SimplePractice Features

As an experienced clinician and small private practice administrator I find this software easy to use and the SP team really does take user feedback seriously and updates and adds features regularly. The roll outs of changes are thoughtful, with good lead times, and always a net improvement in user experience (so far). Reports are detailed enough for me to keep an eye on revenue, independent contractor services, and I can easily update forms and communicate with team members and clients confidentially. Also, online scheduling and the Client portal make client onboarding a breeze without hiring a receptionist.

I wish I could run reports based on services provided and/or detail of services provided to clients with specific payors.

I liked the original pricing plans. They were reasonable and had the basic features my practice required (online booking widget, documentation, and appointment reminders).

Simple Practice gave little notice when they hiked the price by 50% for some basic features. They stated that the new features justified the price hike however we don't use the new features, didn't request them, don't need them, and don't want them. What we require is the plan we chose upon choosing this EMR. An added website isn't useful when you already have a website and don't need two. Telepractice isn't useful when their system is inferior to zoom and you already have a system in place.

When changing our pricing, we conducted extensive research on how to charge customers at a rate that was commiserate with the services we provide and the labor it requires. We also conducted research on the necessary features and most utilized functions and segmented that data based on the stage of private practice the customer was in: how long they'd been in private practice, if they were a solo-practitioner,...

Read more

We've been using this software for quite some time now and it's intuitive features are very very impressive. Appointment handling, clientele management, automated invoicing works like a charm.

Just that it's mobile interface could be facelifted better and I wish the telehealth feature to work on low bandwidth for optimized usage.

I love the editable notes/forms and the online access! Client portal is also more streamlined and user friendly compared to competitors. Reports are nice and helpful for the most part. Free text and voice are nice (however you pay the difference with the higher cost of claim submission compared to competitors).

The billing tabs are difficult to understand as they don’t seem to be graphically easy to understand where each invoice is being applied. Looking quickly at the billing tab, it looks as if I have twice as many invoices than I actually need and some invoices, invoice for a zero balance (or even before an insurance payment is made). This makes the billing harder to understand than some of SimplePractice’s...

Read more

For me the best feature of this software is the online integration such as the client portal, the syncing with my google calendar, the video appointment capability, online scheduling, online bill payment, texting feature, automatic appointment reminders and easy online access to my EHR. I also like the simple modern design - this is what initially attracted me to simple practice. I have had good experience with customer service. Sometimes chat has been available but other times I've had to email them (but I wish chat was always available).

I want more customization capability. Such as customizing what the client portal looks like (graphic design of the portal is lacking). Also would like to better customize the reminder and welcome emails, such as by being able to use rich text formatting. I would like to be able to customize discreet data fields in the EHR, such as being able to edit my demographics form to include things I want to...

Read more

Thank you for your positive review, Braden. We're glad that SimplePractice is the solution you chose for your practice. - Gillian from SimplePractice

There are many things I like about this EMR: the format is pleasing and (mostly) intuitive, the side bars are handy, and the trove of FAQ's and videos is astounding and often very helpful.

The templates limit the user to certain forms and give fairly small boxes for narrative responses. I used to use EPIC and I miss being able to populate an open page with my template and add/adjust it as desired, like a Word document. I also wish the calendar allowed for more detail--like, a different color for intakes vs follow-up appointments would be really nice. Or, there could be a code before the client's name in the calendar slot--like, 'I - Jane Doe' and 'F - John Doe'. I also wish that the end time of the appts was more clear. I like to schedule a 15 min break between my appts and the "Weekly" view is definitely better than the "monthly" view for this, but still not as clear as I would like.

Heather, thank you for your positive review. We're glad that you've found a lot to like about SimplePractice. We're always working on improving SimplePractice to streamline your workflows even further - thank you for your suggestions of what you'd like to see in SimplePractice in the future. - Gillian from SimplePractice

I really like their balance between practice management and clinical documentation for a small practice, as well as the degree of customization for forms and documents. Their portal is pretty easy for clients to use (I rarely get people having trouble with it). I like their booking widget for my website. The telehealth video/audio quality is very good. Their help database is one of the better ones I've seen, lots of great articles and clear instructions that seems to be kept up to date.

Their settings menu is not intuitive and you have to hunt around to find the setting you are looking for. CEU offerings are not on topics of interest to me. Their clearinghouse doesn't have one of the carriers I need. Reporting and practice management tools are weak. Their paid therapist collaboration group where potentially sensitive information is discussed is hosted by Facebook (perhaps the most untrustworthy and unethical software company on the planet) AND they charge us to be invited to participate on a platform that doesn't cost SimplePractice any money to host other than maybe some moderating? That doesn't align well with the brand reputation and quality of SimplePractice and isn't really a good value for the money (in my opinion).

Simple Practice really is super easy for the average user. It has a modern look and feel. In less than 60 seconds (52 seconds to be exact) you and create a new client, schedule and send intake forms to be electronically signed. Overall the system is pretty intuitive. I love that you can create your own document and forms. The template creator is fairly easy. I also like that clients can "request" an appointment, which I can approve or deny. Finally, the calendar has very robust features (even better than 'many' of the scheduling apps). Also this comment isnt about the software per se but about the company-- I truly appreciate the they encourage feedback and suggestions from their subscribers and take action on 'some' of the suggestions.

Simple Practice takes a really long time to get enrollments with Medicaid & Medicare. They blame CMS but even CMS says it doesn't take months to get approved to bill though a clearinghouse (Yes, I know SP is not a clearinghouse). Secondary billing with is an absolutely nightmare. You literally have to do it manually--as in printing and mailing. I'm not really sure why but every single client I...

Read more

Michelle, thank you for your comprehensive review. We're glad to support your practice with our best-in-class practice management platform. We're constantly working on improving our platform, as you've pointed out in our review, and are looking forward to improving our functionality around secondary claims, documentation, and group practices. Thanks for being our customer over the years. - Gillian from SimplePractice

Overall this software is very intuitive. It's relatively easy to customize and I love having my documentation in billing all in one place for such a low cost. The customer services is exceptional. Anytime I have a question I simply send a message and link and I have a helpful response within 24 hours.

As a pediatric SLP, I have had to create my own templates for pretty much everything due to insurance requirements and the nature of my assessment and treatment. This can be time consuming for sure. I would love to be able to use the telehealth software, but I really need to be able to give the kids remote control in order to keep them engaged and as far as I know that isn't a feature at this point. The billing can get confusing, but the customer service has been incredibly helpful with this and I feel it's mostly due to the complexity of the billing for that client more so than the software.

the features I appreciate most about the software are the auto billing and automatic superbill generation. these are tasks that have no return on my time investment and so anything to automatize or regain my time is a good financial investment for me. I also appreciate the ease of adding my clinical note directly to the appointment, the way it links couples together and the ability to share and upload documents with clients. the customer service has been stellar, from answering questions to providing a free 1:1 consult. They have also responded to our request of adjusting the demographic form to be more inclusive which was a major need for my practice.

I don't like that I have to add a whole separate client entity for couples and that they have to sign their own consents. Creating your own intake questionnaire is extremely tedious if its comprehensive and so I'm yet to try and get my current form onto the system because it would take me hours.

Amy, thank you for your positive review - we're glad that automation of your practice workflows has helped you save time and get a higher return on your time investment. We're also proud to continue iterating on SimplePractice to introduce new, better features to more effectively support your practice and clients. - Gillian from SimplePractice

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.

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.

It is simple to use and if you don't have a large number of clients that you see then it works well.

None of the billing reports include all data points that is necessary for keeping track of payments and insurance reimbursements. For example, one report may have date of service and paid amount, but not the date the payment was made or for which clinician. Another report may have the date of service, client, and clinician, but not the payment amount or date it was paid. This makes it necessary to...

Read more

Hi Amber, thank you for the detailed review! You're right, none of our Reports include the date an insurance payment was made, but the Appointment Status Report includes the date of service, amount owed, amount insurance paid, amount client paid and the clinician's name. Here's more on the Appointment Status Report: [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN]! Although you can't assign a medical record number in the system, each client has a unique numerical code in the URL. You can use these numbers, or the entire URL to distinguish your clients from one another outside the system. - Ruth from SimplePractice

The EHR is relatively easy to use if you keep things simple. Additionally, the billing aspects of the software appears to work 1/2 the time.

The list is almost endless: -NO customer service unless you email them and pray that they will return the email with an answer that does not even address the question. -The video platform is maybe 20% functional. It is inconsistent and spotty. Most of the time, I have to have patients use FaceTime due to glitches. -The video platform often goes down and SP does not alert you to the outage until you...

Read more

Hi Trevor - Thank you for your feedback. Aside from offering email support, we do also offer live chat and phone support. Both of these options will allow you to connect with our Customer Success Team immediately and all three options allow you to continue a conversation with our team until you receive an answer to your question. Additionally, our team can assist with any Telehealth issues that you may be experiencing and will determine the source and resolution of the issue within your Help Request. To contact our Customer Success Team via phone or chat, click on the ? icon in your account > Ask Questions > No > Contact Support > choose either phone or chat. -Sara

I used to love SP and as an early adopter I was a major champion of their software. Part of my work is as a consultant for new therapists starting their journey as early career professionals. I used to advocate for SP as an EHR because they did a wonderful job of making things easy on therapists. Then about a year ago they got a new [SENSITIVE CONTENT] and decided to go full bore silicon valley start-up. This is not the same company. You need to understand that every review prior to 2022 was a different company. That company was AWESOME.

They are clearly in financial trouble. They CANNOT be trusted. How else do you explain alienating your entire user base by increasing your prices nearly 200%!? They are either overspending (suggesting incompetence at the management level) or they are gearing up for a Series A and wanting to go IPO eventually. This kind of business model is ANTITHETICAL to the kind of service that we therapists rely...

Read more

When changing our pricing, we conducted extensive research on how to charge customers at a rate that was commiserate with the services we provide and the labor it requires. We also conducted research on the necessary features and most utilized functions and segmented that data based on the stage of private practice the customer was in: how long they'd been in private practice, if they were a solo-practitioner,...

Read more

**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).

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...

Read more

Jenni, we know you're just getting started with SimplePractice, and we also know there's a bit of a learning curve getting used to any software product. It's great to see that you're looking forward to being totally paperless! I'm also glad to see that you were able to connect with a SimplePractice team member to help you get your intake forms all set up. We offer unlimited live support - take advantage so we can get you up and running! Thanks for choosing SimplePractice and for joining our community - we're proud to support the vital work that you do. - Gillian from SimplePractice

We have really enjoyed having the app feature for our community based practice. All of our therapists are not in a clinic and this allows for them to document anywhere and quickly. Making changes and creating templates is very easy and simple to do. Our team really has enjoyed the sync feature of the calendar with our G-suite as well as how easy it is to do billing. As the administrative person, submitting claims is SO easy that it has given so much more time to perform other tasks.

While the calendar syncs seamlessly for our practice, it would be nice that visually that appointment looks different other than looking for the CPT codes to denote a difference. We also have supervisory roles and sometimes it is shared between more than 1 therapist so it would be great to assign that more easily.

I like the patient portal that allowed me to easily send patients paperwork to complete before their initial sessions, saving me time and money. I also find great value in the patient appointment reminders to cut down on no shows. The EHR is great for customizing my practice from how appointments can be scheduled to designing forms and progress note templates. The program also keeps track of sessions that needs to be billed and which claims were paid. Great features!

The EHR was a bit difficult to navigate in the beginning. It was hard to remember which links led to which features. I would have preferred major links/buttons to be icons rather than words. Also, being able to electronically submit secondary insurance claims would be a feature that would make SimplePractice even simpler. It would also be great if the patient portal sign-in page could be personalized, as I would like to include a welcome message and list which insurances I accept.

Susan, thank you for the kind words about our Customer Success team! We're glad to hear that you're getting a great value from your SimplePractice subscription. Thank you for choosing SimplePractice for your private practice. - Gillian from SimplePractice

I love that I can track client sessions, treatment notes, payment, etc. It is excellent for an individual clinician, but terrible for group practices.

I have many complaints - first the support team is not available to help. The program is not robust enough for a group practice, and it charges so much money for a larger corporation. I'd love to see some sort of discount for larger companies. I have two group practices and it allows double bookings. As you can imagine, a therapy practice can't have double bookings. We have to review the room usage weekly to catch double bookings. It does not allow us to change the front end view (client view). The front end shows our multiple rooms, instead of just showing our office location. It would be nice to have the ability to edit what clients see. It also doesn't allow us to merge data with quickbooks, so we spend hours with data entry each week.

Jennine, thank you for your candor and your review. We're glad that you love how SimplePractice can track client sessions, notes, and payments. We're committed to providing as much flexibility and control over your practice as possible - some practices prefer to book group or family appointments side-by-side, which is why SimplePractice does allow clinicians to double-book. If you'd like, we'd love to set up some time with you and our Group Practice Specialist, Paige, who can address some of the concerns you've raised here. We're committed to your success - feel free to reach out to me directly at gillian@simplepractice.com. - Gillian from SimplePractice

It is easy to bill and receive payments through Stripe Integration. Telehealth has become more reliable. I appreciate the ability to customize forms. The treatment planner with Wiley isn't useful as it creates a lot of unnecessary steps. They now allow client signature and provider signature, which is a great improvement.

The inability to create a solution to the POS coding changes makes this software a poor choice for any provider that takes insurance. The current Simple Practice guidance is to create a calendar for each POS as a workaround. The software itself rates low on accessibility for visual presentation - the text is all blue, and there is no way to change color scheme, font size, font spacing. They communicate...

Read more

Robust and configurable. Every feature I can think of, that a mental health practitioner might need, is part of this product. Every part of your practice is configurable, from intake documents to discharge documents. Credit card processing? Yes. Online scheduling? Check (it even produces code for your website, so you can have people book appointments directly from your website). Revenue summaries? Yes. Client attendance reporting? Yes, that too. This review isn't the place to make a comprehensive list of features - but it is the the place to make the point that the feature list is comprehensive.

SimplePractice offers different pricing tiers, so you can use as much of the software as you're willing to pay for. But, IMnsHO, what's the point of choosing the most robust software if you're not going to use the high-end (expensive) option? So, I pay (as of this writing) $99/mo to use the software. You'd think that princely sum would enable the occasional conversation with a support team member....

Read more

The mobile app, customizable forms, template library, reports, and client booking are all really excellent. Billing, calendaring (especially customization like color-coding), chart notes, and other features are "fine" but could be improved.

I provide supervision and consultation as well as therapy and there is no way to differentiate between types of clients. Customization of the calendar (e.g. color coding for types of clients and location of service) is essentially non-existent. Billing and invoicing has always been confusing and clunky. Just generally, the customer service is absolutely atrocious. SP representatives in online platforms...

Read more

I appreciate the user interface on the website and app. It's easy to use and pretty intuitive. I enjoy being able to create custom forms and send text reminders to clients. The setup for a new client is quick and I'm able to send all required paperwork with ease.

Some of the options on the app are limited, such as being able to see claims (payments/adjustments) and a few things are hard to find, such as adding an insurance card to existing insurance (it's there, you just have to dig a bit). On the website, the claims can be a bit clunky to click through, as well as some things feeling redundant. I also dislike that you can't set the calendar appointments to auto generate a specific appointment time (the default is always 50 minutes and I have to change that manually each time). Also, customer service is extremely lacking. There's not an easy way to get to speak with a real person for issues.

The claims filing process using Simple Practice is very easy, and efficient once initial information is entered correctly. There is only one tweak that has to be made each time, and it can be submitted. Claims are paid quickly, once remittance capabilities are set up with each insurance the claims details quickly populate. SOAP notes can be set up and customized fairly easily, including with one line...

Read more

SP lacks features that I really need in an EMR. One of the biggest things it lacks is a way to easily note quantifiable data, match it to a short term goal, and quickly give me the ability to bring up a number of days of that data with a search. I have to keep quantifiable data on separate excel spreadsheets for each of my clients in order to be able to quickly access it to write progress reports...

Read more

Hi Cheryl, thank you for your thoughtful feedback. I can certainly address some of the "Cons" you mentioned. The same issues you run up against when trying to mass email clients with updates are the ones we have to deeply consider when building a mass messaging feature through our platform. As an EHR, client data is of utmost importance to us and many mass messaging tools include contact information...

Read more

-Completely HIPAA compliant -I now prepare and submit claims within minutes and know almost immediately of any errors or need for resubmission -Electronic claims submissions result in the quick return of payments -Collections are minimal with the ability to process payments with the internal credit card company -Charting progress notes is standardized and easy with a "load previous note" function -The compatibility with my phone and tablet is wonderful, especially with the dictation to text function -I can develop my own forms specific to the needs of my specialty -Patients easily access the friendly portal and quickly complete and return office forms -Support through chat, email, shared audio/visual screen, and now phone is timely with knowledgeable and friendly representatives

-The program only allows for one supervisor per intern and is not amenable to a satisfactory work around -All therapist's calendars are visible to all team members -Lacks functional use of invoices as most know them -Cannot send group emails or notify the entire caseload of information to be shared by the practice