Set up Guide for Group Practices Transitioning to TherapyAppointment

This article is intended to be a guide to transitioning your group practice to TherapyAppointment as your practice management software. Most groups begin their account set up process 3-6 weeks prior to the date they’ve decided will be their ‘go live date’. If you are a small group practice or a practice that does not submit insurance claims, your set up can be accomplished relatively quickly.   A 'Go Live' date is the date you will begin using TherapyAppointment for scheduling, billing, and therapist documentation.

Intended Audience

Practice Owners and Practice Managers

3-6 Weeks Prior to your desired 'go live' date:

Set up your TherapyAppointment account and add your provider and staff accounts along with role assignments. You do not need to allow your clinical staff to log into those accounts yet. However, you will want to provide your admin staff manager privileges so that they can assist in the set up and transition process. You can revoke manager privileges at a later date. 

Multiple team members may work on the next three items at the same time in any order:

  1. Optional: You will be preconnected to TherapyAppointment claims at 17 cents per claim. Proceed to the next step unless you are electing to directly connect with your clearinghouse account with Office Ally in order to bring your rate down to 15 cents per claim as well as earn some back end functionality. Office Ally grants TherapyAppointment customers this discounted rate only AFTER you've connected an Office Ally account to your TherapyAppointment account. There is additional paperwork involved once that connection is completed. Email support@therapyappointment.com for instructions on how to complete the discount paperwork. Once your TherapyAppointment account is connected directly to Office Ally, you will pay Office Ally directly for your claim submission costs - and there will be no charge from TherapyAppointment for your claims submission. The process for Office Ally to grant the discounted rate to you can take up to 3 weeks. In the meantime, move on to the next steps!  Required Role: Owner Read How
  2. Set up the insurance companies you bill. Role Required: Owner or Manager. Learn How
  3. Set up the CPT codes for the practice and/or a custom list of CPT codes and fees for one or more of your therapists. Role Required: Owner or Manager Learn How

The Next Steps can now be completed by any team members with an Owner or Manager role. 

Multiple team members may work on this list at the same time in any order:

  • Create your patient intake forms but do not publish yet. Do not yet set up ‘auto-assigning’ of forms UNLESS you’re wishing ALL clients, even active ones, to re-complete and re-sign intake forms. Read Overview /  Read How / Watch How
  • Set up EDI agreements if needed. Some of your insurance companies MAY require you to set up an EDI connection in order to submit claims electronically. Most do not. Read How
  • Import your active patients' demographics and insurance information provider by provider in order to have the patients automatically designated as being a client assigned to that particular provider. If you have any patients who see more than one therapist in the group, we recommend uploading that particular patient only once…then manually assign them to any additional providers. Role: Owner, Manager, FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, add any new clients to both TherapyAppointment and the system you’re transitioning away from until your go-live date.  Read How / Watch How Schedule phone call  with general support for assistance: https://go.oncehub.com/TherapyAppointmentSupport
  • Import your business Logo and Banner files. Read How
  • Build any custom chart note formats you wish for your providers to have access to that will be in addition to the notes that we already have pre-created for you. *Hint* You will not see the pre-built forms that TherapyAppointment supplies listed in the Chart Templates section, but they are available as a chart note format when charting on a client session - Role: Owner or Manager (Therapists are also able to build their own custom note if you wish them to do so) Read How
  • Set up any clinical supervisory relationships. Role: Manager or Owner Read How (Disregard if your practice does not supply clinical supervision)
  • Decide if a ‘triage’ system would be helpful for your group as a place to ‘park’ clients who are not yet assigned to a therapist. The portal to this account would actually be the portal you connect to your website. Learn More / Read More
  • Add any additional locations to your practice settings if that was not accomplished in the initial account set up. 
  • Connect the patient portal to your website/any additional places you wish it to link to.  Read How
  • Set up Therapists' Usual Availability Schedules  Watch how
  • Enter the clients insurance copay/ co-insurance amounts  and/or enter sliding scale fees [Read How] n their profile. Also, if you bill insurance, mark any patients who are private pay only as ‘private pay’ and enter any sliding scale rate into their profile.  . Watch How
  • Set up appointment reminders for each active patient. Role: Owner, Manager, Biller, Scheduler  Read How
  • Introduce staff to TherapyAppointment by showing them/assigning them these provided videos, then allowing them to play around in the practice accounts to become familiar with the system. Video for Clinical Staff / Video for Admin Staff  You may also wish for your admin staff to watch the clinical video in order to have an idea how TherapyAppointment works for your providers. 

 At least 2 Weeks Prior to your Go Live Date

  • Begin scheduling Patients into TherapyAppointment from the go-live date and later.  Be sure to turn off any self-scheduling abilities in your ‘old’ system in order to avoid double-booking appointments by accident. Role: Owner, Manager, Biller, Scheduler
  • Announce to your clients that you’re making a change to a new system in a couple of weeks, and that you will be inviting clients to the new portal. Helpful Information for clients
  • Connect with Integrated Credit Card Processing - connect your TherapyAppointment account for credit card processing with Global Payments.  Connect the account to TherapyAppointment.  The turn-around time on this is typically  only 2-3 business days, but I’m recommending some padding, here and shipping time for any equipment to be delivered if you need hardware terminals.  Responsibility: Owner  How to connect your account to Global Payments
  • Schedule Live Training with TherapyAppointment for your Clinical Staff Members [recommended to include managers/owners as well] This training will be recorded for you to show any who could not attend. Prior to this training, your clinicians should have watched the Video for Clinical Staff. 
  • Schedule Live Training with TherapyAppointment for your Admin Staff Members. This training will be recorded for you to show any who could not attend. Prior to this training, your admin staff should have watched the video for Admin Staff and Billers should have reviewed the Billing Training.  

One week prior to your Go Live Date

  • Set up ERA imports so that you can get your electronic Explanation of benefits to come directly to TherapyAppointment. *The amount of time it takes your insurance company to make this change for you varies. Ideally you would like your ERA's to begin coming to TherapyAppointment about a week after your go-live date. Once your ERA's transfer they will no longer auto-post to your old system. Role: Biller Watch How / Read How
  • Invite your therapists to their ‘real accounts’ by sending them the invitations. Role: Owner or Manager. The staff member must be available to click on the link within one hour of you sending it because of extremely high security settings! Go to Practice Settings / Staff / Select the Staff Member and scroll to the bottom of their page under Account Information to send or re-send the invite. 
  • Ensure each provider's patient portal settings are correct for your and their desires Role: Owner or Manager
  • If you wish for all active patients as well as any new patients activating their patient portal to complete new intake paperwork, set up auto-assignments on your Online Forms and Standard Client Documents. If you don't wish to ask active patients to complete new paperwork, wait until you have a majority of your active patients invited and logged into to the portal. Role: Owner or manager
  • Providers can build their homework libraries via their 'My Profile / Standard Client Documents"  if they wish to utilize this feature. Read How

One day prior to your Go Live Date

  • Turn off any automated appointment reminders in your old system.

Go LIVE!

  • Keep your ‘old’ system open and finish up your billing process there for accounts that still have open claims and balances. Send out statements, collect patient balances and enter those balances in the old system. Continue to work your claims process in your old system for all claims billed out prior to the go-live date.  Post insurance payments for dates of service prior to ‘go live’ in your old system. In order to calculate payroll, you will need to run reports from both systems and add them together until you close out your old system. After about 30-60 days, you will most likely have your old system accounting ‘cleaned up’ and you can now move any patient balances into TherapyAppointment as a ‘balance forward’, then close out that patient’s account in the old system. If you wish to ‘close down’ the old account but still have outstanding claims that need to be rebilled, you do have the option of re-submitting those claims from TherapyAppointment. Role: Biller
  • Send active clients invitations to the portal: As active clients are seen in the coming day/weeks, have your providers briefly explain the patient portal to their clients and send invitations for the patients to register. Role: Owner, manager, biller, scheduler, therapist
  • Keep a close eye on your ERA's - you may need to manually post EOB's to your old system or into TherapyAppointment depending on the dates the insurance company makes the transfer. Role: Biller Learn how to post an ERA manually

2 Weeks Post Live

  • Set up Auto Assignment of our Online forms IF you elected to NOT have active clients re-complete intake paperwork, 

4-6 Weeks Post Live

  • Close your old system when you’re ready – typically 4-8 weeks after your go live date. Run reports, export data, and store the files in a manner compliant with HIPAA.