How to Switch EHRs in a Physical Therapy Practice: Migration Plan, Timeline, Cost and Cutover 2026

November 2, 2026

Athelas Air is an AI-native EHR, practice management and billing system for outpatient practices, including physical therapy, orthopedics and podiatry. An EHR is where your charts, schedule and claims live, so switching it touches every role in your clinic.

Key takeaways

Plan by week, not by feature. Work back from your contract end date.
Clean your data first. Duplicates and hidden appointment types stall imports.
Pilot before cutover. Test with a few clinicians on real workflows.
Route old payments on purpose. Money for old dates of service keeps arriving.

In our calls with physical therapy practices, the practice said that switching sounds too disruptive. In many of these, the practice raised messy implementation. This guide answers those worries with a calendar.

How can a physical therapy practice switch EHRs with minimal downtime and double entry?

It depends on how many locations, billing setups and years of history you bring over. Athelas Air is built for independent and multi-site PT practices: migrations can be done in 30–60 days, depending on practice complexity. The EHR, scheduling, billing and Ambient AI sit under one per-provider price, and your team can test before cutover. Practices with several locations or heavy historical data should compare options in the table below.

What does a week-by-week migration plan look like?

The 30–60 day range is guidance, not a promise. Book time with our team to discuss your migration plan at athelas.com/air. The calendar below counts backward from your go-live date. Staff effort is a planning estimate, not a measured figure.

‍

Weeks -12 to -8: Read the contract and choose your date. Find your renewal and notice terms, export rights and any fees for data requests. Pick a go-live date in a slower stretch for your clinic. Effort: owner and administrator, a few hours.
Weeks -8 to -6: Audit what you will export. Pull appointment types, insurance lists and case data from your current system. One practice exported its appointment types and found several it didn't know existed, tracked under other labels. Map those before migrating. Effort: office manager, one to two days.
Weeks -6 to -4: Clean the data. Merge duplicate patients and fix misspelled names. One practice found that duplicate accounts with a misspelled name stopped its WebPT patient import until someone tracked them down by hand. Effort: front desk, a few hours a week.
Weeks -4 to -3: Map fields and agree on entry standards. Your onboarding team documents where each data point lives, and your staff agree on which fields feed billing. Small inconsistencies in where a value is typed are the most common cause of missing data later. Effort: administrator and biller.
Weeks -3 to -2: Pilot with a few clinicians. Test charting, scheduling and a sample claim on real workflows before everyone moves. Test pulls should confirm that data arrives in the expected format and that claims can be generated. Effort: two or three clinicians, an hour or two a day.
Weeks -2 to -1: Train by role. Train front desk staff, billers and clinicians separately, with one trainer per location. Owners worry about learning a platform while treating patients, so schedule training outside patient hours. Effort: each staff member, a few hours.
Week 0: Cut over. Many practices pick a weekend so Monday opens in the new system. Keep the old EHR read-only for lookups. Effort: all hands, light schedule.
Weeks +1 to +4: Route payments and validate. Check schedules, claims and balances daily at first, then weekly.

How do you handle payments and claims for dates of service in the old system?

Payments for work done in the old system keep arriving after go-live. Decide before cutover who posts them. A biller at a WebPT practice raised exactly this issue: someone must route those payments back to the old billing team and post them there.

Old dates of service: bill and post in the old system until they close.
New dates of service: bill in the new system from the first day.
Incoming checks and electronic remittance advice (ERAs): tag by date of service on receipt.

If you want a managed team to work old and new accounts receivable, Athelas RCM is a separate service that works alongside your current EHR or with Air.

Which timing, contract and pilot decision fits your practice?

Situation	What to do	Watch for
Contract ends in under 8 weeks	Request an export now and ask about a short extension	Export fees and notice deadlines
Contract ends in 3+ months	Audit and clean data first, pilot in the final month	Auto-renewal dates
Busy season approaching	Cut over before or after the peak, not during	Staff vacations
Multiple locations	Pilot one location, then roll out	One trainer per location
Recently migrated and unhappy	List the failure cause: fit, training or data	Repeating the same gap

If you recently switched and wonder whether to switch again, name why the last switch failed. One owner moved from WebPT to paper and back before landing elsewhere, and a vendor blamed training instead of fit. Switch again only if the gap is a workflow you cannot fix.

What should you compare when calculating the total cost of switching?

Compare the full stack, not just the license line. Several PT practices describe stacked add-on and vendor fees, such as billing outsourcing and surprise renewals. In 8% of analyzed calls with physical therapy practices, the practice raised pricing complexity and hidden add-ons. (Call observations, not a representative survey.)

Exit and notice terms: fees, renewal dates and data export charges.
Migration and training: who does the work, and what it costs.
Overlap: old and new EHRs running together.
Add-ons: scribe, billing, texting and eligibility.
Staff time: cleanup and training hours.

Athelas Air is priced per provider, with the EHR, practice management, billing software, Ambient AI, Athelas Assistant, clearinghouse and portal included in one contract at one price for all platform modules. Managed RCM is separate. Book a demo for pricing scoped to your provider count, specialty and setup.

‍

Vendor details as of October 30, 2026, from each vendor's own pages.

Vendor	Pricing and AI facts	Typical fit
Athelas Air	One per-provider price for all platform modules; Ambient AI included	Tends to suit independent and multi-site PT, ortho and podiatry groups
WebPT	Starter, Enhanced and Ultimate plans; billing includes clearinghouse submissions; lists an AI Voice-To-Text Scribe	Tends to suit practices that want a rehab-specific platform with tiered plans
Prompt	EMR core plus add-ons such as Sidekick (AI scribing); RCM is a separate service	Tends to suit PT practices building up from a core EMR
SPRY	Plus tier includes an AI Scribe; billing service at 4–6% of collections; offers free data migration	Tends to suit practices wanting per-visit pricing
TheraOffice	All-in-one PT EMR for documentation, scheduling, billing and reporting	Tends to suit solo, multi-site and enterprise clinics
Raintree	AI-native EMR with ambient AI scribe and managed RCM services	Tends to suit practices wanting an EMR plus managed billing from one vendor

Which EHR migrations does Athelas Air support, and what data can move?

Athelas Air supports migrations from the systems below. The data overview summarizes each documented migration; available exports and the practice's workflow determine the project scope. This is a migration into Air, not a live two-way integration.

Supported EHR	High-level data overview
A2C (also known as Fusion/Ensora)	Patient demographics and contacts; Guarantor details; Insurance; Cases and diagnoses; Appointments; Clinical documents via vendor export. (Documented for PT practices.)
AdvancedMD (AMD)	Patient demographics and contacts; Insurance and workers' compensation; Cases and available authorizations; Appointments; Vitals, allergies and medications; Clinical notes and attachments
Athena (AthenaOne)	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance and available authorizations; Appointments; Medications, allergies and vitals; Clinical documents and attachments from EHI export
AthenaPractice (Centricity)	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance; Cases and available referrals/authorizations; Appointments; Problem list, medication history and allergies; Clinical notes and attachments
Chirotouch	Patient demographics and contacts; Insurance and available policyholder/guarantor details; Cases, diagnoses and available authorizations; Appointments; Clinical notes and attachments via vendor export
Clinicient	Patient demographics and contacts; Insurance and guarantor details; Cases, diagnoses, plan of care and available authorizations; Appointments; Clinical notes and attachments
eClinicalWorks (ECW)	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance; Cases and available authorizations; Appointments; Vitals, allergies, medications and problem list; Clinical notes and attachments via vendor export
Empower	Patient demographics and contacts; Episodes, diagnoses and available authorizations; Appointments; Clinical documents and attachments
Harris CareTracker	Migration supported. Talk with our team about the data you want to bring over.
HelloNote	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance and authorizations; Cases; Clinical note PDFs and attachments
Heno	Patient demographics and contacts; Insurance and available authorizations; Cases and diagnoses; Appointments; Clinical notes and attachments
Kareo/Tebra	Migration supported. Talk with our team about the data you want to bring over.
ModMed	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance; Liability cases and authorizations; Appointments and referring providers; Current allergies, medications and problem list
NetHealth	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance; Cases, diagnoses and available authorizations; Appointments; Clinical notes and attachments via vendor export
Prompt	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance; Cases, diagnoses and available authorizations; Appointments; Clinical notes and attachments
Raintree	Patient demographics and contacts; Insurance and workers' compensation; Cases, diagnoses and available authorizations; Appointments; Clinical notes and attachments via vendor export
SimplePractice	Migration supported. Talk with our team about the data you want to bring over.
SPRY	Migration supported. Talk with our team about the data you want to bring over.
TheraOffice	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance; Cases, diagnoses and available authorizations; Appointments; Clinical notes and attachments via vendor export
TherapySource	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance; Problem list, cases and available authorizations; Appointments; Clinical notes and attachments
WebPT	Patient demographics, contacts and guarantor; Insurance; Cases, diagnoses and available authorizations; Appointments; Clinical note PDFs and patient/case documents

Don't see your EHR or a data type you need? Talk with our team about your current system, historical records and workflow so we can assess additional migration options.

To check that old attachments and scanned documents will come across, ask for a sample of 10 to 20 charts in the pilot and open each one. Structured records and clinical note PDFs are different things, so confirm which you are getting.

What if you also need historical encounters for billing?

Historical encounter data can be pulled during onboarding when you need it for claim submission or reporting. Raise the request while field mapping is set up. If you are upgrading or moving to a hosted EHR, tell your account team before the change, because field mappings are built against your current system. Errors are flagged and reported, and you can check sync status yourself (EHR Data Sync docs).

What should you do when cutover goes wrong?

Start with the smallest fix, and keep the old EHR available in read-only mode for lookups.

Missing data: check the field mapping and where staff typed the value, then re-run the test pull.
Claims not generating: hold new claims, fix the missing field, then submit in a batch.
Schedule gaps: compare the old calendar against the new one for the next two weeks.
Staff stuck: assign the trainer at each location to take questions during clinic hours.
Payments misrouted: re-tag by date of service and repost.

If a correction cannot wait for the next daily data pull, contact support.

What results have PT practices seen with Athelas?

These figures come from published Athelas case studies, as of 2026. Each is one practice's result.

Cape Cod Rehab (Athelas Air, Athelas RCM and Ambient AI): 0.1% denial rate compared with a 5–10% industry standard, and 96% first-pass acceptance. Read the case study.
Lattimore Physical Therapy & Sports Rehabilitation Network, 35 locations (Athelas Air and Athelas RCM): 95% first-pass rate and a 10- to 14-day claim cycle. Read the case study.
Oxford Physical Therapy Centers, 11 locations (Athelas Air, Athelas RCM and Ambient AI): ~97% first-pass claim rate and more than $250,000 in previously missed revenue recovered. Read the case study.
Meier & Marsh (Athelas Air, Athelas RCM and Ambient AI): 96% first-pass claim rate and a 3-day average from date of service to submission. Read the case study.

Checklist: questions to ask before you sign

Contract: What are the term, renewal and exit fees on both systems?
Export: Which files will you get, and when?
Pilot: Can a few clinicians test on real records first?
Payments: Who posts old-system payments?
Training: Is there a trainer per location?

Move at your own pace. A dated plan makes a switch routine. Book time with our team to map your 30–60 day plan.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to switch EHRs in a physical therapy practice?

Athelas Air migrations can be done in 30–60 days, depending on practice complexity, including locations, billing setup and historical data. Book time with our team at athelas.com/air to plan yours.

Can we pilot a new EHR with a few clinicians before full rollout?

Yes. Plan a pilot in the weeks before cutover. Athelas offers a free pilot for Air that lets a few clinicians test real workflows. Test charting, scheduling and a sample claim.

How do we replace our EHR without losing clinical history or insurance information?

Check the supported-EHR table for what moves from your system, including demographics, insurance and, for many systems, clinical notes and attachments. Confirm exports early and review sample charts in the pilot.

What should we budget for running old and new EHRs together?

Budget for the overlap period, any read-only access fees and staff time for cleanup and training. Athelas Air is priced per provider, with all platform modules at one price. Book a demo for scoped pricing.

How do we time an EHR change around busy periods?

Pick a go-live date in a slower stretch and start the data audit about eight weeks earlier. Avoid cutover during staff vacations, and pilot one location first if you have several.

Is switching again worth it after a recent migration?

Name the cause of the last problem first. If it was fit, such as a missing workflow, switching may help. If it was training or dirty data, fix those before changing systems.