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Video sessions

Conduct HIPAA-compliant video sessions directly in the browser — no downloads for you or your client.

In this guide, we'll cover:

Starting a video session​

  1. Schedule the appointment with a virtual/telehealth location (see Calendar Overview)
  2. At session time, open the appointment on your calendar and click the teal video icon (Video Session) — it appears only on virtual-location appointments
  3. You land on the Pre-call Check first: camera preview, mic level, device pickers, and an optional background blur. Click Join Session when everything looks right; your client joins from the link in their reminder email, or from Join Session on their client portal appointment
Pilot

Video links are being turned on practice by practice. If you don't see Video Link under Settings, You, write to support@practiceharbor.com and we'll switch it on for you.

Every clinician can have one short video address, like a username: meet.securehealth.me/yourname. It never changes, so you can put it in your email signature, on your website or in a text, and clients who have it can always find you.

Set it up: click Settings, then Video Link under You. Choose your name (lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens; it must be unused across Practice Harbor), the name guests see, optional instructions for the check-in page, and whether to play a sound when someone arrives. Once saved, your reminder and confirmation emails for video appointments carry this link automatically.

What the client sees: they open the link, allow their camera and microphone, type their name and click Check in. They wait on a plain page that shows nothing but your name until you let them in. A client who has a portal account can click Sign in instead and lands in the waiting room of their own appointment.

Your side, the Waiting Room: when someone checks in, a Waiting Room section appears at the top of your sidebar with their name and how long they have waited, and a sound plays if you turned it on. Click Start Call. A small window shows the guest's name and Link this call to, a list of your sessions around now with the most likely one already selected and marked Likely match. Pick the right one and click Start Call: the guest is let in, you land on that appointment's video page, and recording and the note work as usual. Choose No appointment for a quick call that isn't on your calendar; that call is not recorded.

Two guests waiting for the same session, a couple for instance: tick the second name under Also bring in before you start. If someone arrives while you are already in a call, a notice appears in the corner of the video with Add to session and Decline. From the sidebar's … menu you can also Decline or Remove anyone waiting.

Guests are shown with a small guest label in the call, because you, not a sign-in, are what confirmed who they are. Only admit people you recognise.

To share a link for one appointment, open the appointment and click Share link next to the video icon:

  • Copy link copies the same link the reminder email carries: your video address if you have set one, otherwise the practice's portal join link, which signs the client in and takes them to the waiting room of their session.
  • Send reminder emails the client a reminder with that link right away. Use it when you booked the session too close to its start for the scheduled reminder, or when the client has lost the email. The client's reminder settings still apply, so if their email reminders are off you'll be told nothing was sent.

Share link appears only on appointments at your built-in video location. Sessions on another platform (Doxy, Zoom, Google Meet, or a location of type Other video platform) use that platform's own link, which you share as you do today.

The waiting room​

Clients don't drop straight into your room. When your client arrives you'll see "[Client name] is in the waiting room" with an Admit to Session button — nobody joins until you let them in. Clients can open the waiting room any time before the session, but you won't see them waiting until 30 minutes before the start time (or right away, if you've already started the session). The Last Note button (on the pre-call screen and in the session, whenever the client has a prior note) opens Session Prep — refresh yourself before admitting them.

For minor clients, a parent/guardian with portal access can join, with your confirmation at admit time.

During the session​

Your in-call controls: mute, camera on/off, background blur, screen share, the Sand tray (when it is turned on for your practice), the Notes recording toggle, a session timer, and End Call. (There's no in-call text chat — use secure messages for anything written.)

  • Session recording for AI notes — the Start Notes toggle transcribes the call and drafts your progress note through the same pipeline as in-person recording. No special audio setup is needed here — the call's audio is captured directly. (The separate "Telehealth with Headphones" mode exists for recording external video calls from the Live Session page.)
  • Ending: End Call wraps up any in-progress note processing and frees the room; you'll see "Session Ended" with a Return to Calendar button.

Clients can only join their own appointment, and they wait in the waiting room until you admit them — you can both join early.

The sand tray​

A shared sand tray for play, child, and trauma work over video. You and the client see the same tray and the same shelf of miniatures; either of you can set a figure in the sand, drag it, turn it, bury it, or rake a line, and the other sees it move as it happens. The tray is early access: it appears in the call controls once we have turned it on for your practice, so ask us if you would like it.

To use it in a session:

  1. Join the session as usual and admit the client.
  2. Press Sand tray in the call controls. The tray opens beside your video, and the client's screen shows the same tray under theirs. They can build straight away.
  3. Client can build / Locked switches whether the client may move figures. Lock it when you want to arrange something yourself, or to close a world before the call ends.
  4. Clear tray empties it for everyone. The sand (beach, zen garden, moon dust, snow, forest floor) is yours to choose.
  5. Save to chart puts a picture of the tray in the client's Files, dated and tied to this session. The client never sees anything saved; saving is your action.
  6. Closing the panel closes the tray for the client too.

Good to know:

  • The tray is for individual sessions, not couples or family rooms.
  • Nothing about the tray is stored until you press Save to chart. If the client reloads, the tray they come back to is the one you have on screen.
  • A client who joins from the phone app can watch the tray on your shared screen; building together works from the portal in a browser, including the guest video link.
  • Treat it as a sketch of a world, not a physical tray: there is no sand to feel and no depth. It does not interpret, score, or diagnose anything.

Preparing yourself and your client​

A minute of preparation prevents most mid-session problems:

  • Use the Pre-call Check every time. It shows your live camera preview, a mic level meter, and pickers for camera, microphone, and speaker — if the wrong device is selected (a common aftermath of plugging in headphones), fix it here, before the client sees you.
  • Background blur is available on the pre-call screen and in the call. On older devices or browsers that can't support it, the toggle simply doesn't appear — that's expected, not a bug.
  • Tell first-time clients what to expect: they open the join link from their reminder email (or Join Session on their portal's appointment page), sign in if asked, their browser will ask to use the camera and microphone (they should click Allow), and they'll wait in the waiting room until you admit them. A phone or tablet works — the portal runs in their mobile browser with nothing to install.
  • Close what you don't need. Video competes with everything else the computer is doing; other video apps in particular can hold the camera hostage.

Troubleshooting​

"Please allow camera and microphone access in your browser settings." The browser blocked device access. Click the camera/padlock icon in the address bar, set Camera and Microphone to Allow, and reload the page. The same fix applies on the client's side — this is the single most common joining problem.

Your client can't hear you (or you can't hear them). Almost always a device-selection problem, not a connection problem. Both sides should check the mic and speaker pickers (yours are on the Pre-call Check and in the call) — Bluetooth headphones that connected mid-call are the classic culprit. The mic level meter tells you instantly whether your microphone is actually picking you up.

The camera shows a black square. Another app (Zoom, Teams, another browser tab) is holding the camera. Close it and reload.

Video is choppy or keeps freezing. Bandwidth. Move closer to the router or switch off Wi-Fi to wired if you can; asking the client to turn off other streaming in their household genuinely helps. Turning your own camera off for a moment lets a struggling connection recover.

The client says there's no Join button. Open the appointment and click Share link, then Send reminder: the email takes them straight to the waiting room once they sign in. They can only join their own appointment, so if they were never invited to the portal, that's the actual problem: see the client portal.

Something else went wrong mid-session. Both sides can simply reload the page and rejoin — the room survives a refresh, and you'll pass through the waiting-room flow again. If a session error appears repeatedly, try another browser (Chrome and Edge are the most dependable), and tell support@practiceharbor.com what the message said.

Technical requirements​

  • A modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge)
  • A working microphone and camera
  • A stable internet connection
tip

For the best experience, use Chrome and close unnecessary tabs. If video quality drops, turning your own camera off temporarily frees bandwidth for the client's stream.