Five products, five useful places to start
Use these five systems as a starting point. Test the reports and workflows your practice needs before choosing.
SimplePractice
Explore its dashboard, then check staff access and how date filters affect the totals.
TherapyNotes
Try a claim, payment and adjustment in the billing workflow. Check for duplicate manual work.
TheraNest
Use attendance and billing filters to find records that need action.
Sessions Health
Inspect unpaid claims by payer and practitioner. Check how claim age is counted.
Jane
Compare offered, booked and completed time. Check how no-shows affect the result.
Test the entire journey through the practice
Choose two or three representative fictional clients and follow their administrative and clinical path. Include a straightforward visit, a case requiring supervision and a billing exception that matters to your practice. Use the same scenarios in every trial.
- Inquiry and first booking.
Demonstrate forms, practical questions, matching, appointment confirmation and a change request.
- Clinical documentation and supervision.
Show the required note, signature and review sequence using the intended staff roles.
- Payment or claim.
Follow the practice’s real payment model through submission, rejection or adjustment, posting and balance follow-up.
- Management review.
Show session counts and payment totals for a full week or month. Explain what is included and download the detail.
- Access change and departure.
Show how a role changes, how access is removed and how the practice retrieves its information.
Test billing and supervision in detail
A feature named “insurance billing” can cover a wide range of workflows. Ask the vendor to show the payers, claim types and staff responsibilities relevant to your practice. The same applies to supervision: the existence of a signature field does not establish that the complete review and permission process fits your team.
Record what worked, what requires another plan or add-on and what remains outside the system. A useful comparison should reveal the work your employees will still perform every day. The SimplePractice and TherapyNotes comparison provides a closer examination when those two are on the shortlist.
Compare reporting definitions, not just chart count
The vendors’ documentation reveals why definitions matter. SimplePractice’s outstanding-balance snapshot is not limited by the dashboard’s global date filter. Sessions Health’s claim aging uses claim creation, and the 60-plus-day count is included within the 30-plus-day count. Jane’s booked-hours report includes no-shows in booked time.
These are interpretation rules, not reasons to reject a product. Ask whether staff can understand them and whether the reports answer the management question you intended. The reporting reliability tests give you simple examples to use in the trial.
Price the complete group-practice setup
Request the price for your clinician count, required roles and actual features. Include relevant extras such as claims, telehealth, payment processing, messaging, migration and support where they apply. Record recurring charges separately from one-time setup costs.
Also estimate the cost of work outside the system: manually checking totals, entering the same information twice and maintaining a separate intake or payroll record. A low base subscription can still create an expensive operating routine. Keep the comparison tied to current quotes rather than an old online ranking.
Decide whether you need a new EHR or help running the practice
Changing EHRs is a significant project. If the clinical and billing workflows work well but the owner lacks a clear management view, evaluate dedicated analytics before assuming migration is necessary. Cortexa Practice Analytics supports a review of sessions, capacity, clinician performance, clients, revenue and intake around the practice’s needs.
If the problem is also who answers inquiries, resolves billing or runs payroll, Cortexa’s Full Service Partner membership adds operational support. Confirm the EHR connection and service scope for your actual configuration. The migration guide helps when a change of clinical system is the right decision.