Best AdvancedMD for Physical Therapy Alternative: Exercise.com vs. AdvancedMD

Exercise.com: Your AdvancedMD Alternative

Why Choose Exercise.com?

Here are five reasons why fitness professionals use Exercise.com vs. AdvancedMD.

 

If you’re ready to get started with an easy-to-navigate, all-in-one fitness software, designed to fuel your business, request a demo with Exercise.com today.

And, if you want to see how AdvancedMD’s additional features stack up to Exercise.com software features, check out our in-depth guide below.

What is AdvancedMD?

Founded in 1999, AdvancedMD is a cloud-based management software for the medical field. Advanced MD offers a number of services, including but not limited to practice management, Electronic Health Records (EHR), scheduling, billing services, and performance benchmarking. AdvancedMD has tailored its services for various medical specialties, such as physicians, group practices, laboratories, mental health, physical therapy, consultants, and more.

AdvancedMD for Physical Therapy is the niched version of AdvancedMD for therapy (physical, occupational, and speech), rehab, orthopedic, and chiropractic purposes. This version offers clinical documentation templates, EHR workflow, practice management, patient engagement tools, billing, and dozens of other options through integrations.

[For the purpose of this article, AdvancedMD for Physical Therapy will be referred to as AdvancedMD]

The biggest difference between AdvancedMD and Exercise.com is that AdvancedMD is designed for medical offices or outpatient therapy clinics. Personal trainers and physical therapists may have similar approaches to helping their clients achieve their goals, but the business management platforms for fitness centers and outpatient clinics are completely different.

For instance, profit in a therapy clinic comes from thorough clinical documentation to obtain maximum reimbursement from insurance companies. Therapy clinics rightly spend additional expenses on a reliable, efficient, and secure documentation and billing system. But fitness centers don’t need billing features; paying for a software that emphasizes billing is a waste of money.

Further, because AdvancedMD is designed for outpatient clinics, there are several missing features that are vital for fitness business growth, such as custom branding, website and app creation, ecommerce capabilities, workout and nutrition software, and more.

But with Exercise.com, we are here for your business’s success! Our all-inclusive software offers fully-customizable features, from your website and app to forms, layouts, scheduling, and more! We help your business grow through tailored reports, marketing integrations, and ecommerce opportunities.

Let’s get started on our in-depth comparison review.

Unless otherwise stated, all images and reviews below are of/about the Exercise.com All-In-One Fitness Business Management software platform. 

Fitness Business Management Software

Fitness managers have a never-ending to-do list. It can be hard to juggle necessary but time-consuming tasks with staff and member engagement. Business management software that makes your life simpler is invaluable!

Ther are some decent features within the AdvancedMD practice management software, but these management features are designed for physical therapy offices. Ultimately, you’ll be paying for physical therapy practice management features you don’t need and wishing you had features AdvancedMD doesn’t provide. So, while AdvancedMD makes for a great physical therapy software and is one of the EMR systems used in physical therapy offices, it would not fare well for a fitness business.

However, Exercise.com’s gym management software is designed to manage a fitness business. We customize your platform specifically for your fitness business to help it succeed! Let’s take a closer look at what AdvancedMD offers and how Exercise.com better manages a fitness business.

Client/Class Scheduling

AdvancedMD has a very detailed scheduling calendar that is beneficial for outpatient therapy clinics. Staff can select appropriate information when making new appointments, such as the referring physician, specific injury, treatment plan, insurance, and more, that help detail the patient’s needs at the appointment. Appointment reminders are sent automatically via text, and a patient check-in kiosk is available for an additional charge.

While these features are appropriate and necessary for outpatient clinics, they are a hurdle for fitness centers. Many clients and customers expect independence to book their own appointments or classes on your website or app. With AdvancedMD, clients must call your facility to book an appointment. This can create significant challenges with maintaining a full schedule.

Additionally, AdvancedMD is designed for one-on-one sessions with a therapist; there is no option for group sessions. This eliminates your ability to track participants in group classes or group training sessions, which means your business is limited in customer engagement and profit.

But the Exercise.com scheduling feature is designed for fitness businesses! Keep track of 1-1 sessions, group sessions, events, and participants all in one place! Our calendar is easy for members to view appointments and classes, and clients can even view the schedule by location, trainer, day, time, and more, which results in more bookings. Once a client finds an appointment or class that fits their schedule, our booking feature easily guides them through the booking and payment process.

Gym/Facility Management

Managing a staff of any size is time-consuming but Exercise.com FBM saves you time with assignable staff roles, so you can put staff management on autopilot. And you’ll have sales and business reports for all of your clients, classes, and workout packages to make managing your business easy.

Business Dashboard Report

AdvancedMD does have reports, but most reports are “locked” in the system and must be purchased for use. AdvancedMD advertizes customized reports, but this is also for an unknown additional fee. On the surface, AdvancedMD appears to offer what businesses need, but instead, their hidden prices force companies into adding to their monthly subscription.

On the other hand, Exercise.com includes targeted reports with our software; there’s no add-on, upcharge, or hidden fee! Our reports streamline your business so you know exactly how your business is doing at all times and can be the most profitable. Some of our popular reports track and analyze:

• Revenue
• Taxes
• Commission
• Ecommerce
• Client and group reports
• Customized reports
• and more!

The data from these reports are arranged on a customizable dashboard so you can keep your finger to the pulse of your business. AdvancedMD has a dashboard, but its featured reports–such as prescriptions, pharmacy requests, and orders–aren’t helpful for fitness businesses

Client Automation

AdvancedMD has automated features similar to Exercise.com, such as automatic email and text reminders for appointments. Frequency can be adjusted by day and time, and patients can confirm or cancel their appointments upon receiving the automatic notification.

But Exercise.com automated services are more beneficial for your fitness business! We go beyond appointment reminders and confirmations: we also automatically deliver workout plans, nutrition plans, assessments, customized messages, accept automatic payments and membership renewals, and more! This adds the personalized touch your clients desire.

Dedicated Zapier Support

AdvancedMD offers a number of integrations, but it’s primary integrations are with insurance billing, electronic health record software, worker’s comp, and other such integrations. Not only do these integrations not help your fitness business, but they leave you without the integrations you need!

Exercise.com software has dozens of popular business management integrations already built into our software so you have an excellent integration foundation. But we know every business is different, and we want to give you every tool to help your business succeed! That’s why we also partner with Zapier and its 2,000+ apps so your software is completely customized and efficient. Best of all, Zapier guides you through every step of the process!

Dedicated Account Manager

According to Capterra reviews, customer service is one of AdvancedMD’s weakest areas. Like most companies, AdvancedMD can be contacted via email or phone for customer service, support, and troubleshooting. Requests are answered in the order in which they are received, but countless reviews complain that AdvancedMD is not prompt with their responses.

In order to properly use AdvancedMD’s complex software, AdvancedMD offers software training with a customer service representative. However, AdvancedMD charges astronomical prices for implementation and training: $1995 for two hours of training ($997/hour), $2995 for four hours of training ($748/hour) and web-based resources, and $3995 for 12 hours of training ($332/hour). Charging such steep prices for necessary training is another way in which AdvancedMD gouges its customers.

If the training was excellent, perhaps these prices could be excused. But numerous Capterra reviews show that training is rushed and poorly presented. And if things weren’t sorted out in the allotted training time, it takes even more time on customer service calls (at $150/hour!) to completely configure your software. This is a waste of managerial time and money!

An AdvancedMD representative must be the one to make any changes or add new features to your software, but more reviews note that AdvancedMD’s poor customer service takes an extended time to complete changes–or doesn’t complete them at all! Especially for the prices AdvancedMD charges, this poor customer care is unacceptable.

But at Exercise.com, we are committed to providing you as our customer with outstanding customer service. You’ll never be lost in a sea of needy customers because we give you a dedicated account manager who assists with all your software needs–indefinitely, and at no extra charge!

From the smallest of modifications to adding a new feature, or completely revamping your website, your account manager is happy to not only make every alteration but also guide you and your staff through changes. Our exceptional customer service sets us far above AdvancedMD!

Customized Software

Personalized customer services are becoming the norm in almost every facet of society. It’s no longer enough to make a stab at personalized customer services. Instead, set yourself apart from your competitors by how you personalize a customer’s experience!

With AdvancedMD, personalized customer services are a challenge because AdvancedMD is designed for outpatient clinics. Many of its features are simply not beneficial for fitness businesses, and the features it does have lack applicability to the fitness field.

But with Exercise.com, you’re getting all-inclusive software that’s designed for the success of fitness businesses! We make it easy to personalize your customers’ fitness experience because our platform is completely customizable to your unique business.

Let’s look at how AdvancedMD’s customized services compare to Exercise.com.

Custom-Branded

AdvancedMD offers minimal ways to custom brand your fitness center, and the options they do provide come at a hefty price. Advanced MD offers a custom mini-program bookmark for $250, a custom logo for $350, and a two-line custom text on patient bills for $500. Custom client templates range from $400 for 1-4 pages to $1300 for 16-20 pages. Any other custom work requires contacting AdvancedMD for a quote.

Not only are these prices too much for many businesses (which means businesses would forego custom work to the detriment of their business), but the custom work AdvancedMD offers isn’t appropriate for fitness businesses. Your business would have to adapt to the options AdvancedMD offers instead of having custom branding tailored for your needs.

However, Exercise.com is proud to help you promote your brand! Your custom app, website, ecommerce opportunities, workout software, and performance software are all custom-branded. This keeps your customers strongly connected and engaged with your business and aids in retention.

iOS & Android Apps

AdvancedMD has a staff app for mobile devices but doesn’t have an app for customers. Instead, clinics can pay an additional fee for a patient kiosk to confirm current health and insurance information before their appointment.

An app for your staff is necessary, but so is an app for your customers! A customer app allows clients to view your schedule, book classes and appointments, receive and log workouts and nutrition intake, view assessments, communicate with trainers, buy something at your online store, and so much more! Without an app, your customers are disconnected from your brand to the detriment of your business.

Exercise.com knows how important mobile accessibility is to the success of your business! Our software includes your own custom-branded app for personal trainers so your customers are fully engaged with your business and brand! Everything that can be done on a computer can be done on your app, which boosts client satisfaction for improved retention.

Websites

Your company website is the primary place potential customers carefully examine when considering membership at your fitness center. Current members visit your website as well to view the schedule, purchase something on your online store, read blog posts, or sign up for workout challenges. Websites that are outdated or clunky are a turnoff to new and current members. That’s why having an engaging, professional, eye-catching website is crucial for recruiting and retaining members!

AdvancedMD doesn’t offer any website configuration, which means you’ll have to pay a professional to design and run your website or use your valuable time to customize and manage a website.

Instead of learning how to build and manage a website, why not let the design professionals at Exercise.com fulfill this task? Choose from unlimited theme changes, custom graphic work, colors, features, custom dev, and let our exceptional dev team get to work creating an engaging, professional, custom-branded, SEO-optimized fitness business website! We’re also a Google Certified Partner for added website security.

And don’t forget, your dedicated account manager is always here for tech support for as long as you partner with us! This saves you valuable admin hours so you can stay engaged with your staff and customers.

Security Features

AdvancedMD is exceptionally secure software because private health information is constantly being exchanged between insurance companies, doctors’ offices, specialists, and patients, as well as payment processing. If health information is leaked or hacked, clinics could face catastrophic monetary fines. For this reason, many clinics are willing to pay a premium price for security assurance.

While fitness businesses should take the privacy of valuable health and payment information very seriously, it’s rarely necessary to pay a premium price for security measures that won’t be used.

Exercise.com upholds the highest security standards without charging a premium price. Every website and app created by Exercise.com is SSL Secure. We protect your clients’ information with the internationally-secure Privacy Shield Framework, and we utilize Google Cloud for storing and transferring data. Payments are made and processed through Stripe.

Marketing Integrations

AdvancedMD allows a number of integrations for medical billing, EMR/EHR software, and patient engagement. But again, these integrations are for medical businesses and are of no benefit to fitness businesses.

Exercise.com has marketing integrations that will engage your customers and help your fitness business succeed! We offer an abundance of popular integrations such as:

• MailChimp
• ConstantContact
• ConvertKit
• Zapier
• Google Analytics
• Facebook Pixel
• And more!

We can integrate with just about every program, which makes Exercise.com one of the most versatile and valuable fitness management platforms around!

Workout Software

Workout software can be used in many ways to engage clients, see accelerated results, foster accountability, encourage independent exercise routines, help your business stand out, and more. AdvancedMD doesn’t have workout software (or even Home Exercise Program software), so let’s take a look at how workout software from Exercise.com helps your business grow!

Workout Creator/Logger

Trainers can use our premium workout creator and logger to easily create custom-designed workouts that keep clients engaged and motivated on their journey towards meeting their fitness goals! These can be pre-designed for quick assignments or completely personalized to each client using videos from your exercise library.

Once completed, workouts are delivered automatically to your clients via your app where they can view and log their workout anytime, anywhere! Finally, clients and trainers can easily communicate in your app between sessions for improved client satisfaction.

Every client-trainer relationship has different dynamics and challenges. With Exercise.com software, trainers can easily meet the needs of every client, such as:

1-1 Training

This method of personal training is in high demand at most fitness centers, but it can be difficult for trainers to juggle the needs of multiple clients. The Exercise.com software system creatively manages a trainer’s client list so they can deliver a quality training experience for every client through customized workout and nutrition plans, goals and progress reports, performance and fitness assessments, and more!

Group Training

Expand your revenue options without expanding your workload by using the same resources as 1-1 training and apply them to group training. Members benefit from the social connections and accountability of the group setting, which boosts customer satisfaction and fosters a tight-knit gym community.

Online Training

Reach customers anywhere in the world by using our premium video and exercise libraries to deliver custom online training workouts to any client! Clients experience greater flexibility to perform their workouts whenever and wherever they choose. Our app keeps clients accountable and satisfied with easy communication with their trainers. Online training grows your business by increasing your virtual client pool!

Exercise Library

Despite AdvancedMD being tailored for physical therapy, they don’t include an exercise library for physical therapists to design Home Exercise Programs for their patients. Without this feature, you’ll have to pay for another exercise software or have trainers provide their own material.

This is another huge benefit to the comprehensiveness of Exercise.com software! All your trainers can provide the same exercise material and you don’t have to pay for another exercise software. Our quality educational and instructional exercise videos can be used to create pre-designed and custom workouts. These custom workouts boost client satisfaction and program adherence because their specific needs and preferences are met.

Custom Exercises

Exercise.com allows you to merge your YouTube or Vimeo accounts with our exercise library. These can then be incorporated into client workouts for an added personalized touch!

TV Workouts

Cast any exercise video from the exercise library onto a TV screen during a group training session for a new presentation style that grabs your participants’ attention and adds a personal touch to a group workout.

Gym Ecommerce Software

AdvancedMD doesn’t offer any ecommerce opportunities. This means using AdvancedMD eliminates the possibility of other revenue streams, promoting your brand, or further engaging your customers!

But Exercise.com excels at promoting your business through ecommerce! Since AdvancedMD doesn’t offer any ecommerce opportunities, let’s check out just a few popular ways Exercise.com grows your business through gym ecommerce software!

Payment Processing

For AdvancedMD billing, the company uses AdvancedBilling and OpenEdge for billing and payment processing. These are exclusive to AdvancedMD, which means if there are glitches with payments, you’ll need to have AdvancedMD’s customer service fix it. (And given the poor reviews for AdvancedMD’s customer service, this could be a big risk that leaves you without receiving payments!)

Exercise.com, however, uses Stripe to process all payments securely and makes it easy to track payments and revenue!

Sell Products

Creatively advertise your brand and boost your revenue by selling apparel and paraphernalia in an ecommerce store from Exercise.com! Using custom-branded products reinforces a customer’s loyalty and commitment to your fitness center. And when customers use these products in the community, your business gets free advertising!

Sell Workout Plans

Selling pre-built workout plans engages members and gives them the experience of a personalized trainer in the comfort of their own homes. We don’t limit how many plans you can sell, so there’s no cap on your potential profit! By offering a variety of plan lengths, difficulties, fitness focuses, or other specifications, you can meet the needs of any customer with your brand and significantly increase your revenue!

Offer Online Workout Memberships

Many customers desire customized workouts without a gym commitment. While you can charge a premium price for this service, the profit is often offset by the extensive time needed to create personalized plans.

But with Exercise.com software, trainers create the client’s entire plan in one sitting, program the workouts to be delivered at automatic intervals, and then track client progress through their program. This allows you to capitalize on a rising fitness trend, gain more customers, and boost your revenue without losing trainer productivity!

Sell Workout Challenges

Use workout challenges to promote your brand, foster a positive gym community, and turn a profit without increasing your workload! Exercise.com software effortlessly runs and manages your own custom workout challenges that fit the needs and preferences of your unique participants. All you have to do is award the winner!

Fitness Assessment Software

Initial and periodic performance assessments are essential to the personal training profession: they ensure a client’s safety during training and guide trainers to appropriate fitness approaches and goals for each individual client.

AdvancedMD is designed for outpatient therapy clinics, where therapists perform an evaluation on a patient, make a diagnosis, give a treatment plan, and then document patient progress at regular intervals throughout the treatment plan. AdvancedMD has standard templates, and for a hefty upcharge (ranging $400-$1300), custom templates upon request.

Exercise.com assessment features are included with our software, and we can easily offer customizable forms and assessments! Keep reading to find out more about how our fitness assessment software helps boost your trainers’ productivity and client engagement!

Assessments

In addition to providing standard assessments, Exercise.com enables trainers to customize targeted assessments for every client so they can achieve their specific goals. This is an excellent way to use our versatile software and add a personalized touch to your clients’ fitness experience.

Performance & Measurement Reports

Not only does Exercise.com provide personalized assessments, but we also include personalized interactions! Automatically deliver workout reminders, goal achievements, recurring assessments, progress photos, measurements, and more, to further engage your customers and personalize their fitness experience!

Nutrition

Every trainer knows that altering dietary intake is key to transformative, lasting change for a client’s health and weight loss. That’s why Exercise.com provides a nutrition tracker that is custom-tailored to meet the client’s specific needs and goals. The nutrition tracker is easy to use and track dietary intake, so clients stay accountable and motivated to meet their goals.

AdvancedMD Pricing

AdvancedMD pricing is not listed on the company’s website. The company asks that potential customers request a quote. But Business.com reports that AdvancedMD has two pricing options: a standalone medical management software and an integrated/EMR software. The standalone software is $429 per provider (or for fitness businesses, per trainer), per month, and the integrated software is $729 per provider, per month.

Even more astounding, these prices are just the base software, without any add-ons or custom work. And as we’ve seen in this review, AdvancedMD makes their base software inefficient or ineffective unless users pay more and upgrade their integrations and reports. This means that AdvancedMD’s monthly fee is even higher than the above figures.

For many fitness businesses, the price alone of AdvancedMD eliminates them as a software option. It’s common in a fitness business to have multiple staff and trainers who need access to the schedule, reports, and member files. But the price for each account is likely too much to justify using AdvancedMD.

AdvancedMD Alternatives

Competitors to AdvancedMD include:

• SimplePractice
• MindBody
• NueMD
• WebPT
• InsightEMR
• Vagaro
• Kareo
• DrChrono for Physical Therapy
• My Clients Plus
• Power Diary

Not surprisingly, many of AdvancedMD’s competitors are also for medical documentation and not fitness businesses. Exercise.com is the clear choice for fitness business management software!

The Bottom Line: Pros and Cons

Choosing the right business software is a big decision! Let’s take a final look at AdvancedMD and Exercise.com:

AdvancedMD Cons

Simply put, AdvancedMD is not designed for fitness businesses. Although it has many features that benefit outpatient clinics, these would be inconvenient or wasted in fitness businesses. AdvancedMD’s programming of certain features, like scheduling, reports, customer service, and customization, is more of a hassle than a help to fitness businesses.

Additionally, AdvancedMD doesn’t offer several essential features for fitness business growth, such as a mobile app, websites, marketing integrations, workout or nutrition software, or ecommerce. This means you must pay for more software to fill the gaps left by AdvancedMD.

By choosing AdvancedMD, you would be paying astronomical prices for a base package, custom work, add-ons, and integrations, that aren’t even optimally beneficial to your business.

Exercise.com Pros

Unlike AdvancedMD that forces your business to adapt to its software limitations, Exercise.com is custom-designed to fit the needs of your fitness business! Our features are specific to the fitness field: easy booking and scheduling, workout and performance software, ecommerce, custom-branded mobile apps and websites, and so much more!

Exercise.com makes your business platform decision easy! We’re here to help your business grow. Are you ready to get started? Book a demo today!