The Private Practice Setup Checklist

Patients see your name on every page, email and receipt, and your website links them back to you.

Your logo and color make the portal look like your practice, so patients trust the pages and emails they get.

It prints on superbills and annual receipts, which patients need to claim money back or deduct the cost.

Appointments, reminders and your schedule all run on your local clock.

This is the web address patients use to join, sign forms, pay and message you.

Patients see your own web address instead of ours, which feels more familiar to them.

It decides who each visit is billed to by default and hides the parts of the system you will not use.

A superbill is an itemized receipt patients send to their own insurer to get some of their money back.

Common diagnosis and procedure codes are built in; add your own, such as a membership fee, so superbills and claims read correctly.

Insurers pay the name, NPI and address on your claims, and reject claims where these are missing or wrong.

Every claim names an insurer, and electronic claims need the payer ID your clearinghouse uses.

One click adds the vital signs and forms practices like yours usually use, so you are not starting from a blank page.

Staff are asked only for the measures you choose, and each one is coded so it reads correctly anywhere it is sent.

Fewer menus means less for your staff to learn, and nothing is deleted if you switch something back on later.

Patients can book visits, read their chart, message you, buy extras and download superbills, and you choose which.

Every appointment, note and claim names the clinician who saw the patient.

Insurers will not pay a claim without the treating clinician's NPI, and superbills print it too.

Keeping each clinician's license numbers and expiry dates on file puts them in one place when a renewal or an audit comes up.

Each person gets their own login, so you can see who did what and remove access when someone leaves.

Plans are what patients sign up for and what you are paid each month or year.

Extras such as an enrollment fee or a lab bundle can be offered with a plan, or required with it.

Patients prepay for a block of visits and use them over time, which suits care that is not a monthly membership.

Single visits, IV therapy, supplements or lab tests you sell outside a membership, each at a set price.

Each type sets how long a visit lasts and whether it is in person, by video or by phone.

Hours decide which times are offered when staff look for a slot or patients book online.

If you have more than one exam room, each clinician's hours can name the room they work in.

Patients book themselves into the times you have opened, which cuts down on phone calls.

Each video appointment gets its own private room, and patients join from their portal with no app to install.

This is the page new patients use to pick a plan and join online.

Until it is published, nobody can see it or sign up through it.

Patients fill in their history and questionnaires in the portal before they arrive, and scores land on their chart.

Patients sign your agreement online when they join, and the signed copy is filed for you.

Add fields for things the standard record does not hold, such as how a patient heard about you.

Patients cannot pay you online until your own merchant account is connected, and the money goes straight to you.

Memberships renew and charge the card on file by themselves, so nobody has to remember to bill them.

When a card is declined, the system tries again on the days you choose before asking the patient for a new card.

Sets how your invoice numbers look and how many days patients have to pay.

Most medical services are not taxed, but some products you sell may be.

Every email patients get, from the welcome to the receipt, can say things in your own voice.

A reminder email before each visit cuts down on no-shows.

Patients hear before their membership renews, which heads off surprise charges and disputes.

A stolen password alone cannot open patient records when every sign-in also needs a code from a phone.

Giving each person only the access their job needs keeps clinical notes away from people who do not need them.

Invoices flow into your books on their own, so nobody types them in twice.

A key lets software you trust read your practice data, and you can revoke it at any time.

Your other tools hear about a booking, a payment or a signed note the moment it happens.

Rules create a task or alert your team when something happens, such as an abnormal result or a failed payment.

Your current patients need a record here before they can be booked, billed or invited to the portal.

Putting one current member on a plan is the best test that billing works the way you expect.

Until you go live, your patient address opens a practice sandbox where nothing reaches real patients and no card is charged.