Run by the practice, not a central office.

Traditional tools are bought top-down and run by central administrators.Orbit is run by the practice or program itself.Here's the honest comparison.

Start a pilot → See it at a glance ↓
At a glance·vs QGenda·vs Amion·vs Lightning Bolt·vs Spreadsheets·Switching
Two Different Approaches
QGenda, Amion, and Lightning Bolt all solve the same problem the same way: one central system, run from the top, publishing schedules outward. The question isn't whether they work — it's whether that's still the right architecture for how your people actually work.

If you're a practice manager, practice owner, or program director, the traditional tool is more than you need — and less than you want. You need your week drafted, your callouts covered, and your people briefed. That's what Orbit does, set up with you in the first week.

And if you're the health system, you've seen the quiet failure mode of top-down scheduling: departments resent the central tool and keep shadow spreadsheets. Orbit scales the other way: each practice or program runs its own week and can start on its own, and leadership sees every team from one view. Local control. System-wide sight.
At a Glance

The fifteen-second version

Ten things a practice owner or program director actually weighs.The deep dives below back every row.

Orbit QGenda Amion Lightning Bolt
Built for Practices and residency programs — and the system above them Health-system workforce management Call-schedule distribution Health-system call scheduling
Setup The first week, set up with you. Join code, no IT. Months, with an implementation team Days Months, with an implementation team
Who touches it daily Everyone — owner to MA Central schedulers Central schedulers Central schedulers
When someone calls out Ranked coverage — the best fit is asked first A central scheduler re-solves and re-publishes — A central scheduler re-solves and re-publishes
Assistant HAL — drafts the week, explains fairness, finds coverage, in plain English Forecasting & optimization — Rules you set up; it fills the grid
ACGME compliance Built in for residency programs Within its GME product Separate tools Within its enterprise platform
Institutional knowledge Your handbook — drop it in, HAL answers from it with citations — — —
Staff experience iPhone & Android app (in beta today) — daily card, lock-screen morning glance, widgets, swaps; the browser is always enough Published schedule View + iCal sync Published schedule
Pricing 90-day pilot at $250/mo · then one flat price per practice or program, set with you Per-provider, custom-quoted Low-cost subscription Enterprise, custom-quoted
Built by A practicing physician Enterprise vendor Doximity PerfectServe
Orbit on day one — a real launched week: the schedule grid with two sites, AM and PM sessions, attendings, residents and MAs in each room.
Real screenshot · what day one looks like · demo program
In Fairness
Where they're genuinely stronger. If you need deep EHR, credentialing, and payroll integrations, QGenda has spent years building them — Orbit deliberately stays out of the chart. If you're solving hospital-wide call across dozens of departments and hundreds of physicians, Lightning Bolt's optimization engine was built for exactly that scale. And Amion is inexpensive, familiar, and everywhere — switching has to be worth it.

We'd rather you know all of that here than discover it on a sales call. The rest of this page is the case for why — for a practice, a program, or a system of them — switching is worth it.
The Other Incumbent
Many practices are leaving a spreadsheet, not QGenda. If your schedule lives in Excel, on a whiteboard, or in a generic shift app built for retail rosters — When I Work, Deputy, Sling — the comparison is simpler. A spreadsheet can't find coverage when a provider calls out; Orbit ranks who can cover and asks the best fit first. A shift app doesn't know what a provider, a procedure room, or a credential is; in Orbit they're first-class, along with provider–MA pairing, room assignments, and time-off balances. And neither one briefs your team — in Orbit, everyone opens their phone to a personal daily card: where they're working, who they're with, what changed.

The price logic stays on your side: Orbit is priced per practice or program, and everyone signs in free.
Making the Move

Switching is a week with us, not an implementation project

The biggest cost of leaving an incumbent isn't the subscription — it's the migration you're dreading.Orbit is built to keep that small.

1

Bring what you have

Import the spreadsheet you already keep, paste your roster, or screenshot your current schedule — Orbit reads it and rebuilds it as a live, structured week.

2

Your team joins with a code

No accounts to provision, no IT tickets.Share one join code and every attending, resident, and MA is in — on their phones — in minutes.

3

HAL takes the busywork

From your first week, HAL drafts the next one, watches the rules, and handles the scramble when someone's out.Start with a 90-day pilot, set up with you.

The Incumbent

Orbit vs QGenda

QGenda is an enterprise workforce management platform built for large health systems managing hundreds of staff across multiple specialties.It's powerful — and priced accordingly.

QGenda
  • Per-provider subscription, custom-quoted — pricing isn't published
  • Multi-month implementation with dedicated team
  • Built for hospital-wide workforce management across departments
  • Strong for OR scheduling and complex rotation pools
  • Staff experience is administrator-centric — providers receive their schedule
  • Automation focused on demand forecasting and coverage optimization
  • Requires IT involvement for setup, EHR integrations, and ongoing configuration
Orbit
  • Priced per practice or program; everyone signs in free
  • Set up with you in the first week; staff join with a code — no IT, no implementation project
  • Built for private practices, clinics, and residency programs
  • ACGME compliance built in for residency programs — not an add-on module
  • Staff-first: a daily card on every phone, swaps, time off, team chat
  • HAL — an assistant for schedulers and staff, in plain English
  • Designed by a practicing physician
Bottom line: QGenda excels at enterprise-scale workforce management across hospital departments. If you run a practice or a program, Orbit solves your actual problem — with ACGME compliance built in when you have residents.
Also Comparing

Orbit vs Amion

Amion (now part of Doximity) is a physician scheduling tool many practices and programs have used for years.It works well for distributing a schedule.

Amion
Orbit

Scheduling Experience

Spreadsheet-style schedule entry.Optimized for pushing a calendar out to staff.Staff view via Amion.com or iCal sync.

Scheduling Experience

Board and grid views your team edits together, with drag-and-drop and live updates.HAL fills gaps and checks the week before you launch.

ACGME Compliance

Not a core feature.Duty hours require separate tracking in MedHub, New Innovations, or spreadsheets alongside Amion.

ACGME Compliance

Built-in: 4-week rolling averages, duty hour attestation in one tap a day, training exposure heat maps, and a printable compliance report in one click.

Staff Experience

Providers receive a published schedule. iCal export.Limited two-way interaction beyond viewing.

Staff Experience

A daily card on every phone, team chat, swaps, site prep, and "Ask HAL why" answers about the schedule.

Assistant & Automation

Template- and rule-based scheduling.No assistant you talk to, no drafting assistant.

Assistant & Automation

HAL drafts full weeks from your usual pattern, fills gaps respecting credentials and provider–MA pairing, flags chronic overtime, explains decisions in plain English — for both schedulers and staff.

Ownership & Direction

Part of Doximity.Enterprise SaaS roadmap driven by health system contracts and Doximity platform priorities.

Ownership & Direction

Built by a practicing physician.Every feature request comes from real operational pain.The roadmap is set by someone who runs a clinical schedule every week.

Bottom line: Amion handles basic schedule distribution. Orbit handles the full picture: building the schedule, covering call-outs, keeping staff informed, and checking the rules — in one place.
Also Comparing

Orbit vs Lightning Bolt

Lightning Bolt (part of PerfectServe) solves enormous multi-department call equations for large health systems.If that's your problem, it's a strong tool.Here's how the two compare for a single practice or program.

Lightning Bolt
Orbit

Setup & Onboarding

Months-long implementation with dedicated project manager.IT coordination required.Custom integrations.

Setup & Onboarding

Set up with you in the first week.A join code gets your team on board in minutes.No IT required.No spreadsheet migration headache.

Who Uses It Daily

A central scheduling office.Physicians view a published schedule they receive via email or portal.

Who Uses It Daily

Managers, providers, MAs, and the front desk — or program directors, attendings, and residents.Everyone sees their own day on My Orbit and can talk in team chat.

Staff Experience

Providers receive their schedule.Portal view is read-only.Limited engagement tools.

Staff Experience

My Orbit shows daily cards with site prep, swaps, and team chat.Anyone can ask why their schedule looks the way it does.

ACGME Compliance

Available as part of enterprise package.Requires separate configuration and learning curve.

ACGME Compliance

Built-in 4-week rolling averages, real session times, duty hour attestation, training exposure tracking, and printable compliance reports.

Assistant & Automation

Fills the grid from rules you set up.Limited explanations to staff.

Assistant & Automation

HAL — an assistant for both schedulers and staff.Generates schedules, explains fairness, finds coverage, checks launch readiness, answers questions in plain English.

Pricing

Enterprise contracts, custom-quoted.Pricing isn't published.

Pricing

Start with a 90-day pilot at $250 a month.After the pilot, one flat price per practice or program, set with you.

Real-Time Collaboration

A central administrator publishes the schedule.Changes require a re-publish cycle.Limited live updates.

Real-Time Collaboration

Every schedule change shows up for the whole team right away, on every device.

Our Origin Story

Built by a Practicing Physician

Orbit wasn't built by a software company studying healthcare from the outside. It was built by a practicing physician and department chair who runs a clinical schedule every week.

Every feature reflects real operational pain — from the call-out at 6 AM, to the MA who needs to know which room, to the resident asking why their week looks the way it does.

You're not buying a generic platform adapted for healthcare. You're buying the tool that solves your exact problem.
Orbit's Competitive Edge

What Orbit Does That Traditional Tools Don't

Staff-First Experience

A daily card on every phone, swaps, site prep, and on-call visibility for every provider.

HAL

An assistant that talks to both schedulers and staff.Drafts the week, finds coverage, explains fairness, and checks the rules before you launch.

Residency Compliance

4-week rolling averages, duty hour attestation, training exposure heat maps, and printable compliance reports.

Start a pilot with your practice or program

No implementation project.No IT department required.

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