You can now add minor clients to your account with more flexibility than ever. You have the option to add multiple contacts for a minor client, grant Client Portal access to multiple individuals, send appointment reminders to both a minor client and their parent, and more. 

In this guide, we'll cover:

• Adding a new minor client
• Sending a new minor client intake
• Client Portal from a contact's perspective
• Sending documents to minors and contacts
• Managing contacts
• Adding a contact to an existing minor client
• Billing for a minor client
• Secure Messaging with minor clients and contacts
• Notes for group practices

Adding a new minor client

To add a new minor client, navigate to the Calendar homepage and click + Create > + Create Client.

Note: See Adding a new client and navigating your Clients & Contacts list to learn about the different ways you can add a new client. 

When you select Minor, you'll have the option to enter this information:

• Minor client
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email Address (required for Client Portal access)
    • Only add an email address if the minor has one separate from their parent, guardian or contact
  • Phone Number (required for Text and Voice Reminders)
  • Billing Type (Self-Pay or Insurance)
  • Location of appointments

• Contact
  • Contact's First Name
  • Contact's Last Name

Note: Clicking Add Existing Client or Contact will allow you to select an existing client or contact as the Contact for this client from a search of your Clients & Contacts list.

• • Contact's Email Address (required for Client Portal access)
  • Contact's Phone Number (required for Text and Voice Reminders) 
  • Contact's Relationship to Client 
    • Parent
    • Legal Guardian
    • Family Member
    • Other
  • Responsible for billing (checking this box will make this contact the responsible party on billing documents) 

Note: Clicking + Contact will allow you to add and associate an additional contact’s information with this client. This is an excellent option to use for a minor who has multiple contacts that want to be involved in the minor’s care, including but not limited to divorced parents.

• • Billing Type (Self-Pay or Insurance) 
  • Primary Clinician (only for group practices) 
  • Location of appointments 

• Click Create & Continue 

Sending a new minor client intake

If you've entered an email address for the client and have set up your Client Portal, you'll see the option to Send Intakes. This is divided into three steps:

• Client Items
• You can choose which Consent Documents, Questionnaires, Demographics & Credit Card Forms, and any Uploaded Files to send to the client and any associated contacts.
• After you've made your selections for the client and any contacts, click Continue to Email.

• Compose Email 
  • You can customize the email that you send to the client and any associated contacts along with your practice documents.

Note: To adjust the default text of this email for your entire practice, go to Settings > Client Portal > Emails and click Edit on the Welcome email. You can customize the default emails for both clients and contacts. For more information, see: Sending intake forms and documents to clients.

• • After you've reviewed and made any changes, click Continue to Review. 

• Review & Send
  • Here you can see that the client and any associated contacts will receive Client Portal access, view the Client Portal Greeting message, and confirm which items you’re sharing with each person.

Note: You can learn how to set up online appointment requests here: Enabling online appointment requests and Managing your Availability.

Client Portal from a contact's perspective

When a contact with multiple clients assigned to them logs into the Client Portal, the contact will be prompted to choose which client’s information they want to manage at that time.

Once the contact selects the client profile they want to manage, they’ll see the Client Portal Welcome message. They can click Get started to review, sign, and/or fill out documents pertaining to that client.

Once the contact has viewed all documents, they can:

• Navigate to the Appointments tab
  • Here, the contact can: 
    • Request a new appointment for the client by clicking Request now 
    • View the client's Upcoming appointments
    • View the client's Requested appointments

Tip: For step-by-step instructions that you can share with clients and contacts, see: Viewing and requesting appointments in the Client Portal.

• Navigate to the Documents tab
  • Here, the contact can: 
    • Attend to any document that needs to be completed
    • View Completed documents and download them by clicking the document title
    • Upload files under My Uploads

• Navigate to the Billing & Payments tab
  • Here, the contact can:
    • Pay the total balance on the client’s account or make a payment toward the client’s total balance
    • View, download, and pay the client's Invoices
    • View and download the client's Statements, Insurance Reimbursement Statements, and Payment History
    • Manage their Payment Methods

• Click the Name in the top right corner
  • Here, the contact can choose another Profile or Sign out

Sending documents to minors and contacts

To share a document with a minor and/or their contact(s), follow these steps:

• Navigate to the client’s Overview page
• Click Share

• You’ll then have the option to select whom you want to share items with
  • Click the green arrow to deselect someone
• Once you’re satisfied with your selection, click Continue to Share

Managing contacts

You can manage your contacts from the Clients page or from the client's Contacts tab.

Managing contacts from the Clients page

To manage your contacts from the Clients page:

• Navigate to Calendar homepage > Clients
• Use the dropdown menu to view Contacts

For each contact, you'll see the contact’s Name, Contact Info, and Relationship. Next to each contact's name, you'll see the option to Manage.

Clicking Manage for a Contact from the Clients & Contacts list will extend a dropdown that includes:

• View Contact
  • This will take you to the contact’s information in the associated client’s Contacts tab
• Create an Individual Client
  • This will convert this contact into a client
• Merge with duplicate
  • You can select another client and/contact to merge with
• Add this Contact to a Couple
  • This will add this contact to a couple client 
• Delete
  • You’ll be prompted to confirm deleting the client. Any client relationships connected to this contact will be deleted

Managing contacts from the Contacts tab

You can also manage a client's contact from a client's Contacts tab. To do this:

• Navigate to the client's Overview page
• Click Edit > Contacts
• To the right of the contact's name, click Manage

Clicking Manage for a Contact from the Contacts tab from the associated client will extend a dropdown that includes:

• View/Edit Contact info
  • Clicking this will allow you to view and edit the following for this contact:
    • Legal first name
    • Middle name
    • Legal last name
    • Suffix
    • The name they go by
    • Relationship type
    • Designate the contact as the client's Emergency Contact
    • Phone number
    • Email
    • Address
    • Notes
      • This field allows you to add any notes about this contact

• Edit Appointment Reminders
  • Clicking this will allow you to enable text/voice appointment reminders and/or email appointment reminders related to their minor’s appointments
• Manage Client Portal & Billing
  • Clicking this will allow you to:
    • Set this contact as Responsible for billing for invoices, statements, and superbills associated with the minor client
    • Grant or revoke Client Portal access for this contact
      • This contact must have Email ok selected in order to be granted Client Portal access
      • If the Client Portal is enabled for this contact, you can choose to allow this contact to:
        • View the minor's upcoming appointments
        • Request new appointments for their minor
          • These appointments will still need to be confirmed by the minor’s clinician
        • Send & receive Secure Messages
          • Clients can only communicate with clinicians and team members who have access to their profile. Disabling will affect this Contact across SimplePractice
        • Access the minor’s billing documents
          • This can include invoices, statements, and superbills
          • Pay a balance with a credit card using Online Payments

Note: When you enable Client Portal access for a contact, If their Relationship type is Physician or Other, all Client Portal settings will be disabled for them by default, except for sending and receiving documentation.

• Create an Individual Client
  • You can create an Individual Client from this contact if you start seeing this contact as a client
  • If you do create an Individual Client from this contact, this person will still be listed as their minor’s contact

• Remove contact
  • If the contact is associated with another client, clicking Remove Contact will remove this contact from being associated with the current client
  • If the contact isn’t associated with another client, clicking Remove Contact will delete the contact from your account

Adding a contact to an existing minor client

If you have an existing minor client and you want to add a parent contact to their file, you must make sure that the minor client does not already have the parent's email address on their Client Info tab. If the minor client does already have the parent's email address listed and you try to add the parent as a contact, you'll see a message saying that the Email is already in use.

If this happens, you’ll want to remove access for this email address to the Client Portal. To do this:

• Navigate to client’s Overview page
• Click Edit > Client Portal
• Select the parent’s email address
• Click Disable Access

Once you’ve disabled access, you can delete the email address from the minor client. To do this:

• Navigate to the client's Overview page > Edit
• Click the trash can icon next to the email address

• Click Save Client

This will make the email address available for use with the parent's contact profile.

With Enhanced Client Management, you can also add existing clients and contacts as a contact to multiple client files.

For example, if you see multiple children in a family and the parent needs access to each Client Portal, you can add the parent’s contact profile to each minor’s profile. 

To do this:

• Navigate to the minor client's Overview page
• Click Edit > Contacts
• Select + Add Contact
• Enter the name of the existing client or contact in the Search field to bring up their profile

• Click the name of the individual you want to add as a contact
• Select the Relationship type 
• Click Save

Billing for a minor client

Secure Messaging with minor clients and contacts

If you previously had a Secure Messaging conversation associated with a minor client, a transcript of the Secure Messaging history will be available to download by clinicians who have access for this client. 

Note: Account Owners can also access this data through a complete export at Settings > Data Export. For more information, see: Data export: Exporting client information.

With Enhanced Client Management for minors, you now have the ability to send Secure Messages directly to a minor client as well as to their guardian or contact. Before you can begin, you need to invite the minor client and the guardian or contact to the Client Portal with separate email addresses. Then you can enable Secure Messaging for each individual. 

To send a Secure Message to a minor client or their contact, navigate to the minor client's Overview page. Then, click Message in the top right corner and choose the minor client or their contact.

Selecting the individual's name will open a Secure Message window where you can enter and send your message. 

You can also click the Messages from any page of your account to manually type in a recipient's name and send a message.

Notes for group practices

Clinicians in group practices will only be able to view and edit information for which they have permission.

• A Clinician with Basic Access is able to view a contact's information, edit Relationship Type and Emergency Contact information, and Edit Permissions for the contact.
• A Clinician without Billing Access won't be able to see or edit Billing Responsibilities.
• When a Clinician with Basic Access tries to add a Contact and that contact is a client they don’t have access to, they’ll be able to see that client in the Add Contact flyout as long as that client has been set as a Contact for another client in the practice.