Two record systems built for two shapes of practice
Symplast is a plastic surgery EHR and practice management platform for aesthetic medicine practices. Inside it are the patient record, the charts, the photos, the calendar and billing. Nextech is EHR software and practice management for specialty physicians and specialty practices, so it holds the chart and the practice management side, the schedule and the billing, for a physician-led practice. Both are the system of record. Dana charts in it, the consent is signed into it, and the before-and-after photo is stored in it.
A comparison between two EHRs is a comparison of the practice, since each is built around a kind of practice. A surgeon with a non-surgical room and a med spa with a medical director on paper are different businesses, and each vendor's own site says who it is for. Prices are on each vendor's pricing page and nowhere on this one. NorthCore does not pick an EHR. The growth system reads last-treatment dates from whichever one you keep and never writes into the chart.
What each holds, and what gets built around it
| Row | Symplast | Nextech |
|---|---|---|
| What it holds | Patient record, charts, photos, the calendar and billing | The chart, plus the practice management side: the schedule and the billing |
| Who it is built for | Aesthetic medicine practices, with plastic surgery named first in the vendor's own description | Specialty physicians and specialty practices, in the vendor's own description |
| Where the calendar lives | In Symplast | In Nextech |
| Where the checkout lives | Symplast billing | Nextech billing |
| What the growth system adds around it | The call answered and booked onto the Symplast calendar with a note; the comeback timed from the record; the dashboard | The same jobs on the Nextech calendar and record, with anything clinical handed to a provider |
The questions about your own practice that choose the EHR
- Who charts, and how many of them: one injector, a physician and two nurses, or a surgical team with a non-surgical room?
- What share of the visits are surgical, and does the surgical side need the record to do things the med spa side never will?
- How does billing run today, who reconciles it, and does the practice bill anything beyond the card at the desk?
- Who will sign the Business Associate Agreement, where will protected health information live, and who at the practice owns that answer? Confirm with counsel.
- How many locations and providers will chart in it in two years, and who trains the next hire on it?
- Which dates does the growth system need from it: last treatment, last visit, next due? Both hold them.
What moving the chart from one to the other involves
A switch between two EHRs is a chart migration before it is anything else. A chart is the legal record of care, and moving one is a project with rules of its own. What is exported and in what form, how long the old system stays readable, who checks a sample of records against the originals, and what your state requires on retention. Confirm every one of those with counsel and your medical director before a date is set. The photos and the consents travel with the chart or they stay behind under a read-only login, and that decision shapes the whole project. Providers chart in two places for an overlap period you set with the vendor, and the front desk books in two calendars for the same stretch.
Set beside that, what an owner wants from the switch is often a job the record was never built for. The phone answered during a procedure, the lapsed patient texted at the right week, the numbers on one page. NorthCore builds those around Symplast or Nextech, reading the dates it needs and writing nothing into the chart, which means the migration can be judged on its own merits.
How to evaluate the two in fourteen days
- Day one: list every kind of data in the EHR you run now: charts, consents, photos, the schedule, billing. Mark each one export, re-enter or leave behind.
- Days two to four: have Dana chart one visit of each type you perform in each vendor's demo, and have them write down what took longer.
- Days five to seven: ask each vendor for the export format, the retention terms and the agreement they sign on protected health information; hand all three to counsel.
- Week two: run a day's billing in each demo with the person who closes out your books, including one refund and one package sale.
- Last day: decide on the practice, write down the migration steps and their owner, and keep the growth system outside the decision.
What to do next
NorthCore's Run the whole practice solution wraps the EHR you keep, Symplast or Nextech: answering, comeback timing and the dashboard, read from the record and never written into it. The scope is in writing before the build, and it carries the promise on this site: results in 90 days, or we keep working until you have them.
