When in a group or a multidisciplinary practice, there’s potential for your clients to see more than one clinician within the practice. In SimplePractice, this can be done seamlessly and aligns with your practice’s workflow when determining payroll, scheduling appointments, and even creating diagnosis & treatment plans.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• Granting clinician access
• Creating multiple profiles for the same client
• Scheduling appointments for the correct clinician
• Updating macros in client reminders
• Managing multiple client profiles using the same Client Portal
• FAQs

Granting clinician access

Within SimplePractice, every client is assigned a primary clinician. Other clinicians in your account can be granted access to a client's file by selecting the clinician's name on the client's Client Info tab under Clinicians granted access.

 Note: If needed, access can be removed by unchecking the clinician’s name.

Creating multiple profiles for the same client

If you manage a multidisciplinary practice or have clients who regularly see multiple clinicians in your SimplePractice account, we recommend creating multiple profiles for the same client so that each clinician has access to the correct client information.

This will also be helpful to keep diagnoses from different clinicians or specialties separate, especially when billing insurance, as the most recent diagnosis will always populate on claim forms. Additionally, this will ensure each appointment is attributed to the correct clinician on the Income allocation report.

To manage the multiple profiles you create for the same client:

• Navigate to the client’s Overview page
• Click Edit
• Add the client’s first name, along with the clinician’s name or initials to the What name do they go by? field to denote the primary clinician

• Alternatively, you can add the client’s treatment under Preferred name, as shown below

• Click Save

Tip: You’ll want to do this for each profile you create for the client.

Scheduling appointments for the correct clinician

When scheduling this client’s appointments, you’ll be able to determine which client profile you’re scheduling, which will auto-populate the primary clinician.

Note: Be sure to select the correct client profile when scheduling the appointment, so it appears on the correct clinician’s calendar.

Tip: On the Calendar homepage, you can toggle between clinician calendars using the dropdown menu.

Updating macros in client reminders

If you choose to use this alternative workflow, the client’s name that they go by (which now includes the clinician’s name or treatment plan) will appear when sending documents, appointment reminders, and on billing documents such as statements and invoices. To ensure that clients receive communications with the correct first name, navigate to Settings > Client Reminders, and use the client macro for Recipient Legally Admissible First Name.

You can use this macro in place of the client’s first name in the body of the email message. You can see an example of where to use this macro below:

Once these changes have been made, click Save. Your client reminders will now use the correct first name.

Tip: For more information, see Explaining client email and reminder macros.

Managing multiple client profiles using the same Client Portal

You can also add the first client profile as a contact to the second profile, so your client can manage multiple profiles from one Client Portal. Using this workflow, the client can access and manage each of these profiles using the same email address. To do this: 

• Navigate to the client’s second Overview page
• Click Edit
• Choose the Contacts tab
• Select + Add Contact to add a new contact
• Search by the client’s name to select the client’s other profile

• Choose the client’s first profile
• Select a Relationship type
• Click Save

Important: If the clinician doesn't have access to the client’s first profile, they won’t see the original client file as an option. They’ll need to reach out to the Account Owner or a clinician with access to the client’s first profile to grant them access.

Note: See Adding a contact to an existing minor client for more information on how to add a contact.

When logging into the Client Portal, the client can choose which profile they’d like to manage, as shown below:

This workflow will ensure each clinician has access to each individual profile for the client, and the client will be able to navigate the Client Portal for each profile they have with each clinician.

Important: When using this workflow, completed documents such as intake forms and credit card information won't carry over to the client's second profile. We recommend sending intake forms to both profiles.

FAQs

• Can any clinician in our group practice Secure Message any client?
• Which clinician will appear on invoices, statements, and superbills?
• Why are insurance payments only allocating to one date of service?

Can any clinician in our group practice Secure Message any client?

If a clinician is granted access to the client profile and they want to use Secure Messaging to communicate with that client, they’ll need to initiate the conversation. Clients are only able to begin a Secure Message with the clinician that’s selected as their Primary Clinician at any time, but can respond to another clinician with access to their profile if they’ve already initiated the conversation. We recommend creating multiple profiles for the same client. That way the client has the ability to Secure Message any of their clinicians at any time.

Which clinician will appear on invoices, statements, and superbills?

If an invoice, statement or superbill contains appointments with multiple clinicians that the client has seen, only the Primary Clinician’s information will populate in the Provider field. 

However, the other clinician’s name(s) will be listed next to their session.

If only one session is on the billing document, the Provider field will populate the rendering provider’s information.

We recommend creating multiple profiles for the same client. That way, each billing document has the correct clinician populated in the Provider field.

Why are insurance payments only allocating to one date of service?

Payment Reports in SimplePractice are only able to allocate to an insurance payment for the first appointment on the date of service listed on the Payment Report. If a client has more than one scheduled appointment on the same day, the insurance payment will allocate towards the first one. 

If a client is seeing multiple clinicians in a practice and an insurance payment allocates to the incorrect appointment because there were multiple scheduled on the same day, the payment can be manually edited so that the funds are correctly allocated. 

See Why is my insurance payment only allocating to one service code, when there's multiple on the same date of service? for instructions on how to edit an insurance payment in this scenario.