If you see minors in your practice, you can indicate that in their file and add multiple contacts for them. You also have the option to grant Client Portal access and send appointment and document reminders to the minor client and/or their contact(s).

In this guide, we'll cover:

• Adding a new minor client
• Sending a new minor client intake
• 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
• Client Portal from a contact's perspective
• Notes for group practices

Adding a new minor client

Note: See Adding a client to learn about the different ways you can add a new client. 

To add a new minor client:

• Navigate to the Calendar 
• Click + Create > + Create client
• Select Minor 

• Enter the following information for the minor under Client:
  • Legal first name
  • Legal 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
    • Only add a phone number if the minor has one separate from their parent, guardian, or contact
  • Billing type 
  • Primary Clinician
    • For group practices only
  • Location
  • Click Contact, and enter the following information for the minor’s parent or guardian:

• Contact's Legal first name
• Contact's Legal last name

Note: Clicking Add Existing Client or Contact will allow you to search for and select an existing client or contact as the Contact for this minor client.

• Contact's Email address
  • Required for Client Portal access
• Contact's Phone number
  • Required for Text and Voice Reminders 
• Contact's relationship to Client 
• 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 
• Primary Clinician
  • For group practices only
• Location
• Click Continue

Sending a new minor client intake

If you've entered an email address for the minor client or their contact(s) and have set up your Client Portal, you'll see the option to send intakes. This is divided into three steps:

Client Items

• Choose which forms to send to the client and/or associated contacts
• After you've made your selections for the client and/or their contact(s), click Continue to Email

Compose Email 

• Customize the email that will be sent 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

• You’ll see the client and/or contact(s) will receive Client Portal access and confirm which items are being shared
• Click Share & Send Now

Sending documents to minors and contacts

When a document is shared with a client that also has a contact, you‘ll have the option to select whether the client, the contact, or the client and contact will receive the document in their own Client Portal. To share a document with a minor and/or their contact(s):

• 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 and contacts page or from the client's Contacts tab.

Managing contacts from the Clients page

To manage your contacts from the Clients and contacts page:

• Navigate to Calendar homepage > Clients
• Use the filter to select Contacts

You'll see each contact’s Name, Contact info, Relationship, and the option to Manage.

Clicking Manage for a Contact from the Clients and contacts list will extend a dropdown that includes:

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
    • Name they go by
    • Relationship type
    • Designate the contact as the client's Emergency Contact
    • Phone
    • 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 the minor
          
          • These appointments will still need to be confirmed by the minor’s clinician
        • Send & receive  Secure Messages
          • Clients and contacts can only communicate with clinicians and team members who have access to their profile
          • Disabling this will affect the 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 doesn’t 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 trash can icon associated with the parent’s email listed as the client email on file
  • Confirm to disable Client Portal access
    

The email address will be available for use with the parent's contact profile.

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’ve had a Secure Messaging conversation with a minor client, a record of the Secure Messaging history is available to download by the clinicians who have access to this client.

Note:Account Owners, and Practice Managers with the optional permission, can also access this data through a complete export at Settings > Data Export. For more information, see Data export: Exporting client information.

Before you can send Secure Messages to a minor client or their contact, you’ll want to invite the minor client and the contact to the Client Portal with separate email addresses. For more on inviting clients and contacts to the Client Portal, see Inviting clients to the Client Portal. 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
• Click Message in the top right corner 
• 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 Messages from any page of your account to manually type in a recipient's name and send a message.

Client Portal from a contact's perspective

If a contact has been granted Client Portal access for multiple clients, they’ll be prompted to choose which client’s information they want to manage when they log into the Client Portal.

Once the contact selects the client profile they want to manage, they’ll see the Client Portal Welcome message the first time they sign. 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:

• Click Appointments to:
  • 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.

• Click Documents to:
  • Attend to any document that needs to be completed
  • View Completed documents
  • Upload files under My Uploads

• Click Billing & Payments to: 
  • 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 (or superbills), and Payment History
  • Manage their Payment Methods

• Click the name in the top right corner to choose another Profile or Sign out

Note: Contacts will only see what they've been granted access to in the Client Portal. For information on managing Client Portal access for contacts, see Managing contacts.

Notes for group practices

Clinicians in a group practice will only be able to view and edit information for clients they have access to.

• A Clinician with Basic Access can 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.

To learn more about team member permissions, see Team member roles and access levels.