drawbacks are those of any enterprise system: implementation takes months to years, requires substantial internal IT staff, and contracts are negotiated privately with no published prices. Smaller practices usually access Epic through an affiliated health system's community programme rather than buying it directly.

Oracle Health is the healthcare division Oracle built around Cerner Corporation, one of the two largest US hospital EHR vendors. Oracle completed its acquisition of Cerner on 8 June 2022 through a cash tender offer at US$95.00 per share; about 66% of outstanding shares were tendered, and Oracle borrowed US$15.7 billion under a bridge facility to finance the purchase, repay certain Cerner debt and cover fees.

The Cerner platform serves acute-care hospitals, health systems and government health agencies, and Oracle has positioned the business around moving these customers to its own cloud infrastructure and adding AI documentation tools. For buyers, the main appeal is the backing of a large enterprise software company with its own database and cloud, plus an installed base that includes many large US and international health systems.

The limitations are practical. Oracle does not publish prices, and the company's own product and news pages could not be opened for this review, so this entry is limited to the facts in Oracle's regulatory filing. Organisations evaluating the product should ask for current reference sites, migration timelines from older Cerner Millennium deployments, and the terms of any cloud transition.

MEDITECH (Medical Information Technology, Inc.) develops Expanse, an EHR platform for hospitals and health systems that the company describes as unifying data and providing AI-driven insights. MEDITECH has historically been strongest among community and regional hospitals, and its customer list now also includes very large systems.

Its most prominent customer is HCA Healthcare, which the company says operates 190 hospitals and 2,400 sites of care across 20 US states and the UK; 34 hospitals in HCA's Capital and North Florida divisions have gone live on Expanse. Other named customers include Humber River Health in Canada, UPMC Ireland, Willis Knighton Health, Frederick Health, Chris O'Brien Lifehouse in Australia and a range of rural and community hospitals. The company states that it has won Best in KLAS awards for 12 consecutive years.

MEDITECH's advantages are its long experience with smaller hospitals, international deployments and its reference sites in several countries. Its main limitation is market share: it has fewer large academic customers than Epic or Oracle Health, which matters for organisations that want peers on the same system for record exchange. Prices are not published.

athenahealth sells athenaOne, a cloud-based suite combining an ambulatory EHR, practice management and revenue cycle services, delivered as a single network rather than as separately hosted installations. The company was acquired in February 2022 by Hellman & Friedman and Bain Capital for US$17 billion; the sellers were Veritas Capital and Evergreen Coast Capital. At the time of the deal, more than 140,000 ambulatory care providers in all 50 states and over 120 specialties used the network, and Bob Segert remained chairman and chief executive.

athenahealth's network model means all customers run the same software version, and the company uses aggregated claims data to update payer rules for its billing service. That makes it attractive to groups that want the EHR vendor to take responsibility for claim follow-up. It competes most directly with eClinicalWorks and NextGen in mid-size and large physician groups.

The limitations are price transparency and control: athenahealth does not publish prices, and its revenue cycle services are typically charged as a share of collections. The company's own website could not be opened for this review, so current product and AI features should be confirmed directly.

eClinicalWorks is a privately held vendor of cloud-based EHR, telehealth, population health, patient engagement and revenue cycle management software. Founded in 1999, it employs about 6,500 people and reported revenue of US$900 million in 2024.

The company states that more than 180,000 physicians and nurse practitioners and more than 850,000 healthcare professionals use its EHR, across more than 110,000 facilities. Its customers range from small practices to large ambulatory networks and community health centres.

eClinicalWorks is one of the largest independent ambulatory vendors and has grown without private-equity ownership, which some buyers see as a sign of stability. It competes on breadth: an EHR, practice management, patient engagement and outsourced billing can all be purchased from one vendor. Limitations include the absence of published pricing on its site and a breadth of modules that makes implementation planning important.

NextGen Healthcare sells ambulatory EHR, practice management, revenue cycle and interoperability products. It splits its EHR into NextGen Enterprise for practices with ten or more providers and NextGen Office for those with fewer than ten, and offers NextGen Mobile and a set of Clinical AI tools including ambient documentation.

The company states that it supports more than 10,000 medical groups at 75,000 locations, manages more than 31 million patient records, supports more than 40 specialties and serves more than 300 FQHCs and community health centres. It has over 3,000 employees. NextGen also owns Mirth Connect, an integration engine used across the industry, and says it supports about one-third of public health information exchanges in the US; its NextGen Share Diagnostic Hub connects practices to more than 725 laboratories.

NextGen's strengths are specialty content and interoperability. Its limitations are complexity at the Enterprise tier, which usually needs a dedicated administrator, and the absence of published prices for either product.

Greenway Health is a Tampa, Florida-based vendor of ambulatory EHR and practice management software. It markets its products as the Novare AI Platform, an ambulatory care platform that bundles the EHR with telehealth, analytics, patient engagement, interoperability, practice and revenue management, Clinical Assist, a document manager and electronic dental records.

The company states that more than 31,000 providers and more than 2,300 healthcare organisations use its solutions, across more than 40 medical specialties. Besides software it sells revenue services, care coordination and interpreter services, so a practice can outsource billing to the same vendor. Greenway lists a 2026 KLAS "Most Improved Physician Practice Solution" badge and a 2026 Black Book award among its recognitions.

Greenway's main appeal is to independent and mid-size practices that want an EHR with optional billing services and dental records. Its limitations are a smaller installed base than athenahealth or eClinicalWorks and no published pricing; ownership details were not stated on the pages reviewed.

AdvancedMD, headquartered in South Jordan, Utah, sells a cloud suite of practice management, billing, EHR and patient engagement software to private practices. The company states that about 13,000 private practices and about 850 medical billing companies use its software, that it processes 9.5 million claims a month, and that it has about 650 employees.

Its EHR includes e-prescribing and EPCS, eMAR, immunisation reporting, remote patient monitoring and MIPS reporting, and newer AI features cover ambient documentation, eligibility verification and coding assistance. A distinctive part of the business is its channel to billing companies: AdvancedMD runs the AdvancedBiller partner programme for independent billing firms, and it also offers its own outsourced revenue cycle management. The company states that practices using its in-house RCM team can get the software for free.

AdvancedMD suits independent practices and billing services that want a strong practice management back end. Limitations include quote-only pricing and a broad module list that can be costly when assembled; group practices should check data warehouse and multi-location options.

Tebra was formed by combining Kareo, a practice management and billing software company, and PatientPop, a patient acquisition and marketing platform. Kareo is now part of Tebra, and the company is headquartered in Corona Del Mar, California.

Tebra sells five bundles: Practice Automation (all-in-one), EHR+, Patient Experience + Marketing, EHR Starter and Billing Starter. The full bundle covers practice management, clinical care, billing and payments, telehealth and patient engagement tools such as online scheduling, reminders, reviews and Google Business Profile management.

Pricing is per clinical provider (MDs, DOs, NPs and PAs), not per user, and non-clinical staff use the platform at no additional cost. Providers billing 100 or fewer claims a month qualify for lower-tier pricing. The combination of EHR and marketing tools is unusual and suits practices that compete for new patients online. The limitations are that no dollar prices are published and that controlled-substance prescribing carries extra one-time and annual fees.

Elation Health builds an EHR designed around primary care, including independent practices, direct primary care and organisations in value-based payment arrangements. Alongside the clinical EHR, it sells Elation Billing and AI Billing products and offers technical advising and performance consulting for larger practices and value-based care organisations.

Elation states that its pricing includes "free, native-AI solutions", though the page does not list them. Prices are personalised: practices submit a form and an Elation specialist responds with a quote, and the company offers self-guided product tours of the EHR and billing tools rather than a free trial.

Elation's appeal lies in a clinician-first charting interface and its focus on longitudinal primary care records, which suits practices managing chronic conditions and value-based contracts. Its limitations are a narrower specialty scope than general ambulatory vendors, quote-only pricing and no free trial.

Practice Fusion is a cloud EHR for small independent practices and is part of the Veradigm network, its parent company. It is one of the few ambulatory EHRs that publishes a price.

The subscription starts at US$199 per provider per month, billed monthly with a required annual commitment and excluding taxes. Each provider licence allows e-prescribing of regular and controlled substances, chart signing, MIPS reporting and claim submission, and includes three signing staff and unlimited non-signing staff for tasks such as scheduling. A two-week trial is available with no credit card required. Billing services are sold separately and require a call for pricing.

Practice Fusion's advantages are transparent pricing, quick sign-up and a simple interface for small practices. Its limitations are a lighter practice management and billing feature set than suites such as AdvancedMD or Tebra, and dependence on its parent's strategy for future development.

DrChrono is a cloud EHR and practice management platform known for its iPad and iPhone apps. It is owned by EverHealth Solutions Inc., which trades under the DrChrono name and brands the product "DrChrono by EverHealth".

DrChrono sells three plans, Foundation, Growth and Premium, without published plan prices; customers request a quote or download a pricing sheet. The pricing page does publish many usage charges: extended lab integration at US$30 per provider per month; overages of US$0.05 per text, US$0.07 per faxed page and US$0.10 per call; US$1.00 per paper claim; US$0.90 per mailed statement; US$1.50 per workers' compensation claim; US$0.59 per electronic statement; and integrated payments at a US$5 programme fee plus 3.25% and US$0.30 per card transaction. Eligibility checks and claim submissions are billed per use.

DrChrono suits small practices whose clinicians chart on tablets. The many per-unit fees make total cost harder to predict than with flat subscriptions, and practices with high claim volumes should model these charges carefully.

CharmHealth offers a cloud EHR, practice management, revenue cycle management, a billing platform and patient engagement tools, and an AI assistant called CharmCopilot. It is aimed at independent practices, including integrative, functional and multi-specialty clinics.

Unlike most EHR vendors, CharmHealth lets practices start for free and then pay only for the modules they need; its patient app is free for every patient registered in the EHR. The company states that an account can be onboarded in about an hour through its CharmHealth 101 webinar, and runs a monthly support open house. A marketplace, CharmHealthHub, lists third-party add-ons.

CharmHealth's strengths are low entry cost and flexibility for small or cash-pay practices. Its limitations are that module prices must be checked individually, the company publishes little about its installed base or ownership, and larger groups may need deeper reporting and integrations than it offers.

SimplePractice is an EHR and practice management system for therapists, counsellors, psychologists and other private-practice clinicians, particularly in behavioural health. It combines scheduling, documentation, client portal, telehealth, billing and insurance claims in one subscription.

Pricing is published: Starter at US$49 a month, Essential at US$79 and Plus at US$99, with Plus for groups at US$99 for the first practitioner and US$74 for each additional one. Plus adds group appointments, group telehealth, a premium support phone line and advanced analytics. Practices with six or more practitioners receive custom pricing. A free trial of up to 30 days is available, and the vendor periodically offers introductory discounts.

Add-ons include Care Aide (US$59 a month for the account owner and US$49 per additional clinician), a Note Taker at US$35 a month, ePrescribe at US$49 a month plus an US$89 setup fee, and Insurance Navigator at US$1.79 per claim filed. The product is not designed for laboratory-heavy medical practices, and costs rise quickly once AI and prescribing add-ons are included.