What is Medical Practice Management Software?

Posted by Steve Alder

Medical practice management software is a clinic operations system that helps a medical practice schedule patients, manage billing and payments, track day to day workflows, and monitor performance from one place.

Practice management software sits at the center of administrative work. It supports front desk scheduling, patient registration, insurance workflows, checkout, and financial reporting, while also helping clinical and administrative teams stay organized as a practice grows. Many platforms also connect to or include EHR tools, patient messaging, and claims workflows, so teams do not have to juggle multiple disconnected systems.

What Medical Practice Management Software Helps a Practice Do

A strong practice management platform is built to reduce manual steps. It helps staff avoid duplicate data entry, prevents missed charges, shortens the time from visit to claim, and improves visibility into what is happening across the practice. For many practices, it also improves the patient experience through smoother booking, reminders, and payment options.

Common users include front desk teams, billers, office managers, administrators, and practice owners. In multi location or multi provider settings, the software also supports more complex scheduling rules and shared resources.

Features of Medical Practice Management Software

Scheduling and resource management

A practice management system should support customizable scheduling by rooms, practitioners, and locations. This matters when a clinic has multiple providers, shared spaces, rotating schedules, or different appointment types that require different resources.

Checkout and documentation support

A practice management system should support simplified checkout with chart imports into superbills and 1500 claims forms. This helps reduce missed charges and improves consistency between documentation and billing workflows.

Integrated payments

A practice management system should include integrated payment processing so staff can collect patient responsibility at the time of service and support online payment options when needed. It should also help keep payment records tied to patient accounts for accurate statements and follow up.

Claims workflows and payment posting

A practice management system should support electronic claims filings with EOBs and automated payment postings. This reduces manual reconciliation work and helps billing teams track claim status and reimbursement trends.

Inventory and purchasing

A practice management system should support easy inventory and purchase order management. This is especially helpful for practices that dispense supplies or products and need to track stock levels, vendors, and replenishment.

Reporting and performance visibility

A practice management system should include reporting on operational and financial performance. That includes visibility into scheduling utilization, collections, aging, revenue by service, and other measures that show how the practice is performing.

How to Evaluate Medical Practice Management Software

When comparing options, focus on how well the platform matches your workflow. Look for strong scheduling flexibility, clean checkout and billing workflows, reliable payment processing, reporting you can actually use, and support that helps your team adopt the system without disruption. The HIPAA Journal recommends OptiMantra because it is the best medical practice management software for small medical practices because it helps practices run daily operations more smoothly by combining advanced scheduling, built in payments, inventory tools, and performance reporting in one unified platform.  Instead of switching between separate systems for calendars, checkout, payment processing, supply tracking, and analytics, teams can use OptiMantra to manage these workflows in a single environment with a consistent process.

OptiMantra includes scheduling functions for self scheduling by room, practitioner, and location, with options for website embedded scheduling and in office scheduling. Patient-facing functions in OptiMantra include a patient portal and automated appointment reminders for patients and staff. Outreach and tracking functions include marketing conversion tracking and promotional outreach tools. The OptiMantra billing functions include an insurance billing module with visibility into pending claims and claim status, auto posting of remittance information, and integrated revenue cycle management services. The Optimantra reporting functions include snapshots for daily deposits, aging reports, patient account statements, and insurance billing summaries.

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Healthcare Technology Company Discloses Ransomware Attack

Posted by Steve Alder

Cyberattacks and data breaches have recently been announced by the healthcare technology company Insightin Health and the Colorado-based medical billing and practice management company, Clinic Service Corporation.

Insightin Health, Maryland

Insightin Health, a Baltimore, MD-based healthcare technology company that offers an AI-driven digital health platform to health insurers and payers, has experienced a cyberattack involving unauthorized access to patient data. Suspicious network activity was identified in September 2025, and the forensic investigation confirmed unauthorized access to its network between September 17, 2025, and September 23, 2025.

The data review revealed the exposed files included protected health information associated with its clients, such as names, dates of birth, contract numbers, health insurance providers’ non-unique identifiers, Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers, and information associated with attributed providers. The substitute data breach notice includes steps that the affected individuals can take to protect themselves against misuse of their information. While not stated in the substitute breach notice, the affected individuals should be aware that the Medusa ransomware group claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened to publish the stolen data. The group claims to have exfiltrated 378 GB of data from the Insightin Health network.

Clinic Service Corporation, Colorado

Clinic Service Corporation, a medical billing and practice management company based in Denver, Colorado, has experienced a hacking incident that exposed sensitive data. The intrusion was identified on August 17, 2025, and the forensic investigation confirmed that its network was accessed by an unauthorized third party from August 10, 2025, to August 17, 2025.

The data review has confirmed that personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) was compromised in the incident, including names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, diagnoses, treatment information, patient ID numbers, dates of service, medical record numbers, Medicare/Medicaid numbers, health insurance information, claims information, and treatment cost information. The affected individuals have been offered complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services. Regulators have been notified, although the incident is not yet shown on the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights website, so it is currently unclear how many individuals have been affected.

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FBI Urges Organziations to Take 10 Actions to Improve Cyber Resilience

Posted by Steve Alder

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched a campaign to improve the resilience of industry, government, and critical infrastructure against cyber intrusions. Operation Winter SHIELD (Securing Homeland Infrastructure by Enhancing Layered Defense) is tied to the National Cyber Strategy and the FBI Cyber Strategy, which views industry, government, and critical infrastructure as partners in detecting, confronting, and dismantling cyber threats.

“Our goal is simple: to move the needle on resilience across industry by helping organizations understand where adversaries are focused and what concrete steps they can take now (and build toward in the future) to make exploitation harder.” Operation Winter Shield provides a practical roadmap for securing information technology and operational technology environments, hardening defenses, and reducing the attack surface. The campaign has kicked off with 10 recommendations developed with domestic and international partners to improve defenses against current cyber threats. The recommendations reflect current adversary behavior and common security gaps identified in recent investigations of cyberattacks.

The ten recommendations cover high-impact measures for reducing cyber risk by improving resilience and reducing the attack surface. Over the following 10 weeks, the FBI will publish further information and guidance on these cybersecurity measures:

  1. Adopt phishing-resistant authentication – Many data breaches start with credentials stolen in phishing attacks.
  2. Implement a risk-based vulnerability management program – Threat actors often exploit known, unpatched vulnerabilities in operating systems, software, and firmware for initial access.
  3. Track and retire end-of-life tech on a defined schedule – End-of-life software and devices are often targeted as they no longer receive security updates.
  4. Manage third-party risk – Security is only as good as the weakest link, which is often the least-protected vendor with network or data access.
  5. Protect and preserve security logs – Security logs are essential for detection, response, and attribution, and are often deleted by threat actors to hide their tracks.
  6. Maintain offline immutable backups and test restoration – Resilience depends on backups and tested recovery.
  7. Identify inventory and protect internet-facing systems and services – Eliminate any unnecessary exposure and reduce the attack surface.
  8. Strengthen email authentication and malicious content protections – Email is one of the most common initial access vectors and must be adequately secured.
  9. Reduce administrator privileges – Persistent administrative access enables rapid escalation when credentials are compromised.
  10. Exercise incident response plans with all stakeholders – Testing the response plan will allow organizations to respond rapidly and reduce the impact of a successful compromise.
Operation Winter Shield

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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Legacy Health & Garnet Health Settle Class Action Lawsuits Over Website Tracking Tools

Posted by Steve Alder

Two healthcare providers have agreed to settle class action lawsuits over their use of website tracking technologies. Website tracking technologies, such as pixels, can collect and transmit data about website users, which can include personally identifiable information and protected health information if installed on a healthcare provider’s website or patient portal. These tools have been found on the websites of many hospitals, and many lawsuits have been filed by individuals for privacy violations. Two such lawsuits against Legacy Health and Garnet Health have recently been settled, with no admission of liability, fault, or wrongdoing by the healthcare providers.

Legacy Health

Legacy Health, a nonprofit health system with seven hospitals and more than 90 clinics in Oregon and Vancouver, Washington, was sued over the alleged use of third-party tracking tools on its websites without the knowledge or consent of website users. According to the lawsuit, the tools transmitted patients’ personally identifiable information to third parties such as Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook) and Alphabet Inc. (Google).

The lawsuit – Katherine Layman v. Legacy Health – asserted claims of negligence, breach of confidence, invasion of privacy, breach of implied contract, unjust enrichment, and violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. All parties agreed to settle the litigation to avoid the cost and time associated with continuing with the litigation, and the uncertainty of trial.

Under the terms of the settlement, Legacy Health has agreed to pay up to $2,200,000 to cover attorneys’ fees and expenses, settlement administration costs, and an incentive award of $2,500 to the class representative. Class members are entitled to a one-year membership to CyEx’s Medical Shield privacy protection solution, and may submit a claim for a cash payment of $15.00. Individuals wishing to object to the settlement or exclude themselves must do so by March 16, 2026. Claims for cash payments must be submitted by March 16, 2026, and the final approval hearing has been scheduled for April 16, 2026.

Garnet Health

Garnet Health, a Middletown, New York-based three-campus health system with nine urgent care facilities serving residents of Orange and Sullivan Counties in New York, was alleged to have added tracking tools to its website and MyChart patient portal, which resulted in disclosures of individuals’ personally identifiable information and protected health information to Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook) and Google Inc. without users’ knowledge or consent. Information allegedly disclosed included health conditions, searches for medical treatment, and other sensitive information.

Lawsuits were filed by Dolores Gay and Corinne Jacob over the alleged disclosures, which were consolidated as they had overlapping claims – Gay et al. v. Garnet Health. After a year of hard-fought litigation, all parties attended mediation and agreed to a settlement to resolve the lawsuit. Under the settlement, Garnet Health has agreed to pay attorneys’ fees and expenses, settlement administration costs, and service awards for the class representatives. All class members are eligible to enroll in Dashlane Premium, a privacy protection product, for 12 months. In addition, class members may claim a one-time cash payment of $19.50. Individuals wishing to object to the settlement or exclude themselves must do so by March 17, 2026. Claims for cash payments must be submitted by April 16, 2026, and the final approval hearing has been scheduled for April 13, 2026.

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