SimplePractice

Truly a lifesaver. I feel like I am not a business person, but simple practice simplifies so many aspects of this.

Vorteile

I love all of the things that the developers decided to incorporate in this platform. You can upload your business documents, any documents relevant to your client records and so much more. I have created questionnaires that are specific to my practice so that I can gather data upfront and this prevents me from missing out on money. I love the integration for scheduling appointments, telehealth and billing and invoicing. If you want to streamline your practice, this is for you.

Nachteile

Clients cannot pay partial balances in their client portal yet, those payments have to be taken in the office.

Overall my experience with SimplePractice has been positive and I would recommend it over other electronic health records. In doing my research and talking with others, simple practice stood out as the most user-friendly and clinically professional platform.

Vorteile

As a former pen and paper therapist, getting started with SimplePractice was a bit tedious, But that would have been the case with any electronic record. Once that process was complete using it daily with current and new clients has helped me run a more professional and organized practice. It is easy to use and has a lot of helpful features like forms, templates and assessments.

Nachteile

There may be a way to do group sessions when you upgrade to the platform for Telehealth but I have not figured this out yet. I would like to be able to do a group meeting with multiple colleagues or supervisees.

Overall, it's been great! I was reluctant at first to pay what seemed like a lot of money at the time but they offer a world of information, tools, and resources to help with your business. It's a brilliant idea that is, for the most part, very well-executed.

Vorteile

SP is great for having everything you need to run a practice in one place. I have an app on my phone that I can use to quickly check my schedule, send reminders to clients and cancel, change, or add appointments. They have a good "reports" option so that you can see outstanding invoices, insurance claims, etc. plus a number of other categories. I really love how easy SP makes it to submit insurance claims. I don't want to do that by hand nor do I want to hire someone to do it for me so I really appreciate that. I like that clients can request appointments and that all of their info is in one place. SP was very quick to respond to COVID and I appreciate the HIPAA compliant telehealth platform they created during the pandemic at no additional charge. They have extensive training videos but I am mostly self-taught as that's how I learn best. They also offer pretty good CEU classes for not much money about a variety of topics. And, if you're like me and find it hard to sit for the entire class at once, they will email you reminders that you have unfinished classes which is always helpful.

Nachteile

It is very difficult to actually speak to customer service. I spend a LOT of time typing in questions and then wading through what others have also asked about and the answers they got. Real time waster since we all word the issues differently so you get many irrelevant answers to try to parse. Half the time I can't remember how to get someone to actually chat with me - when they do it seems to work fine but can also be cumbersome depending on what the issue is.

I am just getting started...I have high hopes yet!

Vorteile

**Note: I am very new to Simple Practice and I'm only three weeks in.

What I like most about this is the idea that everything will be located all in one place. No paper files to lug around, reduced costs on printing paper and ink for intakes and informed consents, and I'm excited about having automatic appointment reminders for clients. I like that I can send clients the documents ahead of time so they don't have to spend 20-25 minutes when they first arrive filing out paperwork. We can get started right away. And I appreciate that I can customize the way I contact the clients as their individual preference (some want texts, some want voice messages).

Nachteile

Although I am fairly tech savvy (I'm the top end of the millennials), I have not found simple practice as user friendly as I had hoped. I have used many support options so far and find the in-person ones most helpful. While trying to create my current intake form into one of the forms and documents...I found it rather nightmare-ish. It was tedious and I felt like it took 10 times longer than it needed to. I was SO glad my 30 minute phone consult had given me the heads up to use the pre-existing template and just change every question so I didn't have to totally re-invent the wheel. I am SO glad the template already existed! But I still felt like I was using a chisel on stone. It felt tedious and painful. I'm glad that's over!
Sometimes I get stuck on the calendar page and haven't yet found the button to default to the normal HOME setting so I have the sidebar. These are small things that I hardly ever have a hard time wasting time on..and yet I found myself not being able to get back there today multiple times.
Not as user friendly as I hoped.

Overall, I really like that I can do so much paperless admin tasks with SP.

Vorteile

The features that are most impactful are the paperless Intake process, the online billing, and the HIPPA-compliant storage of all PHI and billing information. It was fairly easy to learn to use and integrate into my business.

Nachteile

The Telehealth features are minimal and scarce. We really need better features to be able to do things that other platforms offer--writing board, chat within telehealth sessions, sharing sound from the client's screen when screen sharing, easier screen sharing for the client, better group video sessions.