With group appointments, you can quickly schedule sessions, take notes, and bill clients for an appointment with up to 15 participants at once.

Important: Group appointments are only available on the Plus plan.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• Creating a group appointment
• Editing a group appointment
• Billing for a group appointment
• FAQs

Creating a group appointment

To create a group appointment: 

• Navigate to your calendar
• Click + > Schedule appointment
• Select Group

• Click Search clients and select a joining client from the dropdown

• To create and add a new client to this appointment, choose + Create client and add their details

Note: A maximum of 15 clients can be added to a group appointment.

• After adding all clients, enter an optional appointment name
  • If no name is entered, the appointment will appear with the number of clients on the calendar

• Set the date, start/end time, duration, clinician, and location of the appointment
  • You can also indicate whether it’ll be an All day and/or recurring appointment
  • For more information, see Scheduling a new client appointment
• Under Add services and modifiers, select the service of the appointment
  
  • Enter modifiers and update the Fee, if needed
  • To learn more, see What CPT code can I use for group appointments based on my specialty?

• Click Done

When you create a new appointment within the next 24 or 48 hours, you can send appointment reminders to clients if: 

• You have Alerts toggled on in Settings > Scheduling > Calendar
  • For more information, see Setting up time of scheduling reminders
• You have reminders for Upcoming appointments toggled on for the client
  • To learn more, see Sending reminders to clients

Check the respective boxes for which types of reminders you’d like to send to each client or contact and click Send reminders.

Note: You can also record progress notes for each client in group appointments. To learn more, see Using progress notes for group appointments.

Editing a group appointment

To edit the attendance for a client in a group appointment: 

• Navigate to your calendar
• Choose the group appointment
• Click Manage clients > Edit attendance

• Select the status next to a client’s name to choose their status for the appointment

• To add another client to the appointment, select Search clients to find and choose the client
• To fully remove an existing client from the appointment, click the X next to their status
• Select Save changes

To change the status of the entire appointment:

• Navigate to your calendar
• Choose the group appointment
• Click Cancel appointment 

• Select Clinician canceled or Canceled
• Click Cancel group appointment

Note: For more information about the difference between Canceled or Clinician canceled, see Understanding each appointment status type.

If you choose Clinician canceled, you’ll be able to send cancellation reminders to each client.

Note: Alerts must be toggled on in Settings > Scheduling > Calendar before you can send these reminders. 

When a group appointment is canceled, no further changes can be made to the appointment status. If canceled by mistake, you can delete the appointment by selecting the trash can icon. 

This will fully remove the appointment from the calendar.

Note: Locked appointments can’t be deleted until they’re unlocked. For more information on unlocking and deleting an appointment, see Deleting an appointment. 

To edit the appointment’s details, click Edit: 

You can edit the appointment name, or other details such as the date, time, clinician, location and service. Once you’ve finished your edits, click Done.

Note: If an appointment is locked due to an attached invoice, superbill, or progress note, you won’t be able to edit its details until it's unlocked. For more information on unlocking appointments, see Editing an appointment.

If you have Alerts toggled on in Settings > Scheduling > Calendar, you’ll be able to send reminders to each client when you move an appointment.

Note: If you don’t see a box for a certain type of reminder, this is because you’re not permitted to send this type of reminder to the client. To update this permission, see Sending reminders to clients.

Billing for a group appointment

When you select a group appointment on the calendar, you can view billing information in the appointment’s flyout. This includes the service’s default fee under Services, and how many clients are uninvoiced, unpaid or paid under Billing. 

To see the billing status for each client, click Manage billing. Here, you’ll also be able to click the three dots next to a client’s name, which will provide certain options depending on the client’s billing status.

If an appointment is uninvoiced, you can Edit fee, Create invoice, or Create invoice and add payment for that client. 

If you select Edit fee, you can update the client’s Fee.

Note: When a client’s group appointment has the Insurance billing type, you’ll also see the Client Copay when you’re updating the fee. You can change the co-pay or billing type by making an appointment level billing change from the client’s Overview > Billing page.

Once you’ve changed the Fee, click Save. 

If the client already has invoice(s) for the appointment, you’ll have the option to View invoice. Each invoice will appear in the dropdown, along with its paid or unpaid status. 

If an invoice is unpaid, you’ll also see an option to Add payment. 

In the client’s Overview > Edit > Billing and Insurance tab, you’ll be able to differentiate the billing type between a client’s individual and group appointments. For example, if a client pays for their individual appointments via Insurance and group appointments via Self-Pay, their options should appear as below:

Note: Creating claims for group appointments is the same process as creating claims for individual appointments. To learn more, see Filing primary claims in SimplePractice.

FAQs

You can find answers to frequently asked questions about managing group appointments below: 

• Can I use group appointments for family, support groups, or non-monogamous relationship sessions?
• How many clients can be added to a group appointment?
• Can I use Telehealth for group appointments?
• What CPT code can I use for group appointments based on my specialty?
• Can a group be managed by multiple clinicians?
• Can clients book group appointments online?
• Can I have a conversation with all clients in a group appointment via Secure Messaging?
• What can I access for group appointments based on my role?
• What happens to group appointments if I move to the Essential or Starter plan?
• Can I access group appointments on mobile?

Can I use group appointments for family, support groups, or non-monogamous relationship sessions?

Yes, but each member of the family, support group, or relationship will need their own client file. To create an individual client file, see Adding a new client and navigating your Clients and contacts list.

How many clients can be added to a group appointment?

You can add a maximum of 15 clients to a group appointment.

Can I use Telehealth for group appointments? 

Telehealth is available for group appointments, and a call can support a maximum of 15 clients at once. For more information, see Using Telehealth for multiple clients at the same time.

Group Telehealth can be added on the Plus plan at an additional rate of $15/month per clinician.

If you’re the Account Owner, you can add group Telehealth to your practice: 

• Navigate to Settings > Practice > Plan info
• Select Manage access next to Group telehealth

• For each clinician who’ll have access to group Telehealth, turn the toggle on next to their name

• • To remove access to group Telehealth, turn the toggle off
• Click Save
• Review your plan and select Confirm

The Account Owner can update which clinicians have group Telehealth access by navigating to Settings > Practice > Plan info and clicking Manage access next to Group telehealth. 

Note: If a clinician has upcoming group Telehealth appointments, their access can’t be removed until the appointments have passed. Alternatively, the appointments can be deleted or updated so that Video Office is no longer the assigned location. To change the location of an appointment, see Editing a group appointment.

What CPT code can I use for group appointments based on my specialty?

Important: The following information is only recommended. To confirm whether these can be used for your services, consult the insurance payer or an applicable regulatory body.

For a list of recommended CPT codes for group appointments, see the table below:

Can a group be managed by multiple clinicians?

While an appointment can only be assigned to one clinician, multiple clinicians can have access to the group’s client files. To learn more, see Sharing clients.

Note: The Account Owner and clinicians with administrative access have access to all client files. For more information on what each clinician has access to regarding group appointments, see What can I access for group appointments based on my role?

Can clients book group appointments online?

Clients can’t book group appointments online at this time. 

Can I have a conversation with all clients in a group appointment via Secure Messaging?

Secure Messaging currently doesn’t have the functionality for a clinician to message all clients in a group appointment at the same time. 

What can I access for group appointments based on my role?

Note: Certain clinicians can access more information about group appointments if they’re granted access to some or all clients associated with the appointment. To grant this access, see Granting specific client access for a clinician.

What happens to group appointments if I move to the Essential or Starter plan?

Past group appointments will still be accessible in your account, including their progress notes. However, all future group appointments will need to be deleted, as group appointments are unavailable on the Essential and Starter plans.

If you have future group appointments and click Change plan in the Settings > Practice > Plan info page, you’ll receive a notification stating that the future appointments will need to be deleted before you can select a plan.

Can I access group appointments on mobile?

Group appointments will appear on your calendar in the mobile app. To view the clients in a group appointment, select the appointment and click Clients. 

If you’d like to view additional details or make scheduling and billing changes to group appointments, you can do this through the SimplePractice web app.