If you're in a multidisciplinary practice, it's possible that your clients may be seen by more than one clinician within the practice. In SimplePractice, you can manage shared clients in a way to align with your practice’s workflow for payroll, scheduling appointments, and even creating diagnosis and 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. To do this:

• Navigate to to the client's Overview page
• Click Edit
• Select the clinician's name under Clinicians granted access

• Click Save Client

 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, you can create multiple profiles for the same client so that each clinician has access to the correct client information.

This will keep diagnoses from different clinicians or specialties separate, which can be helpful 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 and 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 first name and treatment type to this field

• Click Save Client
• Repeat for each profile you create for the client
  

Scheduling appointments for the correct clinician

When scheduling this client’s appointments, you can choose which client profile you’re scheduling it for, which will auto-populate the primary clinician.

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

Tip: You can filter the calendar by clinician. To learn more, see Using your calendar in a group practice.

Updating macros in client reminders

If you choose to use this workflow, the name the client goes by (which now includes the clinician’s name or treatment type) will appear when sending documents, appointment reminders, and on invoices and statements. To make sure that client communications include the correct first name:

• Navigate to Settings > Client Reminders
• Click Edit next to the reminder template you want to update
• Choose the Recipient Legally Admissible First Name macro from the Client dropdown

• You can use this macro in place of the client’s first name in the body of the email message:

• Click Save
• Repeat as needed for each reminder template

Your client reminders will now use the correct first name.

Note: To adjust your Client Portal email templates, navigate to Settings > Client Portal > Emails and follow the steps above. You can also adjust your billing document emails at Settings > Documents. 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 their second profile, so your client can manage multiple profiles from one Client Portal. Using this workflow, the client can access and manage each of their profiles using the same email address, while still keeping documentation and billing details separate. To do this:

• Navigate to the client’s second Overview page
• Click Edit > Contacts
• Select + Add Contact
• Search by the client’s name to select 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. For more information, see Adding a contact to an existing minor client.

Next, you can grant the client’s first profile Client Portal access for the other profile. To do this:

• Click Manage > Manage Client Portal & Billing
• Check the box for Allow Client Portal access
• Edit the Client Portal invitation email, if needed
• Click Save

Now, the client will be prompted to choose which profile they’d like to manage when signing into the Client Portal:

With this workflow, each clinician will have access to a separate profile for the client, and the client will be able to manage all of their Client Portal profiles using the same email address.

Important: Completed intake forms and credit card information won't carry over to the client's second profile. Instead, you can send intake forms separately to each profile.

FAQs

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

If a clinician has been granted access to the client profile, they’ll need to initiate the conversation in order to use Secure Messaging with that client, they’ll need to initiate the conversation. Clients are only able to begin a Secure Message thread with their primary clinician, but they can respond to another clinician on an existing conversation. If you create multiple profiles for the same client, the client will have the ability to Secure Message each of their primary 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 each appointment in the Description on invoices and statements.

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

If you create multiple profiles for the same client, each billing document will display the correct clinician 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 appointment scheduled on the same day, the insurance payment will allocate towards the first one.

If a client is seeing multiple clinicians in a practice, the insurance payment may be allocated to the incorrect appointment because there were multiple scheduled on the same day. In this situation, you can manually edit the payment to allocate the funds correctly.

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.