Medi vs DrChrono

Short answer

DrChrono is an iPad-first EHR that bundles practice management, billing, and an optional managed RCM service into tiers priced per provider per month. Its buyer is the practice. Medi is software built for third-party billing companies: $20 per client practice per month, with volume pricing available. It is billing software only (no EHR, scheduling, or provider-count fee), with per-transaction EDI through Stedi. Medi publishes its full schedule; DrChrono requires a custom quote. The difference is the tenant: DrChrono is built around one practice, Medi around a billing company's whole book of clients. DrChrono's top Elite tier adds dedicated billing specialists, typically a percentage of collections (third-party accounts cite 3-8%; DrChrono does not publish it). Medi is software only, so the billing company's own staff do the work.

Sources: drchrono.com/plans-and-pricing · EHR Source · EverCommerce acquisition announcement

Choose Medi if billing is your business

Medi is built for companies that sell revenue cycle work to client practices. The fee is $20 per client practice per month, with volume pricing available. Adding providers inside a practice never changes the fee. There is no EHR, scheduling, charting, or clinical workflow, because the buyer is the billing company, not the practice.

Choose Medi if:

• Billing is the service your clients pay for, and they bring their own EHR or do not need one
• Your team works cross-client denials, follow-up, and ERA review and wants those organized by function, not by practice
• You want a fee that holds as your clients hire providers and falls per practice as your book grows
• You want all-practices A/R, aging, and denial volume on one screen, not one practice context at a time
• You need access controls that let an offshore posting team reach four of your eight clients but not the other four
• You want switching to be a one-time migration event, not permanent per-provider overhead: free with a 12-month commitment, or $100 per practice (capped at $3,000) month-to-month

Choose DrChrono if the practice wants clinical and billing in one mobile-first system

DrChrono fits when the buyer is the practice, or when a billing company's clients want iPad-native charting, scheduling, and billing from a single vendor. DrChrono was the first EHR approved for the iPhone and iPad App Store, and that mobile-first depth is real for practices that chart on tablets and want billing tied to the clinical encounter.

Choose DrChrono if:

• Your clients want EHR, practice management, scheduling, ePrescribing, and billing from one system and prefer iPad or mobile access
• A practice wants to outsource billing entirely: DrChrono's Elite tier supplies certified coders and specialists who own the full claim lifecycle
• Your clients already run DrChrono and moving them off would cost more disruption than the pricing differential justifies
• The practice is small and wants one vendor rather than separate EHR and billing software
• A hybrid model fits: some visits billed in-house, some routed to DrChrono's managed team

Pricing model

DrChrono does not publish per-provider monthly pricing on its website. Figures above come from third-party review sources including EHR Source and Software Finder. Get a direct quote from DrChrono before any budget decision.

The difference shows what each platform sells. Medi's fee is $20 per client practice per month, with volume pricing available, plus EDI usage at published per-transaction rates. DrChrono prices per provider. If its Advanced tier ran $399 per provider for twenty providers across those practices, that is $7,980 per month in seat fees before setup, add-ons, or payment processing, and it climbs with every provider hired. DrChrono prices a clinical suite where per-seat licensing is the norm. Medi prices a billing-company operating layer where the unit is the client practice, not the providers inside it.

Billing-company architecture vs practice-first design

DrChrono's primary tenant is the practice. Charting, scheduling, ePrescribing, and billing are all organized around a single practice context, and the billing features are tightly coupled to the clinical encounter. That coupling helps a practice's own billing staff: charge entry flows from the visit, and the biller sees the clinical context next to the claim.

For a third-party billing company managing ten unrelated practices, the same design creates friction. The billing company is not charting or scheduling. It needs all ten practices' open denials in one queue, ERAs posted across clients in one session, and aging across the full book on one screen. DrChrono does not describe multi-practice operator features on its product pages, and its billing documentation is written for a practice's own staff or for DrChrono's managed service, not for a third-party operator.

Medi starts from the billing company as the workspace, with the practice as a scoped tenant inside it. A biller logs in once and works denials, ERA exceptions, and claim follow-up across all assigned clients without switching contexts. Practice-level permission groups let an owner give a contractor access to three clients and not the other seven. The all-practices A/R view aggregates aging and collection rate across every client without opening each one.

Specific questions to probe in a side-by-side walkthrough:

• Where does cross-client denial routing live, and can a specialist work all clients' outstanding denials without switching contexts or filtering by practice manually?
• How does the system handle ERA posting review for a billing company that posts for clients whose ERAs arrive across multiple payers on the same day?
• What does aggregate A/R aging look like for a billing company owner who wants a book-of-business view, not ten individual practice dashboards?
• How are permissions scoped when you need to give one posting team access to some clients but not others?
• What happens operationally for a billing company whose clients use EHRs other than DrChrono?

Claims, ERA, and clearinghouse

DrChrono's built-in clearinghouse is eProvider Solutions (ePS), part of its integrated billing layer. Third-party sources cite additional Change Healthcare and Trizetto connections for routing, and DrChrono states a 96% clean claim rate. The clearinghouse is not modular; it is the infrastructure the billing software runs on.

Medi routes all claim traffic through Stedi, which handles 837P, 837I, 835, 270/271, 276/277, 278, and 277CA. The Stedi connection is fixed, so a billing company with clearinghouse relationships outside Stedi needs to plan a payer enrollment transition before cutover. That is real migration cost and lead time to budget.

ERA review in Medi surfaces held lines in a queue with a BPR check footer, CARC and RARC codes in plain English, and per-line decisions on one screen. PLB segments and recoupment adjustments appear as distinct entries instead of folding into the payment record. The workflow is built for staff who apply policy decisions before committing a posting, not for auto-post that surfaces exceptions in the A/R later.

What to verify in either system during a walkthrough:

• How held-line policy is configured per payer and per practice, and who can change write-off tolerance thresholds
• Where PLB and recoupment segments surface in the posting review
• How a posting action is audited after the fact: who posted what, when, and under what authority
• How the system distinguishes a payer rejection from a denial from an underpayment at the ERA line level

Managed RCM vs software-only

DrChrono's Elite tier offers a managed billing service with CPC-certified coders and specialists who handle charge entry, coding, claim submission, denial management, and collections on behalf of the practice. DrChrono describes it as a "hybrid model" where a practice can use its own billers, DrChrono's team, or both. Pricing is typically a percentage of collections, not a flat fee; third-party sources report a 3-8% range, though DrChrono does not publish it and it varies by volume and specialty. For a practice that wants to outsource billing to the same vendor that supplies its EHR, that is a coherent offer.

Medi is software only. The billing company supplies the staff, the expertise, and the client relationships, and Medi organizes the work. A billing company that charges its clients 4-7% of collections while paying Medi's per-practice fee plus published EDI fees keeps the margin difference. A practice on DrChrono Elite pays DrChrono a percentage of collections for the convenience of one vendor. The choice is whether the buyer wants to outsource billing or run its own operation with software support.

Migration

DrChrono does not publish migration or data export fee schedules. Third-party reviews estimate setup fees at $500 to $2,000 depending on practice complexity. Annual contracts mean a mid-term exit may still owe the remaining months, so verify exit terms directly before signing.

Medi publishes its migration structure: free with a 12-month commitment, or $100 per practice (one-time, capped at $3,000) month-to-month. Data export is always free, with no early-termination fee on either term. That lets a billing company model the actual switching cost before the conversation starts, which a custom-quote process does not allow.

The hard part of leaving any platform is the same: an export captures historical claim data, but the working state of the revenue cycle (open denials, in-flight appeals, unposted ERAs, mid-stream investigation notes) does not migrate cleanly. DrChrono's billing data is also tied to its clinical records, so separating billing records from the EHR layer adds complexity a billing-only migration does not have.

A transition that limits disruption:

• Legacy A/R closeout: leave the last sixty to ninety days of DrChrono claim work in DrChrono for collection, and start Medi forward-only
• Parallel ERA posting: run ERAs through both systems for two weeks to reconcile totals before full cutover
• Payer enrollment review: confirm clearinghouse trading-partner relationships and Stedi payer enrollments before cutover, not after; lead times vary by payer
• Practice-by-practice sequencing: onboard the simplest client first, then move the rest
• Contract audit: if client practices hold their own DrChrono agreements, their exit obligations may be separate from yours

Security and audit posture

For a billing company under HIPAA, the practical questions are audit log depth, data access controls, and what happens to PHI when a client relationship ends. Verify both with the vendor before signing.

Is Medi always a better fit than DrChrono?

No. DrChrono is a reasonable choice when the buyer is a practice that wants iPad-native EHR, scheduling, and billing from one mobile-first vendor. For a small practice that does not want separate clinical and billing software, its integrated model is well-established, and its tablet-native charting is established product history, not a marketing claim. The Elite managed service is a genuine option for a practice that wants to hand off billing without running its own team, and its stated clean-claim performance through eProvider Solutions is a real capability.

Where DrChrono does not fit the billing company is structural: its primary tenant is the practice. There is no multi-practice operator view, no cross-client work queue, and no pricing model where providers inside a practice cost nothing while practices trigger a declining per-practice rate. A billing company on DrChrono would adapt workflows built for a different buyer.

The answer depends on who your software is for. If it is the practice, and the practice wants clinical plus billing from one iPad-first system, DrChrono is worth a serious look. If it is the billing company managing many practices as clients, Medi is built for that shape.

Other comparisons billing companies look at

• Medi vs Tebra: another practice-first EHR and billing platform on per-provider pricing
• Medi vs SimplePractice: behavioral health and therapy platform with its own billing layer
• Medi vs athenahealth: enterprise platform with a large payer network and a managed RCM option
• Medi vs AdvancedMD: per-provider PM and billing with a Central Billing Office offering for multi-client work
• Billing-company software evaluation guide: the criteria that matter when shortlisting any practice-first or billing-company-first vendor
• Best DrChrono alternatives for billing companies — the full field of options beyond the head-to-head pages.

Frequently asked questions

Does DrChrono work for third-party billing companies managing multiple client practices?

DrChrono is designed around the practice as the primary user. Its billing features (charge entry, claim submission, ERA posting, denial management) are built for a practice's own staff or for use alongside DrChrono's managed team. Current product documentation does not describe multi-practice operator views, cross-client work queues, or billing-company access controls. A billing company could use DrChrono if all its clients happen to run DrChrono as their EHR, but it lacks the billing-company-as-operator architecture a team working across unrelated clients needs.

Is DrChrono a good alternative to a billing-company platform like Medi?

Only when the buyer is the practice. DrChrono is a strong iPad-first EHR with bundled billing and an optional managed RCM service, so it fits a practice that wants clinical and billing from one vendor. As an alternative for a billing company, it falls short structurally: pricing is per provider, not per client practice, and there is no operator view across a book of clients. If you are shopping billing-company platforms, the closer comparisons are Medi vs AdvancedMD and Medi vs Tebra.

What are DrChrono's tier names and what does each include?

As of 2026, the tiers are Essentials, Essentials Plus, Advanced, Advanced Plus, and Elite per drchrono.com/plans-and-pricing. Essentials and Essentials Plus cover EHR and practice management. Advanced and Advanced Plus add billing software including claim submission, ERA processing, and eligibility checks. Elite adds managed RCM with DrChrono's own certified coders and specialists. All tiers are custom-quoted. The earlier Prometheus, Hippocrates, and Apollo tier names have been replaced by the Essentials-through-Elite naming.

What does DrChrono's managed RCM service cost?

DrChrono does not publish its managed billing pricing. Third-party sources including EHR Source and Software Finder report a percentage of collections in the 3-8% range for the Elite service, though the rate varies by volume, specialty, and contract. Elite is positioned for practices that want to outsource the full billing lifecycle rather than run the software themselves. Contact DrChrono directly for current pricing.

What clearinghouse does DrChrono use?

DrChrono uses its own built-in clearinghouse, eProvider Solutions (ePS), for claim submission and ERA processing. Third-party sources also cite Change Healthcare and Trizetto connections for routing. The clearinghouse is integrated, not modular: you use ePS as part of using DrChrono billing. Medi uses Stedi exclusively for 837/835/270/271/276/277/278/277CA. If your operation depends on a specific clearinghouse relationship, confirm payer enrollment compatibility before committing to either platform.

Can a billing company migrate from DrChrono to Medi without losing historical claim data?

DrChrono does not publish data export pricing. The pattern that works is leaving the last sixty to ninety days of DrChrono claim work in DrChrono for legacy A/R collection and starting Medi forward-only. Because DrChrono is also an EHR, the billing data you want to carry forward sits next to chart data, SOAP notes, and ePrescribing history that has no place in a billing-only platform. Plan a clean-cut migration date rather than moving in-progress claim work, and confirm the export fee and format with DrChrono first.

Medi publishes its migration cost: free with a 12-month commitment, or $100 per practice (capped at $3,000) month-to-month. Data export from Medi is always free, with no early-termination fee on either term. Knowing those numbers up front changes the calculus versus a custom quote on both sides.

Does DrChrono have a contract requirement?

Third-party reviews consistently report that DrChrono requires annual contracts and does not offer month-to-month terms. If you switch mid-contract, you may owe the remaining months. Its terms are not published publicly, so verify exit terms, data export fees, and the subscription term in your specific agreement before planning a migration.

Is DrChrono owned by EverCommerce?

Yes. EverCommerce completed its acquisition of DrChrono in November 2021, as reported by Healthcare IT News and the EverCommerce investor announcement. DrChrono now operates as a distinct brand under EverCommerce's EverHealth group.

How current is this comparison?

Last reviewed 2026-06-07. DrChrono does not publish pricing publicly, so every per-provider estimate here comes from third-party review sources and may not match a current quote. Primary sources: drchrono.com/plans-and-pricing, drchrono.com/billing, drchrono.com/revenue-cycle-management, and EHR Source's DrChrono review. Get a direct quote from DrChrono before any budget or contract decision.

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For how Medi approaches multi-practice operations, see billing company operations and the software evaluation guide. For a parallel comparison against another EHR-bundled billing platform, see Medi vs AdvancedMD.