Skip to main content

Week of October 11: clients enter the policyholder

The demographics form now asks for the policyholder's details when the insurance belongs to a parent or spouse.

New

  • Sign-up opens in place. Clicking Start free trial on practiceharbor.com now opens the sign-up form right there instead of loading the whole app first. Same four fields, same set-your-password email. Creating your account.
  • Ideas page. The help site now has an Ideas page showing what therapists have asked for and where each request stands: under consideration, planned, in progress, or shipped. Every entry is written in our words, so nothing anyone sent us appears as typed. Keep sending suggestions through Send feedback in the app's top-right menu.
  • Referring provider on claims (Box 17). Payers such as TRICARE want the referring provider's name and NPI on the claim. On the client's Billing tab, check Show additional claim fields, choose DN - Referring provider (or DQ - Supervising provider) under Referring provider (Box 17), enter the name and NPI, and every claim for the client carries them in boxes 17 and 17b. The claim's Edit & Resubmit window has the same fields for a claim that already went out. Client coverage.
  • Sent emails report. Under Analytics → Sent emails, see every email the practice sent to clients, contacts and your team: when, which clinician, who it went to, the subject, and what happened to it. Delivered means the client's mail provider accepted it. Dropped: Bounced means the address was rejected, and future email to it is held until you correct the address on the client's chart; the chart shows the same warning. Filter by clinician and export the list. Tracking starts with appointment reminders and notifications, portal invites, secure message notices and billing documents. Reports.
  • A shared sand tray in video sessions. Press Sand tray in the call controls and you and the client get the same tray and the same shelf of miniatures: either of you can place, drag, turn, bury, or rake, and the other sees it as it happens. Lock the client's input when you need to, clear the tray, and Save to chart to put a picture in the client's files, tied to the session. Early access, turned on per practice; ask us. Video sessions.
  • Change your own sign-in email. Under Settings → Profile, click Change next to your email, enter the new address and your password, and open the link we send to the new inbox. Your sign-in email switches when you open it, and the old one keeps working until then. The practice email clients see on invoices is a separate setting under Settings → Practice. Profile settings.
  • Policyholder on the demographics form. When a client says their insurance is a parent's, a spouse's or someone else's, the form now asks for that person's name, date of birth and sex, and saves them as the policyholder on the client's coverage. Claims for students and other dependents can go out without you asking for the parent's birth date first. Demographics form.

Improved

  • Preferred names come over from SimplePractice without a report. A SimplePractice data export records how each client was shown (a nickname, or the name they go by) alongside the legal name. An import now reads that and sets it as the client's Preferred Name, so the calendar and the chart read the way you know them, with the legal name kept for claims and the record. Before, that needed the separate Client details report. Importing from another EHR.
  • More email types in the Sent emails report. The report now also lists intake form emails, document and check-in reminders, payment reminders, portal sign-in links and password emails, online booking replies, and the notices your team receives, such as completed intake forms or an uploaded file. Rows marked (team) went to a team member rather than a client. Reports.
  • Additional claim fields moved to the client's Billing tab. Accept assignment? (Box 27) and the Referring provider (Box 17) are now set once per client, in an Insurance claim / CMS fields card that stays folded behind Show additional claim fields until you need it, instead of inside each insurance plan. Courtesy-billed clients keep their setting: anything saved on a plan earlier still applies until you save the tab. Client coverage.
  • Preferred names on the calendar. A client with a Preferred Name on their chart is now shown by it on the calendar, with their last name, so someone who goes by a middle name or a nickname reads the way you know them. Claims, superbills and the legal record keep the legal name. Client profile.
  • Choose the hours your calendar shows. Click the gear on the calendar, open Calendar preferences, and set a start and end time under Display. The Day and Week views show only those hours, so a 7 AM to 7 PM practice no longer scrolls past midnight. Anything booked outside the window is counted in a line at the top of the calendar instead of being drawn. Calendar.
  • Clay miniatures in the sand tray. Thirty of the shelf's figures are now photographed clay models instead of flat icons: people from baby to grandparent, a dog, cat, horse, lion, snake, bird, turtle and dragon, a house, bridge, door, well, fence, car, key, tree and treasure chest, plus a knight, witch, skeleton and monster. Each has a front, side and back: select it and press Turn (or T) to rotate it. Everything else on the shelf stays as before. Video sessions.
  • Share forms while you invite a parent. Inviting a parent or other contact to the portal, from the client's Portal tab or the mail icon on the Contacts tab, now shows the forms already on the client's chart as a checklist. Tick the ones that person should be able to open and they are shared along with the invitation, so a parent added after the intake went out no longer signs in to an empty portal and you do not have to come back for Share forms. Nothing is ticked for you, and a chart with no forms sends the invitation straight away. Contacts & guardians.
  • Replies to reminder emails reach you. When a client replied to an appointment reminder or another automated email, the reply used to bounce, because those emails come from a no-reply address. A reply now goes to your Practice Email. Enter the address you want under Settings → Practice; without one, the client gets a note asking them to contact you directly. The email you sign in with is never used. Client notifications & reminders.
  • Other video platform location type. If you hold video sessions on a platform we don't list by name, you can now add a location of type Other video platform instead of filing it as a phone call. It counts as video everywhere: the camera marker on the calendar, place of service 10, and the video telehealth modifier (95) on claims rather than the audio-only one (93). Calendar.
  • See video and phone sessions on the calendar. A session booked at a video location now shows a small camera in the corner of its calendar block, and a phone session shows a handset. In-person blocks stay plain, so you can tell the three apart without opening the appointment. Calendar.
  • Place of service comes from the session's location. The Create Claim window no longer asks you to pick a place of service for the whole batch. Each session's code (office, telehealth at home, telehealth elsewhere) comes from the location it was booked at, so a batch that mixes office and video sessions bills each one correctly. A session with no location is flagged before the claim is created, with a note to set its location on the calendar, rather than being filed with a guess. Filing claims.
  • Clear a declined request from Inquiries. A request you declined used to stay on the Inquiries list for 90 days. The row's menu now has Remove from Inquiries, which takes it off the list right away and leaves the archived client record alone. Inquiries.

Fixed

  • Signing up from Safari. If your browser autofilled the sign-up form, the request could be mistaken for a bot and quietly ignored, so no welcome email arrived. Autofilled sign-ups now go through. If you signed up and never heard from us, write to support and we will set up your account.
  • A payer's "not paid, patient responsibility" denial now reads as Denied. When a remittance paid nothing and put the whole charge on the client for a reason other than deductible, coinsurance or copay, such as a missing referral or authorization or a lapse in coverage, the claim showed as Deductible with the amount owed by the client and no Fix & Resubmit button. Those claims now show as Denied with the payer's reason spelled out and the usual correct-and-resubmit path, and nothing is moved to the client's balance until you decide.
  • Courtesy-billed claims keep the client's balance. When a client's coverage has Accept assignment? set to No, you file the claim and the payer reimburses the client, who has already paid your full fee. A remittance for such a claim used to reset the client's balance to the payer's "patient responsibility" figure, as if it were an in-network claim. The remittance is now recorded against the claim for your records and the client's balance is left as it was. If the payer paid anything on such a claim, the Insurance page shows a banner and Needs attention gets a row, so you can check whether the money reached the client or came to you, and mark it reviewed. Insurance payments & ERAs.
  • Ask Cora answers in plain text. Cora's replies on a client's chart no longer show stray asterisks and pound signs around words; dates and names read cleanly.
  • The intake email preview shows the real portal link. The Customize Email step used to print a placeholder where the sign-in link goes; it now shows your practice's portal address, with a note that the sent email carries the client's one-time setup link.
  • Portal sign-in copy matches the form. After switching to "Sign in with a password instead", the page no longer says "No password needed" above the password box.
  • Re-clicking a session's location no longer clears it. In the booking and edit windows, choosing the location that was already selected, say to confirm it, used to blank the field, and the session saved with no location and later failed as a claim with no place of service. The pick now stays put, and a practice that has locations is asked to choose one before a session is saved. Calendar.
  • The takeback banner clears once you record it. When an insurer claws money back, the Insurance page shows a red banner until the clawback is entered by hand. Recording it from the banner's link now clears the banner and its Notifications item when you save, and Mark as recorded covers a clawback you entered another way. Insurance payments & ERAs.
  • A corrected claim can no longer leave you with nothing to submit. Edit & Resubmit Corrected used to retire the original claim first and create the corrected one second, so if the second step failed the original read Voided and no new claim existed. The corrected claim is now created first, and the original is retired only once it exists. After you save, you land on the new claim, ready for Submit to Payer, instead of on the retired one. A retired claim's page now links to the corrected claim that replaced it, and a corrected claim links back to the original. Fixing claims.
  • Member ID filled in on the first open of Edit & Resubmit. The window used to open with the Member ID blank, and Save greyed out, until you closed and reopened it. It now shows the client's member ID straight away.
  • Proof of Filing opens on submitted claims again. Clicking Proof of Filing on a claim that went through the clearinghouse showed "Something went wrong" instead of the proof, because the clearinghouse's receipt was being shown as raw data. The proof now opens and lists the claim reference number as before.
  • Messaging a minor: the New Message window now shows a Readers row with one chip per person who can open the conversation. Parents and guardians with portal access can be picked straight from the search ("parent of …"), a child's only parent with access is added for you when the child has no login of their own, and you're stopped before sending a message nobody could read. Previously the guardian checkboxes could fail to appear, leaving a parent notified about a message they couldn't open.
  • Unmatched insurance payments can be allocated and acknowledged. When a remittance arrives for a claim that was filed outside Practice Harbor, the payment used to open with no payer and no sessions to allocate to, and its Needs Attention row never went away. Editing such a payment now asks you to pick the payer, lists that payer's sessions, and remembers the choice. The attention row clears once you set the payment's status to Received or Not Received, allocate it, or delete it. Insurance payments & ERAs.
  • Appointment reminders stay with the client. A contact who merely had an email address on file, such as an emergency contact, could receive the client's appointment reminder emails. Reminders to a contact are now their own checkbox on the contact, Send this contact the client's appointment reminder emails, off for every contact until you turn it on. The portal permission checkboxes only decide what a contact can see when they sign in, and never send anything on their own. Contacts & guardians.
  • Contacts hear only about conversations shared with them. A contact with an email on file could be told "a new secure message was sent regarding" a client even when the conversation had not been shared with them. That notice now goes only to a contact the conversation was shared with. The "new documents available" notice that could go to other contacts on a chart when an intake went to a guardian has been removed, and reminders are no longer sent to a parent's email automatically when a client has no email of their own; tick the reminder box on the parent's contact instead.