SimplePractice · Clinical
SimplePractice Therapy Practice Phone Automation
Phone coverage shaped around a therapy practice's week: session hours, new inquiries, records and letter requests, and calls only clinicians should take.
A week of calls in a therapy practice
Look at a full week of calls to an outpatient therapy practice and a pattern appears. Monday is reschedules and cancellations. Midweek brings new inquiries and insurance questions. Fridays bring requests that someone wants handled before the weekend: a letter for an employer, records for a new psychiatrist, a superbill for a reimbursement deadline. Scattered throughout are calls that need careful handling, such as an attorney asking about a client or a parent asking what their adult child has been discussing.
Every one of those calls arrives while most of the people who could answer are in session.
- New client inquiries and consult requests
- Cancellations, reschedules and late arrivals
- Insurance, copay and billing questions
- Letters for work, school or accommodations
- Records requests from clients, other providers and attorneys
- Messages for a specific therapist
Calls that need a clinician's judgment
Some requests look administrative but are not. A letter supporting a leave of absence, a records request from opposing counsel in a custody case, or a court subpoena all involve clinical and legal judgment. Katie does not agree to anything, confirm whether someone is a client, or promise a document. She records the request in detail and routes it to the clinician or practice owner who decides.
Clinical questions follow the same rule. Katie does not give advice, interpret symptoms or comment on treatment. Those calls go to clinical staff, and anything that matches your escalation rules is handled by that protocol.
Solo clinicians
A solo therapist has no front desk, so Katie becomes one. Between sessions, the clinician reads structured summaries showing who called, why, what they need and how urgent it is, and decides what to handle now and what can wait for the end of the day. The personal cell phone stops being the practice's switchboard, which is better for the clinician and for client boundaries.
Group practices
In a group, Katie gives the intake coordinator and office manager a consistent first pass on every call. Each type of request lands with its owner, from intake to billing to the treating clinician, and nobody has to transcribe voicemail. MedReception AI is live with practices on SimplePractice, where Katie books sessions straight onto the calendar and staff act on the summaries in the same system that holds client records.
Protecting the therapeutic frame
Therapy depends on boundaries: clients reach the practice through defined channels, at defined times, with clear expectations about response. A reliable phone front door supports that frame. Clients know their call will be answered and their message delivered, and clinicians are not pulled out of sessions or tempted to answer their phones at dinner.
Frequently asked questions
- Can Katie handle records requests?
- She captures who is asking, for whom, what they want and how to reach them. Whether and how records are released is decided by your staff, according to the client's authorization and your policy.
- What happens when an attorney or court calls?
- Katie takes a detailed message without confirming anything about the client, and routes it to the person your rules name, usually the practice owner or the treating clinician.
- Can Katie tell callers which therapists treat a specific issue?
- If you give her that information, yes, in your words. Final matching decisions remain with your team.
- Can a client ask for a letter for work or school by phone?
- Yes. Katie records what the letter is for, who it should be addressed to, any deadline, and how the client wants to receive it. Whether to write it, and what it says, is entirely the treating clinician's decision.
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.