Practice Better is the complete nutrition practice management platform for health and wellness professionals, particularly private practice dietitians! Practice Better (aff. link) is popular with private practice dietitians because it offers client management, scheduling, billing, programs and courses, telehealth features, a mobile app, and more.
But, as with any CRM platform, there are many uses for it, and just as many questions! So, this post is meant to serve as a Q&A guide to answer all (or most) of your questions about Practice Better.
Outline of the best Practice Better features
Appointment Scheduling for Practitioners
With Practice Better’s appointment scheduling feature, health and wellness professionals can easily allow clients to book appointments online while maintaining control over their availability. This feature streamlines the process, making it easier for dietitians and nutritionists to manage their time and reduce no-shows.
Business Software Integrations
Practice Better integrates seamlessly with a variety of tools and apps, enhancing the functionality of this nutrition practice management platform.Clients can sync their Apple Health and Cronometer data, share Dropbox documents, and access diagnostic testing through Evexia Diagnostics. It also provides features like conversion tracking with Facebook Pixel, Fitbit synchronization, and the ability to create protocols using products from Fullscript, Natural Dispensary, Wellevate, and WholeScripts. You can connect to Google Drive, Nutri-Q, Square for payments, and even integrate with existing apps in your workflow via Zapier. Additionally, it supports telehealth sessions through Zoom. Try it out: Practice Better (aff. link)
Client Charting for Dietitians
With note templates and snippets, you can quickly document progress and streamline your note-taking process. The platform allows for customization, letting you create notes that suit your preferences, including multiple-choice questions, checkboxes, tables, and free-form fields. You can also easily share notes with clients while keeping sensitive information private, collaborate with other practitioners by downloading notes to PDF or faxing them, and set favorite templates or sharing preferences for added convenience.
Automations
With customizable automations in Practice Better, dietitians and wellness professionals can streamline client management by setting up rules to manage client access, automate appointment reminders, and simplify form submissions. The platform helps you stay organized by tracking client interactions, using tags to update clients through their health journey, and setting tasks for both you and your clients. Additionally, it simplifies payment collection by enabling automated payment plans or requiring full payment at the time of booking, eliminating the need for manual follow-ups and awkward money conversations.
Patient Protocols for Providers
Practice Better’s patient protocol feature is ideal for dietitians and nutritionists looking to streamline their client recommendations. The platform allows you to organize and customize recommendations, saving individual advice and creating protocol templates that can be reused and personalized as needed. Additionally, it simplifies the process of ordering supplements, providing clear instructions and integrating with online dispensaries to streamline the fulfillment of supplement recommendations. Try it out: Practice Better (aff. link)
Easy Billing
Practice Better’s billing and payment system offers a streamlined, secure, and versatile payment solution for dietitians, nutritionists, and other healthcare professionals. Integrated seamlessly with your Practice Better account, it simplifies billing and payments. You can access unified reporting for online and terminal payments within your Practice Better Portal, saving time and effort. The platform provides flexible payment options for clients, including online, in-person, and contactless payments through Apple or Google Pay. It also automates various financial tasks, such as invoicing, receipts, coupons, discounts, and refunds. Additionally, Practice Better Payments supports the process of getting reimbursed, offers Superbills to save clients money and time, and accepts HSA/FSA health cards.
Branding Options for Private Practice Owners
You can create a polished and professional image by offering clients a branded web portal experience, synchronizing it with your business logo and brand colors. Extend your branding further by customizing your portal’s URL to seamlessly integrate with your existing website. This level of customization allows you to tailor communications, emails, reminders, and even documents like forms, waivers, and protocols to match your business’s unique look and feel, ensuring a consistent and professional representation of your practice.
Business Reporting
Easily keep an eye on important aspects of your business and set goals. It helps you track things like missed appointments, notes that haven’t been signed, and outstanding payments. You can also look at reports that show your booking history, payment records, and more to plan for the future. Practice Better allows you to compare your business metrics with past periods to see how you’re doing. Plus, it helps you spot trends among your clients by analyzing common patterns and visualizing data. You can also assess how well your programs are doing by checking engagement metrics and comparing them to other programs. Try it out: Practice Better (aff. link)
Client Portal
A user-friendly portal to help clients make positive lifestyle changes with the support they need. It makes it easy for clients to track their food and lifestyle choices, offering access to a vast food database and allowing custom entries or photo journals. This helps clients identify patterns and trends in their habits. Everything clients need to thrive is in one secure place, including tools to help them achieve their goals. The platform also provides a secure chat messaging system, helping you communicate with clients effectively while maintaining healthy boundaries with features like auto-responders and scheduled messages.
Telehealth Appointments
You can host telehealth appointments on various devices, making it accessible for everyone. The platform integrates telehealth seamlessly, allowing you to start secure one-to-one sessions directly from the mobile app or web browser without leaving the platform. During sessions, you can access client history, view past notes, and collaborate using chat or screen sharing. Practice Better’s telehealth is designed to be secure and reliable, complying with important privacy regulations, so you and your clients can trust it for remote consultations.
Secure Messaging
You can send messages directly from your website portal or app, streamlining communication through secure chat. It even offers read receipts so you can be sure your message was received. You have control over your communication, with options like autoresponders to set expectations, scheduled messages, and notification preferences. You can also create group chats to build a supportive community among clients with similar health goals, allowing you to organize and collaborate effectively. Plus, team members can correspond with each other and share resources, enhancing communication within your practice. Try it out: Practice Better (aff. link)
Client Journaling
Clients can search for foods, write down what they eat, and even scan barcodes to track meals. They can also log additional details like where they ate, how hungry they were, and their mood. The platform allows for personalization, letting you choose what nutritional details to show and offer feedback on journal entries. It also helps clients track daily activity, sleep, mood, and more, integrating with apps like Apple Health and Fitbit for accuracy. You can analyze journal entries with built-in tools, view nutrient details, and identify trends to better understand your clients’ habits and support their goals.
Host Programs & Courses
With Practice Better’s courses and programs feature, health professionals can design engaging, customizable learning experiences for their clients. Dietitians can create structured nutrition courses, while wellness coaches can offer memberships and challenge-based programs, all managed within the same platform. From lead magnets to supportive resources like emails, media, documents, chat, and quizzes, you can build comprehensive programs to attract and engage clients. This feature helps you diversify your offerings and work with clients over an extended period, whether it’s through challenges, memberships, or group programs. It’s a tool to package your knowledge and reach a broader audience while providing personalized coaching and support.
Group Sessions
Expand your private practice by offering group workshops, classes, and accountability sessions to both new and existing clients. The platform provides everything you need to run these group sessions efficiently, from booking to billing to communication. You can manage groups with features like scheduling sessions, setting attendee limits, adding buffer times, and providing registration links. Practice Better also integrates with Zoom for hosting virtual group sessions, allowing you to bundle these group sessions into packages and programs to reach a wider audience.
Mobile App
Practice Better’s telehealth feature allows dietitians and other wellness professionals to start secure, HIPAA-compliant one-to-one sessions directly from the mobile app or web browser. It offers secure messaging and instant alerts, allowing you to stay connected on your terms. You can customize notifications to your preference and provide clients with a rich experience similar to your desktop platform. Clients appreciate the app’s convenience, as it enables them to access recommendations, log journal entries, and complete tasks with ease, including features like barcode scanning, photo journaling, and the ability to join video sessions right in the app.
How Practice Better can help your nutrition business
So many new business owners try to avoid paying for another platform, but using something like Practice Better can help streamline so many tasks in your business. With platforms like Practice Better, you will also improve your client experience!
Some real-life benefits from using Practice Better (aff. link):
- Save your sanity (and time) by not having to email with clients back and forth to schedule things or send documents back and forth
- Integrates with FullScript which can provide an additional revenue stream, if you are often referring supplements to clients
- Automated billing and contracts = less admin time
- Send onboarding resources and materials to enhance client success
Using Practice Better for nutrition courses or memberships
If the course or membership is for clients only, like an onboarding course or continued support after, Practice Better (aff link) is great! Especially if you are thinking about the client experience, using Practice Better will mean your clients won’t need to sign up for a separate platform.
This isn’t to say Thinkific (aff. link) or similar platforms aren’t great, because they are. I would suggest using Thinkific if the course will be open to the general public. It will be easier to manage dozens (or hundreds) of students in a course platform like Thinkific, and more people are used to taking courses in a platform like Thinkific!
If you want to create a legitimate, scalable online business offering that will attract potentially hundreds or thousands of people who have not yet worked with you directly, I’d go with something more robust like Thinkific.
Can Practice Better run virtual group programs?
Absolutely! Practice Better’s Programs feature offers a comprehensive way for health and wellness practitioners to share knowledge and expertise with clients through a secure platform. It integrates seamlessly into the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system and is tailored for practitioners, allowing them to track client progress, assign module-specific tasks, provide additional resources, upsell services, and manage everything from one platform.
The platform offers various types of programs:
- Fixed-Date Programs: These have a set start and end date, with modules accessible to clients based on calendar dates. Practitioners can set up program details, including program banner, name, description, dates, and payment options.
- Evergreen Programs: Available at any time, these allow clients to enroll and proceed through modules based on time elapsed since enrollment. The setup is similar to Fixed-Date Programs, but modules unlock based on duration post-enrollment.
- Email-Only Programs: Utilizing either Fixed-Date or Evergreen Program frameworks, these programs deliver content via email on a scheduled basis. They’re beneficial as lead magnets since clients don’t need Practice Better access to receive the content.
- Self-Paced Programs: These are designed for clients to progress at their own pace. Modules unlock based on the completion of previous ones. At least one module must be accessible at enrollment, serving as the program’s starting point. Rules are created for each module to form a sequence based on previous module completion.
Overall, Practice Better’s Programs feature provides a versatile and efficient way for practitioners to engage and manage their clients’ health and wellness journeys. Practice Better can’t be as customized (design-wise) as something like Thinkific (aff link) or Kajabi, so that’s something to keep in mind!
Does Practice Better have a mobile app?
Yes! The Practice Better mobile app is so handy for both you and clients. Your clients will love how easy it is to access your recommendations, log journal entries before calls, and complete tasks while on the go. You will have access to all of the same data and features that you can access on desktop.
Navigating the Practice Better mobile app is user-friendly and intuitive. You can customize your notification preferences and shortcuts in the Settings & Preferences section. For quick access to common actions, there’s a red Fast Action Button on the home screen. To exit sub-pages or return to the previous page, use the back button on the top-left or swipe left. To return to the home screen from any page, simply tap on the “Better” logo.
Is Practice Better HIPAA compliant for patients?
Yes, Practice Better (aff. link) is a HIPAA-compliant platform for US-based professionals and PIPEDA for Canadian professionals. Practice Better takes data security seriously, ensuring that both your personal data and your clients’ data are kept safe. They follow strict security measures and are fully compliant with important regulations like HIPAA, PIPEDA, PHIPA, and GDPR.
Data is encrypted during transfer and storage, including backups and log data. Access controls are in place to restrict access to only those who need it. The servers are hosted with a provider that uses top-notch security tools, and all network activity is closely monitored and audited, with logs being encrypted and unified. Regular vulnerability scans are performed, and data is backed up daily for 30 days.
For payments, they follow PCI compliance standards, ensuring credit card data is processed securely. Additionally, secure browser practices, encryption, and data storage on encrypted hard drives in North America further enhance security. Audit logs track account changes and client interactions, providing detailed records to maintain transparency and accountability.
You can check for provincial-specific compliance by Googling “[your provincial privacy legislation] Practice Better compliance” for more information.
Can you bill insurance directly from Practice Better?
Yes! Practice Better provides the option to export CMS-1500 forms which can be uploaded and submitted via Office Ally. You will be notified once the claims have been processed, either successfully or if there any issues with the submission.
Can you automate adding invoices from Practice Better into Quickbooks?
Unfortunately no. You may be able to hire an automation expert to transfer the data, or you can also pull a monthly report from Practice Better and give it to your accountant.
Does Practice Better integrate with Stripe or Square?
Yes! Practice Better does not store any client information on their servers. All credit card info is stored in your Stripe or Square account. It’s easy to integrate either of these platforms to your Practice Better account. Most dietitians prefer to use Stripe!
What’s the best way to send forms in Practice Better?
You can automate some of the forms you send out to clients, but we don’t want to bombard clients with a ton of forms in one day. So, number one is starting with the contract of services and CC agreement. Second, then send the HIPAA policy & release of liability.
Then once that is all signed, allow them to book an initial session and complete the intake form. After that is done, you can prompt them to start a food journal or submit what they have.
Can you track business KPIs in Practice Better?
Yes! Practice Better offers a “Reports” feature that allows you to see initial visits, follow-ups, cancelled appointments, and inquiry calls by custom date ranges. This will allow you track KPIs and can help you track your client calls for insurance purposes as well.
Can you automate client protocols in Practice Better?
Yes! You can create protocols that include all the nutrition, supplement and lifestyle recommendations you typically give for a specific condition and use them for multiple clients. It saves so much time so you’re not reinventing the wheel every time you see someone with the same condition. Although it can take a bit of work in the beginning, the time it continues to save is so valuable!
Practice Better vs Healthie Comparison
There are many platform options on the market for wellness professionals, and Healthie and Practice Better are both strong options that health professionals consider. There are some pros and cons of both platforms!
Healthie: better for large practices with multiple professionals that need access, and does allow direct billing with insurance; but no nutritional analysis component is available on this platform.
Practice Better (aff link): more affordable than Healthie, no meal planning or nutrient analysis functionality but they do have a supplement database (Fullscript), fully integrated video calling system.
There are some technical differences between Practice Better and Healthie, if there are particular functions you’re looking for within your practice.
Other Practice Better Alternatives
- SimplePractice: This is a widely used health & wellness practice management platform that offers features like scheduling, notes, billing, and telehealth.
- TheraNest: TheraNest is another alternative that provides practice management software for behavioral health professionals. It offers scheduling, therapy notes, billing, and a client portal.
- Kareo: This is a complete medical practice management software with robust features including EHR, billing, and patient engagement.
- AdvancedMD: AdvancedMD offers comprehensive tools for independent medical practices, including practice management, electronic health records, telemedicine, patient relationship management, business analytics, marketplace, etc.
- TherapyNotes: Specifically targeted to mental health professionals, TherapyNotes offers practice management, notes, billing, and a client portal.
- ChARM Health: ChARM Health offers an integrated suite of products including EHR, practice management, patient portal, telehealth, and connected devices.
- Jane App: Jane App is an all-in-one practice management platform with online booking, charting, scheduling, and invoicing.
Do you need Practice Better if you are using Acuity or Calendly?
Absolutely! There’s so many things that Practice Better can help you with besides scheduling appointments. For example:
- Sign contracts
- Fill out intake and follow-up forms
- Share documents securely
- Create supplement protocols and setup a shopping cart for clients
- Share notes directly, without having to find their email address
Customer Support and Learning Resources in Practice Better
Practice Better includes a great Help Center that covers many topics, and allows you to submit questions to the Help team if you can’t find an answer. Plus, they have a yearly Practice Better Summit!
There are also third-party courses from other practitioners like Practice Better Made Simple and Practice Better Design Bootcamp.
