If you’re evaluating mental health practice management software, you’ve likely already concluded that jumping between multiple systems to run your practice wastes a lot of time. Science backs up your instincts.
Context switching (which is just a fancy way of saying “jumping between different tasks at work”) is cognitively taxing. It turns out that even toggling between two software applications is considered context switching. Do it too much, and your brain produces more of the pesky stress hormone cortisol, slowing you down and making it harder to focus.
Mental health practice management software helps you stop the switch. These solutions include various built-in tools and functionality needed to run your practice – like appointment scheduling, charting, messaging, billing, and more. The result is more automation and less switching, so you can regain control of your time and provide a seamless client experience.
When choosing the best mental health practice management software, you should consider some important areas. This article provides a deep dive into each of them, along with advice for evaluating solutions and how to go about switching.
#1: Security and HIPAA Compliance for Mental Health Practice Management Software
#2: Administration, Workflows, and Systems for Mental Health Pros
#3: How to Evaluate Your Mental Health Practice Management Software
#4: How to Switch Mental Health Practice Management Software
A great deal of trust is baked into your relationships with your clients. A deep commitment to upholding ethical standards in providing care also involves safeguarding their private health information, or PHI. Maintaining HIPAA compliance (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) helps prevent data breaches and unintended exposures that put their privacy at risk.
Like other areas of health care, mental health services saw high telehealth adoption rates during the pandemic. Interestingly, this also led to desirable outcomes, like reduced no-show rates and increased appointment numbers.
The ongoing popularity of telehealth in mental health isn’t surprising. It’s convenient, and the tech overcomes geographic, mobility, and transportation barriers. For example, a new mother seeking help with postpartum depression might find it challenging to get herself and a new baby out of the house for an in-person session when she’s dealing with overwhelming anxiety and loss of energy. Hopping on a telehealth appointment from home between naps or while sitting and rocking a newborn will likely feel much less daunting.
Mental health practitioners are subject to the Security Rule under HIPAA. This requires you to implement safeguards that protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of PHI when you’re delivering HIPAA-compliant telehealth sessions.
Here are some security features to insist on in HIPAA-compliant telehealth software:
Beyond providing HIPAA-compliant telehealth sessions, Practice Better offers a virtual background feature for additional privacy and professionalism. You can either choose to display an image or blur your background.
Your practice management software should offer features that improve your efficiency and make it easy to scale your practice. It should also provide a smooth client experience while always protecting their privacy.
Practice management software can ease the load by giving you reusable templates to quickly create the notes and charts you most frequently use with clients. It should also allow for attachments and make adding links, videos, and lists easy.
“There are so many incredible ways to create charting templates that are easy to use (because we don’t love notes as clinicians, so why not make them easy to do?)”
Lexie Belle, Licensed Mental Health Counselor
If you treat children in your practice, it’s also handy to have a solution that allows family records. By linking a sub-record (the child) to a primary record (the parent), you can make it easy for the parent to request appointments for the child through the client portal.
Ultimately, you want to be in control of your calendar. So, the ability to fence off your time and customize what availability clients can see helps you maintain boundaries and balance.
“I use Practice Better to ensure my clients’ needs are met during and in between sessions. I love that the platform offers options for my clients to engage in therapy with me. I offer them the chance to view my calendar availability based on the service or package with options for phone, chat, or Telehealth.”
Sam Getha, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)
If you work with referral partners, creating a space on your website for them to input client information and have it securely transmitted right into your practice management system frees you from time-wasting, error-prone manual entry.
No-shows also tend to be more prevalent when you’re counseling people who are experiencing difficulties with their mental health. One way to mitigate the no-show issue is to send out automated appointment reminders by email or SMS. These pre-appointment messages also allow you to include any special preparation notes or instructions embedded in the reminder. Your software should enable you to automate and customize client appointment reminders.
Having billing and payments integrated into your practice management solution is a huge timesaver. The ability to accept, manage, and track all payments in one place saves the time and frustration of moving between systems and reconciling different reporting into one view of your finances.
Now that you understand the key components to look for in mental health practice management software let’s dive into how to assess the efficacy of any solution you’re evaluating.
Make sure you get an in-depth demo or, even better, take advantage of a free trial to test out the interface. Look for a clear design, logical layout, and functionality consistent with the other software you know and love. This experience should extend through to the client portal.
The solution should also be accessible across devices and operating systems, with a mobile app that makes it as easy to use on the go as it is from a desktop.
When you’re researching the best mental health practice management software, don’t forget to factor in what actual users of the tech are saying. You can reach out to your community to see what tools they are using and what they like/dislike about them. You can also see what mental health practitioners say about tools you consider on peer-to-peer review sites like G2.
Many software companies publish customer success stories on their websites, which you can read to better understand how they use specific software functionality.
Sam Getha is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who provides psychotherapy via Telehealth across Alaska and Virginia. Sam helps adults who struggle with trauma, depression, and anxiety. You can read about her experience with Practice Better over here.
Lexie Belle, MS LMHC, QS, runs a group practice in Florida specializing in reproductive mental health for women, perinatal mental health for pregnant and postpartum people, and mental health when struggling through infertility or pregnancy loss. See which Practice Better features she relies on to run her practice.
If you’re already relying on a solution (or solutions) to run your practice and you to switch to all-in-one practice management software, here’s what to expect.
Your chosen vendor should make transitioning to their platform painless. Their IT team should be able to help you import your clients’ basic information – like name, email address, mailing address, date of birth, gender – into your account once you provide it in an Excel or .CSV format.
At Practice Better, we also assist you with importing client documents into your Documents section if you can have these exported from your current system. If you want to explore switching your practice management software to Practice Better, you can schedule your personalized migration consultation with our customer support team today.
Learning the ins and outs of a new software system takes time, but you shouldn’t have to go it alone. Ask any vendor you’re evaluating what they offer for onboarding resources. They should be able to offer you a substantial online repository of resources that walk you through key steps in getting set up. Written materials are helpful, but videos that let you see and follow along are invaluable.
Your chosen software provider should address common issues through the implementation phase. It should also be easy to reach their internal experts through online chat or telephone. Bonus marks if there are additional channels you can use to connect with experts and peers.
For example, at Practice Better, we offer regular live Q&A Getting Started Live Class sessions hosted by our experts.
We also have an exhaustive online help center customers can use to troubleshoot questions themselves. Finally, anyone interested in Practice Better is invited to our private community, where they can connect with peers anytime.
There’s a lot riding on your mental health practice management software. This guide gives you a solid checklist to follow when evaluating any solution. Finding the right mix of features, support, and price points that will work for your unique business needs is the key to enjoying long-term success. Make sure you give yourself ample time to thoroughly evaluate any choices so you feel confident.
Want to explore an EHR that can help you build an integrative mental health practice? Check out what Practice Better can do in this demo and begin your free trial today.
[Editor’s note: this post was originally posted on December 8, 2023. It has been updated for comprehensiveness.]
