Family Clients!!???????
any progress on this?
seems to be a bit weird that you can't create this.
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Family as a client type: I have used Simple practice for a very long time, left, and came back to you.. I am aware of the changes you have made. I also find it weird that is is no easier to organize the family as a client, as it was when I first subscribed. What is it about the label family that it difficult to develop a software to manaage. If you want to call the family a group, that's can work; also; however at least provide an easy way in your :"Add Client", "Client Type - Adult, minior, couple, waitlist", to add Family or Group client type in order to allow for multiable individuals to be entered with the same functionality as adding couples, or minors. I have three adult sisters as clients who live in the same home, adding two as contacts is not effective, setting up individual charts is not an efficent method. Therefore, I agree that it is weird that we cannot create a family as a "Client Type" or modality, along with Individual, Minors, and Couples. I am a Marriage (couples) and Family Therapist. Please, Please, Please (my best James Brown) add "Family or Group" as a "Cient Type" to provide the means for therapists to add multiple individuals as the client. Grace, Love, and Peace.
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I would also appreciate this get some follow up. I do appreciate that SimplePractice allows for relationship therapy to be charted in dyads (although it should be labeled in the interface as "relationship" rather than "couple" in my opinion - a dyad could be siblings, friends, parent-child, co-parents, etc.), but we need to be able to chart relationships that are more than dyads (i.e. family groups, poly-relationships).
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I have 2 minors who are siblings (originally individual clients) and are shifting into conjoint therapy. My workaround was to make them into a "couple" within SimplePractice (weird, I know), but the problem is that there's no way to send session reminders to the parents because SimplePractice thinks the siblings are adults since they're "a couple." This is beyond frustrating. If SP has the ability to merge adults into a couple, there needs to be a way to merge 2 minors into a family file for scheduling purposes. HELP!!
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I gave up and just upgraded my account. I have a bunch of features I don't need but the group feature is how I dealt with the problem. Because you have to behave paperwork for everyone involved and it's cumbersome with notes and treatment plan to have 3 to four different places to document.
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I am just posting here to echo what everyone else has said. I am really surprised that 6 months have passed and Simple Practice has not addressed this or even acknowledged it in the comments here. Family therapy is a core branch of psychotherapy and, well, it's been around for many many decades so it really doesn't make sense that it's not a basis feature.
I will also just add that having only a "couple" option does not allow therapists to open non-monogamous cases, as in 3+ poly/non-monogamous people who want to do conjoint therapy (e.g., people in a triad; or a hinge + metamors).
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Wow, I googled this question expecting a small technical fix for adding my new family client of 3 adults into Simple Practice. But after realising how many peaople have already asked to address this issue that I assume requires small effort from a software/tech person, I feel disappointed with Simple Practice support services. I am curious if there are any consequenses of providing bad quality of service. Because its not worth paying a high monthly subscription if SP can't even get such a small request adressed in a reasonable time period.
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I have clients that are siblings and also need a family option for paperwork and need mom to get both of their appointment links and paperwork but it won't let me use her one email address. I see that many folks are having this same issue. I also see that simple practice is upgrading and up-charging us starting in march. this needs to be addressed and resolved. there is no reason this shouldn't be a basic feature.
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I hear you! We are going to Sessions Health - we are in the process of transitioning. It doesn't seem to have all the bells and whistles of SP, but their support is great and price is decent. And one can create a file for family therapy!!!!! Or polyamorous relationships. Or whatever...
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There is a meeting inviting customers to live Q&A tomorrow (Wednesday, 2/5 at 11 am PST.) I have clients scheduled, so I cannot participate. Perhaps some of you can bring up this issue. I'm inserting the invite link below from the email sent by the SimplePractice CEO.
" Please join us for a live Q&A on Wednesday, February 5th at 11am PST where you'll get the chance to ask me and other SimplePractice leaders questions."
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A family chart is necessary and actually aligns more with LMFT's and their population; what about other providers who see families or dyads that are not a couple? Am I missing something? Anyway, I find it counter-intuitive to not have a function for family charts but SP has CPT codes for Family sessions for billing purposes? Also, we need accessible documentation to be as compliant and accurate as we can be. I would greatly appreciate a solution to this as soon as possible - if you haven't noticed, there's been an uptick in families seeking counseling services.
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Two issues here:
1. For CPT coded "family therapy" (90847/90846) where we are including family/loved ones in the treatment of a patient's diagnosis, SimplePractice's current chart structure is correct per HIPAA and CPT rules. Only the patient and their guardians need to have access to the chart, and anyone else involved is considered a "collateral" who gets mentioned in treatment plans and progress notes, but has no rights to records.
2. For relationship therapy that is serving multiple people in a relationship as the patient (i.e. Joey Doe and Jane Doe), there are problems. In these arrangements there should not be a "primary patient." Per HIPAA there is only the patient, and then there is everyone else ("collateral"). So in relationship therapy, all people included are considered the patient, and while one person's card gets run for charges, it is improper to use CPT codes (those are intended for single person patients), improper to diagnose (you can only diagnose a single person, not relationships), and it is insurance fraud to bill under a single person to treat their disorder but then treat other people (a parallel in medicine would be like treating a parent for their depression, but billing under a child's ear infection). It is also inconsistent to allow a chart to be considered multiple people's, but consider one person in the relationship the patient... per HIPAA, the patient hold sole rights and protections of the PHI. Simple Practice needs to fix this consistent with HIPAA, CPT/AMA, and Medicare/insurance regulations. The current structure can mislead clinicians and patients to believe they can bill insurance for relationship therapy (which as mentioned above is entirely different than CPT coded 90847/90846).
Separately, but related, the way SimplePractice makes charting possible for two people in a relationship ("couple"), it would be great if they did this for more than 2 (as, say, "Family group" or "Treatment group") so that families, poly-relationships, and other groups coming for relationship therapy could be documented properly and give all persons in the relationship proper access to the chart. This has been a particular problem for treating family groups with adult children and poly relationships in my practice. I've had to create a separate treatment record in another system.
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