SimplePractice · Experience
SimplePractice Client Messaging Coordination
Katie turns calls about portal messages, forms and logins into clear summaries, so staff can follow up in SimplePractice the way each client prefers.
Where the portal and the phone overlap
Secure messaging and the client portal have taken a lot of traffic off the phones, but they have also created a new kind of call. A client sent a message yesterday and wants to know whether anyone read it. Another cannot log in because the invitation went to an old email address. A parent wants to tell the therapist something before tonight's session and does not trust that a message will be seen in time.
These callers are not confused about technology so much as anxious about being heard. The phone is how they make sure.
For a solo clinician, those calls often land on the same voicemail as everything else, and a message that said "just checking you got my note" is easy to deprioritize. For the client who sent the note, it may have been the hardest thing they wrote all week.
Messages meant for the clinician
"Can you tell my therapist that I started a new job and might be late?" "Please let her know my mom passed away this weekend." Calls like these carry information a clinician should have before the next session. Katie takes the message down accurately and marks it for the treating clinician according to your routing rules.
She does not respond to the content clinically, offer advice, or interpret what it means. If the message includes anything your escalation rules name, such as a safety concern, it is marked urgent, handled by your protocol, and can be routed through SimplePractice messaging so the clinician sees it there rather than at the next session.
Login and access calls
A good share of portal calls are about getting in:
- The invitation email never arrived or landed in spam
- The link has expired
- The email on file is wrong or belongs to a spouse
- The client switched phones and lost access
- A parent needs access to a minor's documents
Recording how the client wants to hear back
Each structured summary records who called, why, what they need, how urgent it is, and how the client prefers to be contacted: a portal message, a phone call, or a text. It also records whether it is safe to leave a voicemail. In behavioral health, that last point matters. A client living with someone controlling, or a teenager whose parents do not know about therapy, may be put at risk by the wrong kind of follow-up.
One thread, not three
Without coordination, a single concern can end up as a portal message, a voicemail and a sticky note, each handled by a different person. When phone calls arrive as structured summaries, staff can match them to the related portal message and respond once, in the channel the client asked for. MedReception AI is live with practices on SimplePractice, so that response happens in the system your team already uses.
Frequently asked questions
- Does Katie read or answer portal messages?
- No. She handles phone calls. Your staff read and answer portal messages in SimplePractice, with the call summary in hand when a client has called about the same thing.
- Can Katie reset a client's portal access?
- No. She captures what the client needs, and staff resend the invitation or correct the email address on file.
- Can a client leave a private message for their therapist by phone?
- Yes. Katie records the message, and your routing rules decide who it is marked for, typically the treating clinician.
- What if a client calls to say they sent a message and nobody replied?
- Katie records what the message was about and when it was sent, and marks the summary for whoever monitors portal messages. That helps staff find the original quickly and close the gap, rather than leaving the client to wonder.
Ready to implement this for your SimplePractice practice?
Book a demo and we'll run your own calls through Katie: new client inquiries, sessions booked straight into SimplePractice, billing questions and the crisis escalation rules your clinicians set. You'll see the booking and the summary your staff receive after each call.