SimplePractice Is a Great EHR. That Might Not Be What You Need.

SimplePractice has built a real product. Tens of thousands of therapists and clinicians use it every day, and most are happy. If you need a full electronic health record with notes, scheduling, billing, claims, a patient portal, and telehealth all under one roof, it is a defensible choice.

But a lot of small practices come to us with a different problem. They already have an EHR they like, or they don't need one at all. They just want telehealth. They are paying $69 or more per provider per month for SimplePractice when 90 percent of what they actually use is the video call. That is the gap this post is about.

We will lay out where SimplePractice is the right tool, where it isn't, and how SimplyTelehealth compares head to head when telehealth is the only thing you really need. No spin. Where SimplePractice is the better fit, we say so.

What SimplePractice Actually Is

SimplePractice is a practice management platform built first for the mental health market, then expanded outward. It bundles scheduling, intake forms, progress notes and treatment plans, telehealth video, billing and claims, a patient portal, and basic CRM into one product with one login.

That bundling is the pitch. For a solo therapist who is starting from zero, opening SimplePractice and getting an EHR, a calendar, a billing engine, and a video tool in one afternoon is genuinely useful. You don't have to stitch tools together. You don't have to learn five interfaces.

The trade-off is that SimplePractice expects to be your one tool. When you only want to use a slice of it, like the video call, you are paying for the whole product and dragging your patients through the whole product's workflow to get there. That cost is invisible until you feel it.

Where SimplePractice Genuinely Wins

Credit where it's due. SimplePractice does several things well that a telehealth-only tool will not match.

  • Full EHR workflow. Notes, treatment plans, assessments, and progress tracking live in one place. If you are documenting clinical encounters and you want it tied to the visit you just held, SimplePractice has it.
  • Insurance and claims. Built-in claim submission, ERA processing, and a clearinghouse relationship. A telehealth-only tool sends you to a separate billing service.
  • Therapist-specific features. Wiley treatment planners, mental status exam templates, and outcome measures like PHQ-9 and GAD-7 are first-class citizens, not bolt-ons.
  • Patient portal with history. Patients can log in, see past appointments, message you, pay invoices, and download documents. That portal earns its keep for long-term therapy relationships.
  • Group practice infrastructure. Shared scheduling across providers, supervisor signoff workflows, and per-provider permissioning are all built in.

If you read that list and four of the five items are things you actively use, you are probably in the right product. Keep reading anyway, because telehealth is where things get interesting.

Where SimplePractice Hurts If All You Want Is Telehealth

The same bundling that helps a brand-new therapist works against a practice that just needs a clean way to see patients on video. A few specific friction points come up over and over again.

  • Patients have to create an account. To join a SimplePractice video visit, the patient logs into a client portal. That portal is fine for ongoing therapy, but it is overkill for a one-off consult, a phone-screened new patient, or anyone over 70 trying to figure out yet another password.
  • Mobile app pressure. Patients are prompted to install the SimplePractice client app. Some can, some can't, and the ones who can't end up on the phone with your front desk five minutes before the visit.
  • Video only, with no phone or SMS fallback. If a patient's connection drops or their camera fails, you are improvising. There is no phone dial-in or text-based visit built into the core product.
  • Limited branding. The patient experience is unmistakably SimplePractice. Your logo sits in a corner. The URL is the SimplePractice domain. For a practice trying to build a brand, that is a tax.
  • Cost per provider. Plans start in the high $30s for individuals and step up quickly. For a four-provider practice, you are at $200 to $400 a month before you have submitted a single claim.
  • Setup time. An EHR is not something you launch on a Tuesday afternoon. Migrating notes, configuring fee schedules, and onboarding patients to a new portal is a multi-week project.

None of these are deal breakers for the right buyer. All of them are friction if telehealth is the part you actually care about.

How SimplyTelehealth Compares, Feature by Feature

SimplyTelehealth is not an EHR. We do not pretend to be. We do telehealth and the things that surround a telehealth visit, and we try to be the cleanest possible tool for that one job. Here is how the two products line up on the things that matter for virtual visits.

Patient join experience

SimplePractice routes patients through a client portal account. SimplyTelehealth sends a link. The patient clicks the link, taps Allow on camera and mic, and they are in the visit. No account, no app, no password reset call to your front desk. We covered the reasoning behind this in why patients don't need accounts for telehealth.

Visit types

SimplePractice ships video. SimplyTelehealth ships video, phone dial-in, and SMS text visits in the same product. A patient who can't get video to work can call a phone number and join. A patient who only needs a quick check-in can do it by text. Three modalities, one platform. See when to use each visit type.

Branding

SimplePractice shows your logo inside their interface. SimplyTelehealth lets you put your practice on a custom subdomain, with your logo, colors, and copy throughout the patient flow. To the patient, it looks like your practice's telehealth, not a third-party product.

Scheduling

SimplePractice has a full calendar with recurring sessions, group therapy slots, and supervisor workflows. SimplyTelehealth has patient self-scheduling with an embeddable booking widget you can drop on your existing website. Different shape, same goal: get the patient on the calendar with no phone tag.

Notes and EHR

SimplePractice has them. SimplyTelehealth doesn't. If you need an EHR, you keep your existing one (or use SimplePractice for that piece) and let SimplyTelehealth handle the video. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Billing and claims

SimplePractice has built-in claim submission. SimplyTelehealth surfaces the encounter data and visit codes you need but does not submit claims directly. Most practices pair us with their existing biller or clearinghouse.

HIPAA and BAA

Both are HIPAA compliant and will sign a BAA. Both use healthcare-grade encrypted video infrastructure. This one is a tie.

Pricing: What You Actually Pay Each Month

This is where the math gets uncomfortable for a lot of practices.

SimplePractice publishes solo plans starting in the high $30s a month and stepping up through the $70s and $90s as you add features. Most therapists end up on a plan in the $69 to $99 range to get telehealth, the full client portal, and claim submission. Group plans add a per-clinician fee on top, plus extra for supervisor workflows and certain add-ons.

SimplyTelehealth is $29 a month, flat. Unlimited providers. Unlimited visits. All three visit types included. Branding included. Scheduling and the booking widget included. No add-on tiers.

The honest comparison. If you would use most of SimplePractice's product, $69 a month for one provider is fair value. If you would only use the telehealth piece, paying twice what we charge for one of many features you actually need is harder to defend. For a three-provider practice, the gap can be over $200 a month after you stack the per-provider fees, and that adds up to thousands a year.

The Patient Experience Difference

Walk through it from the patient side, because that is what determines no-show rates and whether your patients say nice things about telehealth or grumble about it.

With SimplePractice, your patient gets an appointment confirmation, an invitation to join the client portal, and an email or text reminder. To join the visit, they sign in to the portal (or install the app), navigate to their appointment, and click join. If they have used SimplePractice before, this is fine. If they have not, expect about one in four to need help the first time, especially older patients.

With SimplyTelehealth, your patient gets a confirmation and a reminder. The reminder contains a single link. They tap the link, the camera turns on, they are in the visit. No portal. No app. No login. If something goes wrong, they can call the dial-in number in the same message and join by phone. Front desk calls about telehealth join issues approach zero.

For ongoing therapy patients you see weekly, the SimplePractice flow is workable because they learn it once and they are set. For new patients, occasional consults, urgent care, telemedicine in primary care, or anyone over 65, the SimplyTelehealth flow is dramatically less work for everyone. This is also why no-shows tend to drop when join friction drops. More on that in how to reduce telehealth no-shows.

When SimplePractice Is the Right Call

Stay with SimplePractice if any of the following sounds like you.

  • You are a solo therapist or small mental health group and you don't already have an EHR. The bundled value of notes plus billing plus telehealth is real for you.
  • You depend on therapy-specific templates, treatment planners, outcome measures, or supervisor signoff workflows.
  • Your patients are mostly ongoing weekly therapy clients who have already learned the portal and won't be hassled by it.
  • You bill insurance directly through the platform and value having claim submission in the same tool as your notes.
  • You want one vendor relationship and one bill for the whole practice operation.

None of that is a euphemism for "settle." If those bullets describe you, SimplePractice is doing its job and switching to a telehealth-only product would cost you more than it saves.

When SimplyTelehealth Is the Right Call

Switch to SimplyTelehealth (or pair us with your existing EHR) if any of these sound familiar.

  • You already have an EHR you like, and you are paying SimplePractice mostly for the video call. Cut the EHR redundancy.
  • You run a primary care, internal medicine, family medicine, or specialty practice where most patients are not on a weekly schedule.
  • You serve a lot of older patients, rural patients, or patients with limited tech comfort who struggle with portals.
  • You need phone dial-in or SMS visits as a real first-class option, not as a backup.
  • You want patients to land on a telehealth experience that looks like your practice, not like a third-party app.
  • You want patient self-scheduling embedded on your existing website, not on a separate portal domain.
  • You are running a multi-provider practice and the per-provider fees on a full EHR product are eating margin.
  • You want to launch this week, not next month.

If three or more of those apply, the math and the workflow are both going to favor a telehealth-specific tool.

How to Switch Without Losing Your Mind

If you decide to move telehealth off SimplePractice, you don't have to rip out everything at once. Most practices do this in a phased way over two to four weeks.

  1. Decide what stays in SimplePractice. Notes, claims, the patient portal for existing therapy clients. Keep what is working.
  2. Stand up SimplyTelehealth in parallel. Sign up, configure your custom subdomain, add your logo, pick your colors. Test a visit with a colleague. This takes an afternoon.
  3. Pick a pilot patient cohort. New patients, urgent visits, or any visit type where the friction of the existing portal is highest. Route those to SimplyTelehealth first.
  4. Update the booking touchpoints. Embed the SimplyTelehealth scheduling widget on your website's "book a visit" page. Keep SimplePractice scheduling for the cohort that still uses it.
  5. Watch the data for two weeks. No-show rate, average join time, front desk calls about telehealth. All three should improve.
  6. Migrate the rest, or don't. Some practices keep SimplePractice for therapy and SimplyTelehealth for everything else. Others move every visit type over. Both are reasonable.

You do not have to migrate clinical notes anywhere. Telehealth and EHR are different jobs, and treating them as separable systems is actually the simpler model in most practices.

The Takeaway

SimplePractice is the right tool when you need an EHR with telehealth baked in. SimplyTelehealth is the right tool when you need telehealth that does not pretend to be an EHR.

If you opened your last SimplePractice bill and asked yourself why you are paying that much when you only really use the video, that is your answer. Pair your existing EHR (or no EHR) with a telehealth platform built for telehealth, branded as your practice, and priced flat. Patients get an easier experience, the front desk gets fewer support calls, and the math gets a lot kinder.

If you are still on the fence, the cheapest experiment is to run SimplyTelehealth in parallel for new patients for two weeks. The data will tell you what to do next.