Moving your practice over
Bring your clients, their appointments and their balances over from the system you use now. You check every row before Practice Pillar saves anything, and an import only adds: it never overwrites a record or merges two clients.
What comes over
- Clients, each with their phone, email, state, insurance name, clinician and one contact person.
- Appointments, past and booked. A past session keeps its outcome, so a no-show stays a no-show and a late cancellation stays late.
- Balances, as one opening entry for each client.
- A client list exported as a folder of contact cards. Each card's name, phone, email and state are read, and a note on a card never is.
- Signed documents in bulk, up to 300 files at a time. Each file is matched to a client by its folder or file name, you confirm every match, and a file that matches no one waits for you to choose. Choose the whole export folder: a file in its psychotherapy notes folder is then never filed.
What stays in your old system for now
- Signed notes. A note's signature is its author's act, so notes are never signed again in Practice Pillar. Keep your old system's export of them.
- Your fee schedule. You enter each service's billing code and its rate for each payer.
- Electronic claims and eligibility checks. No clearinghouse is connected yet, so keep your current one. Practice Pillar prints claims on the CMS-1500 today.
- Card payments. No card processor is connected yet, so keep taking cards the way you do now.
Systems you can move from
The import reads a spreadsheet, as CSV or Excel, from any system. You pick yours from the list, or Another system.
- SimplePractice
- TherapyNotes
- TheraNest
- Jane
- IntakeQ or PracticeQ
- TherapyAppointment
- Sessions Health
- Healthie
Side by side
Each competitor's own pages, quoted beside Practice Pillar, with where it does more today.
How the move goes
Each step ends with something you can check before the next begins.
Sign the business associate agreement
You and Practice Pillar sign one before any client information comes over. A screen that takes client information stays closed until every service behind it has signed one too.
Add your people
Give each person a role. A clinician reaches their own clients, a supervisor their supervisees and the owner the whole practice.
Write your intake documents
Paste in your own informed consent, policies, release of information, telehealth consent and financial agreement. Practice Pillar ships no wording of its own.
Enter your fees
Each service's billing code, with its rate for each payer, for self-pay and for each sliding-scale tier.
Bring your records over
Export everything your old system offers. Import the clients file first, then appointments and balances, and read the verification report before your last day there.
Run both side by side
Intake, onboarding, licenses, the planner and the scorecard work beside your old system from the first day. Client charts stay off until you turn them on.
Choose your last day of notes in the old system
Every session on or before that day is documented there, and every session after it in Practice Pillar.
Keep the old records
Keep your old system's export for as long as the law asks. Texas boards ask for at least 7 years after services end, or 5 years after a minor client turns 18, whichever is later. 22 TAC § 681.36(b), the counselors' rule.
Checking an import
- Nothing is saved until you check the file. The check lists each row it would add, each it would skip and why.
- You confirm which column is which, and a column you have not seen is never imported.
- A client who looks like someone already here is set aside for you, and two records are never merged.
- Importing the same file again adds nothing, so an import that stops partway is finished by running it again.
- The verification report sets each client's old balance beside the new ledger and flags any difference.
- The file itself is never stored, and the audit trail records each import by its counts, never by a name.
If you ever leave
- Your practice exports its whole record itself, at any time, without asking anyone.
- The export is one file a person can read, with every client's chart, ledger and appointments.
- Psychotherapy notes are a separate record. Only their author reads them, and no export includes them.
Canceling and your records says what happens to them after you go.
Questions
- Who runs the import?
- The owner, from a page in Practice Pillar. It needs access to every client's chart, which the owner holds.
- Can I try my file before anything is saved?
- Yes. The check reads the whole file, shows what it would add and skip, and saves nothing.
- Do my reports start from zero?
- No. Imported appointments arrive with their outcomes, so caseloads, retention and the scorecard read your history from the first day.
- Can I keep my old system while I move?
- Yes. Everything that is not a client's chart runs beside it from the first day, and the old system stays as it is until your last day of notes.
Priced by the size of your practice
A question first? Request a demo, or write to practicepillar@computingamerica.com