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Healthcare · head to head

Athenahealth vs VIA Veterinary

Athenahealth logo

Athenahealth

Healthcare

Cloud-based medical practice management

From
$140/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
VIA Veterinary logo

VIA Veterinary

Veterinary

Medically oriented veterinary practice management, now owned by Antech and Mars Veterinary Health

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Athenahealth high implementation costs ranging up to $50,000+ for enterprise deployments; VIA Veterinary the vendor is owned by Mars Veterinary Health through Antech, the same group that owns Antech Diagnostics, Banfield and VCA, so a practice is buying its record system from its diagnostics supplier and its competitor in the consolidation market.
  • They diverge on capability: Athenahealth covers Electronic Health Records, VIA Veterinary covers Clinical flowsheets.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Athenahealth and VIA Veterinary actually diverge.

Attributes where Athenahealth and VIA Veterinary differ
AttributeAthenahealthVIA Veterinary
Starting price$140/monthOn request
Pricing modelUnknownquote
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWindows, Web, iPadOS
CategoryHealthcareVeterinary
Founded1997Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Athenahealth

  • Electronic Health Records
  • Medical Billing
  • Patient Engagement
  • Telehealth
  • Analytics
  • Labs
  • Pharmacies
  • Clearinghouses

Only in VIA Veterinary

  • Clinical flowsheets
  • Integrated SOAP
  • DICOM imaging
  • Laboratory results
  • VIA Cloud
  • VIA Touch
  • Multi-site
  • Open standards integration

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Athenahealth

  • Patient Carenot VIA Veterinary
  • Medical Recordsnot VIA Veterinary
  • Practice Managementnot VIA Veterinary
  • Telehealthnot VIA Veterinary

VIA Veterinary

  • An emergency and critical care hospital that runs on treatment flowsheets and a live whiteboard rather than an appointment calendarnot Athenahealth
  • A multi-doctor specialty referral practice needing DICOM imaging and lab results inside the medical recordnot Athenahealth
  • A practice already committed to Antech diagnostics that wants first-party laboratory and imaging integrationnot Athenahealth
  • A multi-site hospital group consolidating separate practice management installations onto one systemnot Athenahealth

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Athenahealth

  • High implementation costs ranging up to $50,000+ for enterprise deployments
  • Pricing tiers not transparently listed, requiring custom quotes

VIA Veterinary

  • The vendor is owned by Mars Veterinary Health through Antech, the same group that owns Antech Diagnostics, Banfield and VCA, so a practice is buying its record system from its diagnostics supplier and its competitor in the consolidation market.
  • No pricing is published at all, so licence, implementation, conversion, hardware and support costs all arrive through a sales process and cannot be compared against alternatives before you engage.
  • It remains substantially a Windows on-premises product with a cloud option layered on, so hardware, network and backup remain your operational problem in the traditional deployment.
  • Integration depth with IDEXX diagnostics is the obvious risk given the ownership, and a practice with in-house IDEXX analysers should test that path explicitly rather than assume parity with Antech.
  • The clinical emphasis means front-of-house and client engagement features, including online booking and marketing automation, tend to arrive through third-party integrations rather than natively.

Pricing, plan by plan

Athenahealth

$140/month

No published plan breakdown. See the Athenahealth review.

VIA Veterinary

On request
  • VIA Veterinary$undefined/year
    • Pricing available only through a sales process
    • On-premises or VIA Cloud deployment
    • Implementation, data conversion and training quoted per hospital

Which should you pick?

Choose Athenahealth if

  • You need electronic health records.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want medical billing.
Athenahealth review

Choose VIA Veterinary if

  • You need clinical flowsheets.
  • You work on Windows, Web, iPadOS.
  • You also want integrated soap.
VIA Veterinary review

Questions people ask

Is Athenahealth or VIA Veterinary better?
Neither clearly leads. Athenahealth starts at $140/month and VIA Veterinary at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Athenahealth or VIA Veterinary?
Athenahealth starts at $140/month and VIA Veterinary at On request.
Does Athenahealth or VIA Veterinary run on more platforms?
Athenahealth runs on Web, iOS, Android. VIA Veterinary runs on Windows, Web, iPadOS.
What is Athenahealth best used for?
Athenahealth is most often used for patient care, medical records, practice management, telehealth. Of those, patient care and medical records are not what VIA Veterinary is typically brought in for.
What can Athenahealth do that VIA Veterinary cannot?
Athenahealth covers Electronic Health Records, Medical Billing, Patient Engagement, Telehealth. VIA Veterinary covers Clinical flowsheets, Integrated SOAP, DICOM imaging, Laboratory results.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Athenahealth: What platforms does Athenahealth serve?

Athenahealth's athenaOne serves small to medium-sized physician practices and hospitals with integrated clinical, financial, and operational workflows.

Source
VIA Veterinary: Who owns VIA?

VIA Information Systems is an Antech company and part of Mars Veterinary Health, the group that also owns Antech Diagnostics, Banfield and VCA.

Athenahealth: What is the pricing model for athenaOne?

Athenahealth uses customized pricing with percent-based or encounter-based models. Starting price reported at $140/month with implementation costs ranging from $5,000-$20,000 for small businesses.

Source
VIA Veterinary: Is pricing published?

No. Licence, implementation, conversion and support costs come only through a sales process.

Athenahealth: Does Athenahealth include revenue cycle management?

Yes, athenaOne includes network-driven claims scrubbing with 95%+ first-pass rates, denial management, and A/R optimization.

Source
VIA Veterinary: Can it run in the cloud?

Yes, VIA Cloud is offered alongside traditional on-premises installation, with cloud backup included.

Athenahealth: What patient engagement features does Athenahealth offer?

Athenahealth provides athenaCommunicator for patient portals, automated appointment reminders, online scheduling, telehealth integration, digital intake, and broadcast messaging.

Source
VIA Veterinary: What kind of practice is it built for?

Medically intensive practices: emergency, specialty, referral, equine and multi-doctor small animal hospitals where flowsheets and whiteboards drive the day.

Athenahealth: How many pre-built integrations does Athenahealth have?

Athenahealth's marketplace includes over 250 pre-integrated third-party apps, allowing practices to extend functionality without custom development.

Source
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