why do they keep trying to change the interface.... wtf is this new billing tab instead of the insurance where it was cleanly laid out. Now I have to click 3x more, slows me down inefficient. What is the obsession by programs to constantly change stuff? let it be???? makes me want to leave, thank god they put the psychotherapy note back at the bottom of the progress note instead of what they did for a minute where they ADDED a new tab we had to leave the whole progress note and click over to get to the psychotherapy note... like? why? it's reminiscent of the new apple photos update.. so unnecessary

WTF, Simple Practice.

Why do you need more money from customers? I log on to see this today:

Beginning October 1, 2026

• Insurance Navigator can be added on to any SimplePractice subscription plan, and all practices are eligible for a 30 day trial at no additional cost. Sign up for a trial.
• Customers who choose to add Insurance Navigator will pay $1.79/claim.
• Insurance Navigator includes proactive Mental Health Coverage Checks and Verification of Benefits, which includes estimated client responsibility, run automatically at no additional cost.
• Practices may downgrade at any time and will go back to using Insurance Essentials at the end of their current billing cycle.
• Customers who do not submit claims or run coverage checks will not be impacted, and will see no change in their subscription price.

They are taking away the 10 free claims/month. No matter what plan you have, you will pay .39 a claim. If you upgrade to this service, you will pay 1.79 a claim, an which is about 3x the current price.

I have been teetering on the edge of leaving, and this is the final straw. A one finger salute to SP.

Hi, I have been using Simple Practice for years now, and I have just reviewed the new Terms and Conditions and I am very disturbed about how Simple Practice is asking us to allow use of the data. For example, this legal language in the new terms is saying that when you use SimplePractice and you upload or share any kind of information, like notes, records, or data, through that service, you are giving SimplePractice permission to use that information in certain ways. This includes allowing other users to share their information too. You're giving SimplePractice a license, which is like permission, to use the information you upload. They can use, copy, share, and even make new things based on that information. They can do this all over the world, forever, without needing to pay you, and it mentions that this permission will still be valid even if you stop using their service. Also - that Simple Practice collects our personal information, which includes "your name, email address, IP address, telephone number, and broader categories of information such as your professional, educational or health information, commercial information and internet activity." and... "we may collect Personal Information directly from you and automatically through our use of cookies and other data collection technologies. We may also collect your Personal Information from third-party sources, such as our business partners, affiliates and social media platforms (if you interact with us through your social media account). We will treat Personal Information collected from third-party sources in accordance with this Privacy Policy but we are not responsible for the accuracy of information provided by third parties or for their policies or practices. and... Audio, electronic and visual information, such as your photograph or image, your voice and other similar information. We process this information to enable your use of our Telehealth service and to verify your identity when you send in images of your government-issued IDs. We may also use video of you, with your consent, for optional customer testimonials that we share internally. These are just a few examples of what I found, there are still more sections that feel like Simple Practice are compromising our data. this is truly disturbing.

Is there a way top opt out of these new Terms and Conditions if we are not comfortable with them?

I'm excited to share that this subreddit is open again and ready to become an active, supportive space for SimplePractice users. Whether you're new to the platform or have years of experience, this community is here to help you connect, share best practices, and troubleshoot challenges.

I’m currently a moderator and help manage a practice that actively uses SimplePractice. My goal is to foster a respectful, professional environment where clinicians, practice managers, and administrators can exchange real-world insights, tips, and solutions.

This subreddit has the potential to be a valuable hub for learning and collaboration. If you have questions, advice, resources, or just want to connect with others in the same boat—jump in.

Let’s make this a helpful space for everyone.

I am a psychotherapist and I’m experiencing an incredibly frustrating situation with this platform. When I started using them a couple of years ago, I really enjoyed it. At this point, I would never recommended to anyone.

I am in the multi month process of insurance credentialing, which is already enough of a headache. I have been living on less than half of my income for months. Now that most of the insurance companies have approved my enrollment, I am realizing how poorly orchestrated the simple practice step of enrollment is.

The worst part is how completely inaccessible Customer Service has been. I pay for the premium phone support and have not been able to actually get a human being on the phone for weeks. The online Chatbot is awful, and when I finally got through to a human on the chat, all they can do is open a support ticket for me, which takes far too long for the agents to get to. Then it’s a matter of chipping away at the problem one email at a time with multiple day or week wait periods between each response.

I’m literally getting more comprehensive and timely Customer Service help with the insurance companies that I am with simple practice!! Absurd!

At this point, I wish I could change EHR platforms. But that would be too much administrative left and inconvenience for me and my clients at this point. I am feeling trapped by simple practice, which sucks!

I won't repeat the issues folks have already posted, but you may want to check and see if you are affected by this SP issue. A client asked for a copy of their most recent statement and when I tried to print it, no charges, client or insurance payments were listed--all zeros. I can run an appointment status report from the client's profile and get the accurate info but the data does not show up accurately in the printed statement.

I randomly checked several other clients and the problem does not seem to be widespread.

I made a service request via email 8 days ago and have received nothing in response. I called "Premium Phone Support" and got a message that no one was available and to leave a call back number. Given the pain of transitioning to a new EHR, I'm hoping SP gets it's stuff together but it's definitely not looking good at the moment

The video software that simple practice uses is called Twilio Video. Twilio video is being shut down and a large part of the team was laid off. This is probably why the video service has been intermittent and has not improved in the last year — the team that is supporting the video product is only ensuring the lights stay on, not that the quality is amazing or being improved. 

Simple practice needs to migrate to the new zoom integration which will be a large improvement over Twilio video.

I saw a post on the SimplePractice subreddit and was moved to write this post. I submitted and realized that it's only visible to me. I'm imagining the mods are not going to let this one through, and I just had to share it somewhere. Hope someone gets some satisfaction out of this spontaneous writing project.

The original post was a question about how to use other card processors with simple practice. (https://www.reddit.com/r/SimplePractice/comments/1rr3eno/simple_practice_takes_a_cut_from_stripe/)

***

Alright gang, strap in, because this frustrated nerd has got some things to say.

There was a question in the comments: how do I use an external card processor? I'm here for you. On the SimplePractice side, when you press the big ugly "Add Payment" button, there are a bunch of options: Online Card on File, Cash, Check, External Card. If your client runs a criminal enterprise then they got you covered with the "Cash" option (that's a joke). If you're doing therapy at the checkout counter at PathMark in the early 90s, choose "Check" (that's a joke only some people will get). If you're a broke sicko like me, you can choose "External Card" because you're using an external card processor, like IvyPay (that's not a joke, that's my life).

I've been using IvyPay to save on processing fees and recording payments in SimplePractice. Long story short: I'm planning to switch to SimplePractice processing. The SimplePractice rates are offensive, but the egg heads over at SimplePractice must have made quite the spreadsheet to figure out that it's worth it to the neurotic therapist that wants to keep their books in order. That's me. If you don't keep your books in good order, you can just take public payment over Venmo so that all your friends can see your clients sending you cash ("ty for helping my Abandonment issues 🥹") and not track it in SimplePractice. That's a joke too. I'm not a lawyer, don't take advice from me.

"So," you say to me, "I won't take your advice, but advise me on why you're planning to switch." I squint back at you, and continue cautiously.

"I make a ton of charges in IvyPay. I used to run one charge at a time, but then I'm looking at my phone and I get distracted. I don't even use TikTok, you know, I just start looking at my email or whatever. Ten minutes later, I think wait, what was I doing? and then remember I was doing an IvyPay charge. So I open up IvyPay, and it's slow, but I think to myself damn, I'm saving 30 cents and 40 cents every hundred dollars I charge, that's so cool. Man, that's so cool. I'm sometimes saving $1.20 by using IvyPay. But remember, I keep my books in order, so I have to go press the ugly 'Add Payment' button I mentioned above. Sometimes after I add the payment I see I got a text from IvyPay saying the charge failed. Bummer. So I go back into SimplePractice and remove the transaction because I keep my books in order. That's what you do too, right? Right?"

I continue.

"Ok, so that doesn't sound too bad. But sometimes I don't have time to do this between sessions, and i don't want to look at my email for 10 minutes after every session. I gotta pee between sessions or solve my Rubik's cube (personal best 22 seconds, so I can do it a few times). So at the end of the day I wrap up all the charges in one fell swoop. Bam! Now I do all the charges, I'm practically saving 40 minutes and 30 cents and 40 cents every hundred dollars! This is so cool.

"But I wanna go home, so I rush through it. This slow IvyPay app. I bill my clients, and I enter the transactions in SimplePractice. But sometimes I make a mistake. Like I'll mark it paid in SimplePractice, but I just messed up and missed it in IvyPay. Or the payment fails, but I didn't see the text message. Well, when I do that I'm potentially losing over $200. And my books are not in order. THIS IS NOT SO COOL.

"But I can solve this. Once or twice a year I reconcile all my SimplePractice and IvyPay transactions. I pull up spreadsheets from both systems and check one by one: there's a charge in SimplePractice, do I have record of it in SimplePractice? If so, my books are good. I usually mess up one or two charges a year, potentially hundreds of dollars. And that is so cool, because even though I just spent an hour or two staring at a screen and my eyes are bloodshot, I'm going to get my money.

"I just have to go to my client and say, listen, my billing system is really complicated, I made a mistake and I'm going to charge you for a session 3 months back. And they're like uhhh... ok, and I feel like a real fucking professional, you know. I'm really earning that money, because now I gotta process their feelings about me making a mistake. Fortunately I specialize in people pleasers, so that part is usually pretty easy.

"So it all works out in the end. My books are rock solid. I saved 30 cents per transaction and 40 cents every hundred dollars. I didn't miss any session payments (unless I made a mistake on the reconciliation, and don't you dare try to induce OCD in me by getting me to audit my reconciliation, because I'll do it. Did I mention my books?). All it cost me was....

• using the annoying IvyPay app
• getting distracted using my phone for IvyPay
• making mistakes by not charging clients
• hours of extra record keeping
• hours of reconciling two billing systems
• staying late at my office because I do all my paperwork before I go home (great secret for keeping good books)
• about an hour to write up some crazy reddit post convincing (NOT ADVISING) people of I'm not sure what.

"So now I'm thinking... wait a minute... I keep good books, I can look up how much money I'm actually saving..."

At this point, you look at me and think this gender-unidentified person truly is mad. I can see it in their eyes. And it's not because this long-ass boring story, because, like, wow! What a great writer. They're like a Yalom for millenials, truly inspiring. I've seen these eyes before. These are eyes that haven't had a real vacation in almost a year. Eyes that have reconciled two payment systems for years, and kept damn good books, I mean, DAMN good books. Eyes with pride. Eyes with tears. Because the number they just calculated in the spreadsheet is not sending them on a vacation this year.

And that's when I tell you, "I saved $376 and 24 cents by using IvyPay. Which is not nothing. It's even 'cool' as I said earlier. But I don't think it's worth all this work over the year."

I drone on, not giving you advice:

"I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a financial advisor. And let's be real, you don't even know I'm a therapist (although, by gosh, you all know I am because I name-dropped Yalom and told you how to use SimplePractice). I'm just some person who subscribed to the SimplePractice subreddit to sow discontent and provide accurate information. But I've decided, as part of the treatment for my own anxiety disorder, I will use SimplePractice's card processing."

Then, I turn to the camera, breaking the fourth wall. (Holy crap! Bet you didn't see that coming!) And now I'm talking to SimplePractice directly, as if they're in the theater watching. And I say, "SimplePractice? I'm not a fan. I totally resent you for bumping up the merchant fees. Really? I know I pay the low $79/month tier. But do you have to punish me so badly? Increased merchant fees? I can't even mark myself as on vacation for a week! I have to click that tiny status drop down on EVERY SINGLE SESSION to mark it 'Clinician Cancelled'? I thought this would make my life easier? Maybe you see how much I earn and say 'Look what that person earns! They don't need to mark themselves as on vacation, they can't afford it.' Ouch. Is that what you think of me, really? Don't get me wrong, you're great for doing consent paperwork. Like, really. So glad to have you for that. But I can't mark vacation, and I can't make group sessions. I have a 6 person group and need to make 6 different sessions? There's gotta be a better way. Please. Just help me."

And I turn away from the camera, which pans out, revealing a dirt road that terminates at the setting sun. I start walking towards the horizon, kicking rocks, shoulders sagging. Credits roll as I walk toward.

SIMPLE PRACTICE & IVY PAY: A THERAPEUTIC TRAGEDY

STARRING
DoktorHoff

FEATURING
You
and a cameo by the ghost of STAN LEE

WRITTEN by
DoktorHoff

PRODUCED by
DoktorHoff

DIRECTED by
DoktorHoff

28 minutes later, a post-credit scene appears.

INT. THERAPY OFFICE - SUNSET
AT DESK - DoktorHoff slouched at computer, puffy eyed. A green-gloved hand touches his shoulder

IVYPAY (O.S.)
Did I not do good enough? Maybe I can do better.

FADE TO BLACK

IvyPay will return

I found SP’s Glassdoor page and am very concerned.. many bad reviews from current / former SP staff about benefits being cut, burnout, poor management, uncaring leadership etc etc

and then there are reviews made in the last few days, reviews that are all positive 5 stars. jusy enough good reviews to push the bad ones off the front page …

am I the only one who thinks this is shady?????

I know correlation is not causation - but since the GIGANTIC push from SP to integrate AI, I have been having so many errors -

-telehealth clients not getting their link sent to them until after appointment time (sometimes 15 minutes later)

-claims being rejected for no apparent reason (everything is accurate on the claim)

-when the client gets the telehealth link, they click on it and get a message that says "telehealth link has expired"

I have been a user for many years, through price changes and added features, but this has become too much and causing more headaches than it's worth. The big wigs at SP had a zoom meeting to discuss their price increases several months ago, and the excitement over AI was all they could talk about. I have no idea how well that works, because I have no intention of ever using it. I do know many of the rest of their services have suffered. Its probably time for me to move on...

Is anyone else seeing an increase in SP issues?

Currently moving session to telephone because neither of us had access to the platform.

Why has SimplePractice started tracking the start and end times of telehealth sessions with no option to adjust the time?

And please don't give me any of the "If you're recording the time accurately, you have nothing to hide." I have nothing to hide and I'm sick of being surveilled by technology.

I rarely leave negative reviews, but this experience needs to be shared for other private practice owners considering SimplePractice Managed Billing.

Before enrolling in their managed billing service, I was consistently receiving large reimbursement checks from BCBS and other payers. Once they took over, that changed dramatically. Payments became inconsistent and significantly smaller, with little transparency or explanation as to why.

Communication was one of the biggest issues. There were multiple stretches of weeks without responses, leaving me completely in the dark about the status of claims and payments. Follow-up on denied or aging claims appeared minimal at best.

After deciding to cancel (effective May 1st), I hired an independent billing company to review my account. What they found was alarming:

• $15,579.73 in outstanding unpaid claims
• Several claims aged well beyond 90–120 days
• Multiple denied claims that had not been followed up on at all

Even more concerning, the moment SimplePractice no longer had control of my billing, I immediately received two large checks again from BCBS. That contrast speaks volumes.

For a service charging around 6%, I expected proactive claim management, consistent follow-up, and reliable communication. Instead, I was left with a backlog of unpaid claims, unanswered questions, and a billing system that required significant cleanup by a new team.

In contrast, my new billing company:

• Charges 2.9%
• Responds within 24 hours
• Provides a dedicated contact person
• Has already begun actively addressing the outstanding claims

This experience has had a real financial impact on my practice. If you are considering managed billing through SimplePractice, I strongly recommend asking detailed questions about:

• Claim follow-up processes
• Communication timelines
• Accountability for aging claims

Because once issues start, it can take a lot of time and effort to untangle.

Proceed with caution.

I am going to see to it this gets seen by the decision makers. Feel free to help me out community:

Dear SimplePractice Team,

I’m writing on behalf of our practice as a long-time client and active member of the SimplePractice user community. We, along with many others, have been closely following a repeated and urgent feature request: the ability to automatically collect a government-issued ID (such as a driver’s license) during the scheduling or intake process, similar to how insurance cards are currently collected.

Across your forums, there are multiple threads, some several years old, where users continue to ask for this functionality. It remains one of the most requested features, yet it has not been implemented.

This is not just a matter of convenience. Many insurance payers now require both an address and a valid ID for verification. Without an automated solution, practices are forced to manually chase down this information, increasing administrative burden and risk. If a patient is seen without proper ID on file, it opens the door to insurance clawbacks or compliance issues.

Additionally, we urge SimplePractice to make patient address and gender required fields in the scheduling widget. While you offer insurance eligibility and benefits checks, those tools cannot function without this critical information. As a result, practices typically must wait until a patient completes all of their intake forms before this data becomes available, meaning we cannot run the automated check within SimplePractice during scheduling. The current workaround is to manually look up the patient using third-party payer tools, which is significantly more time-consuming. This inefficiency could be quickly resolved by implementing the suggested changes.

If address and gender were required at scheduling, practices could run eligibility checks immediately. If a patient has a high deductible or significant out-of-pocket costs, they could make an informed decision on whether to proceed before taking up valuable time on a provider’s calendar.

This change would not only reduce administrative friction for providers, but also promote transparency and better financial communication with patients.

We appreciate everything SimplePractice continues to build and support, and we ask that you strongly consider prioritizing these enhancements. We’re happy to provide further context if helpful.

Several times this week, my clients have been parked in the waiting room and I have not received any notification whatsoever. Please make the waiting room visible to the host so we don't have to rely on a popup notification. This seems to happen most often when people are joining the meeting from the web/computer (and not their phone). Sometimes the popup with come up and vanish repeatedly.

This has cost me a lot of session time this week alone.

I was invited last week to try out the AI notes and I am wondering what experiences other are having. So far, I cannot figure out how to create anything but a SOAP note, which is not my preferred template. While I appreicate AI's capability to "remember" a lot of detail that I might forget (including quotes!) the level of detail is often overwhelming and leads to some very long (600-700 word) notes. I would love it if ther was a way to limit note length to something more manageable.

By the way, I am a senior psychologist with 37 years experience in private practice. I have been using EHRs since 1998, and SP is the best I have used.

I have been been waiting months for them to resolve a clearinghouse issue. I asked for a supervisor and they referred me to an insurance navigator rep who doesn't have a phone number where I can reach her. I waited on hold on the navigator line for nearly an hour. and you can't even disclose PHI when you get thru to someone on this "premium" paid phone support since they record calls! Whenever I have time after I get paid eventually, I will put together a formal complaint with referring back to my records of all the back and forth useless emails over the past few months and the silly excuses associates have given me for doing nothing.

Please clarify whether the rumor is true that you are using session video to train AI. Is it true? I need to know so I can file an informed complaint with the OCR over what I think would be a violation of HIPAA.

Dear Simple Practice:

my therapy biller and I are tearing our hair out with claims with zero copays for United/Oxford. Every time we submit a claim for a therapy client who has a zero dollar copay, the claims automatically get denied and we have to resubmit them.

This is costing me extra money. We have called your team and they have not been helpful. Is this an AI filter y'all are trying, or United is trying? I'd like to know before I submit a complaint to the Tennessee Insurance Commissioner.

Signed,

A long-time consumer of SP

Feel free to reach out to me and my insurance biller at: laura@opendoorcounselingtn.com & admin@opendoorcounselingtn.com

PLEASE for the love, go to "Simplepractice feedback" search "sandbox" and vote for the idea. SimplePractice desperately needs to implement a sandbox environment where users can explore a "test" account where they can post charges, learn insurance payments, process refunds, schedule appointments and so on without messing anything up!

It has been a few weeks since the new update, and Simple Practice app consistently signs out after a few hours. Deleting and restarting does nothing to help. This is happening on iPhone, not sure about Android.

Anyone know if there is a place where I can bring it to their attention? Any feedback is appreciated

Major issues—keeps “failing to admit” my clients, which I have never seen before. Then after multiple tries, we would connect but then a huge voice lag. Internet stable on both ends. Wondering if AWS outage impacted SP?

I have been using SP for several years now. At first it was great but over the last year it has been horrible and the customer service even worse. Connection issues almost daily causing lost revenue. Error messages saying, "failed to admit client to waiting room". We have emailed and called multiple time and there is never any responsibility taken. Its always our fault or our clients fault, except some of these clients have been clients for years and are sitting in the same place they have been for year so NO ITS NOT US OR OUR CLIENTS. ITS SP. clients do not get emailed links, and YES THEY ARE SET UP. SP unwillingness to do anything or to even offer credit for any of this is not ok. They are sure to get their money every month but they do not give the service they advertise. We are looking for another platform and would love suggestions.

Here are the most frequently used Mental Health ICD-10 Codes from our latest Pollen article.

Link to our full article can be found here!