Practice management software for psychologists: what a practice needs and how to choose

Many psychology and educational psychology practices start with a paper diary, a spreadsheet for billing and each client’s notes in folders or on each practitioner’s computer. It works while there are one or two of you. As the team grows, information scatters, nobody knows which sessions are still to be invoiced, and the most sensitive data the practice holds ends up where it shouldn’t. Management software, or an intranet of your own, brings all of it into one place.

What it should cover

• Clients or families: contact details, who pays, signed consents and, in educational psychology, the details of the child and their guardians.
• Clinical records: notes from each session, reports, tests and documents, visible only to whoever treats the client.
• Team: which practitioner handles each case, their hours and their workload.
• Sessions and payments: what has been done, what is still to be invoiced, multi-session packs and correct invoices.
• Practice figures: income by practitioner and by service, and which clients stop coming.

Data protection is not a detail

Health information is a special category of data under the GDPR, and clinical records are probably the most sensitive thing your practice will store. That translates into concrete requirements for the software: individual logins and, ideally, two-factor authentication; permissions so each practitioner sees only their cases; a log of who views or changes each record; backups; servers in the European Union; and a data processing agreement with the provider. Ask about each of these before choosing, and be wary of vague answers.

Off-the-shelf software, a custom intranet or something in between

There are off-the-shelf programs designed for healthcare practices in general. They are a good option if your way of working resembles a medical practice: appointments, records and payment per session. They fit less well when the practice has particularities, such as working with schools and families, educational psychology reports, several practitioners with their own rules or services not charged per session. In that case a custom intranet adapts to your process, but it takes investment and maintenance. The middle path is a product designed for your sector that you configure rather than program.

What to ask before choosing

• Where are the servers and who can access the data? Will you sign a data processing agreement?
• Can each practitioner see only their own clients? Is every access to clinical records logged?
• Can I export all my data, records included, if I change software one day?
• How is the data I already have in spreadsheets or another program migrated?
• Does it fit how I charge: per session, by pack, to families or to schools?
• What happens if I need a field, a report or an alert that isn’t built in?

Kirexa for psychology and educational psychology practices

Kirexa, our ERP for service companies, has a solution for psychology and educational psychology practices. It brings clients, clinical records, team and invoicing into one system, with servers in Madrid, each practice’s data isolated in the database and a log of every action, including the AI’s. It adapts with your own fields, rules and reports, and existing data is imported from Excel.

Discover Kirexa for psychology practices

If your practice needs something no product covers, we can also build the intranet to measure, with the same security guarantees.

Work out the price of your custom intranet