The PsyPack Blog

Mental Health Softwares for Therapists in Private Practice

First of all, let me congratulate you If you are a therapist in private practice. From my experience of speaking with over hundred psychologists in private practice, it is incredibly difficult decision for many to take the leap of faith and leave the comfort of a “job” and follow their entrepreneurial instincts to starting their own “business”. Starting your own business means branding – naming your practice and getting that right logo with the perfect color scheme, getting out of your comfort zone and advertising your practice, getting yourself listed on various therapy listing websites, managing your practice – appointments and billing and invoices, filing taxes and maintaining books and filing for insurance claims. 😮‍💨For the brave ones, we have compiled a list of our favourite mental health softwares, EMRs and EHRs. Lets dive in;Best mental health software for a therapist websiteMarketing as a private practitioner is fun for a few therapists like the one’s who pop-up frequently on your TikTok and Instagram feeds, while it can be hard for the ones who are more introvert like me. The most critical element in marketing is getting the right website. The right website can be instrumental in getting you more inquiries from your prospective clients. A few things you must look at while selecting a software for your website are ease of building and maintaining a website, SEO, HIPAA compliant inquiry form, and last but not the least the design. I have seen many therapists spend thousands of dollars to make their websites fancy. I would say, don’t be so fixated on design and animations because really it’s the performance that matters. Here are two of our favourite website softwares,PracticeID Websites – Modern and HIPAA compliantPracticeID has just launched in 2023. And we are very excited to see a website builder solely focussed on therapists in private practice. They swear by the performance of their websites and we were happy to see that they are best in SEO by far. Another beneficial feature is the HIPAA compliant inquiry form. We love the modern approach. And they also have a free forever plan. Check them out at – .Brighter Vision Websites – The OGBrighter Vision has been around since over a decade and they really started pushing the quality of websites for therapists ever since their launch in 2011. They have tried their hands at other things like social media automation etc. but their star product has been websites. In 2020 EverCommerce acquired BrighterVision and there has been limited innovation since then. But we still love their websites and hope that they innovate more often. Check them out at – .A word of caution, we would suggest you stay away from your mental health EMR’s free website (like Simple Practice or Therapy Sites) because really they are not optimised for performance. Don’t get me wrong, but these softwares are better at practice management than at websites. Websites these days are highly sophisticated and you should use a specialised software for that.Best mental health software for practice managementOnce you have your web presence sorted and you are getting a steady stream of clients, you will face challenges with managing your practice. Think about calendar management, appointment booking, billing and invoicing etc. There are plenty of EMR and EHR available on the market but a few stand out. Most of these EMRs are quite generic and can be used for a private practice, a group practice or a behavioral health clinic.Simple Practice – The omnipresent getting expensiveI won’t believe you if you tell me that if you have never heard of Simple Practice before. They have been pioneers in EHR software for behavioral health. While they have a comprehensive solution – calendar, scheduling, appointment booking, client portal, telehealth and video calls, documentation, invoices and billing, payments, insurance and claim filing; BUT they have been constantly increasing prices. And as a private practitioner these abrupt increases might not be sustainable! Check them out at – .TherapyNotes – The Inflexible OGTherapyNotes has been there forever as well. And the good thing is that it seems less technical and it works. I have found it fast and responsive. The CC fees are also among the lowest. And yes, this one is decently priced.You will find TherapyNotes rigid though – less features, limited and non-customisable progress note, intake and treatment plan paperwork formats. Further, the schedule view is pretty old school and almost hurts looking at. They are at – .Between Simple Practice and TherapyNotes, here is the verdict from one of the Reddit threads;Best mental health software for psychological testingIt has been established that more evidence leads to better clinical outcomes. Using psychological testing routinely in your practice can help you diagnose the underlying illness better, base your treatment to the progress the client is making, and improve client’s confidence in the therapeutic process. While this space was dominated by the large corporations, like Pearson and PARInc, whose solutions are prohibitively expensive for therapists in private practice, new age startups are not only challenging these companies but also modernising the entire psychological testing journey.PsyPack Outcome Tools – Intuitive and HIPAA compliant NovoPsych – The OGNovoPsych is the OG software for psychological testing from Australia. While the library of assessment is large, the software itself is dated and lacks modern features. It is also unclear if it is HIPAA compliant or not. If you are not in the US and you have a limited usage, NovoPsych will not disappoint. Here you go – .Innovative mental health softwaresHeard – Mental Health Software for FinancesHeard is a software-enabled company that helps therapists with their finances, more specifically bookkeeping, taxes, and payroll. Heard states they can save you 60 hours per year in financial record keeping, which means you can use that extra hour or so per week finishing your notes or making money in sessions.With tonnes of VC funding, Heard is sure making some heads turn. They are at – .Upheal – AI Progress NotesTaking notes can be daunting. Well, AI is here to rescue. Upheal securely records the therapy session, automatically generates a transcript, and then use it as a basis for AI models to create progress notes and insights.Their early access program is live, go check them out at – .Delegating mechanical work to a software can really help you make time for the more important parts of your work. If you are a therapist in private practice, I will highly encourage you to adopt technology in this day-and-age of telehealth to stay ahead of the curve.If you found our list of behavioral health softwares useful, do share it with your therapist friends. 🫶

Team PsyPack

Wed Apr 26 2023

The story of the incredible PHQ (Patient Health Questionnaire)

There’s no other assessment as popular as the PHQ-9 (Patient Health Questionnaire 9) and the GAD-7 (Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7). These are not just popular among psychologists and therapists but even the general population are familiar with these assessments. And I know, for a fact, that many doctors just know ONLY about the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 when it comes to psychological tests. Let me just provide you some interesting facts to establish the omnipresence of these two assessments; History of the PHQThe PHQ is a self-administered version of the PRIME-MD. So what is PRIME-MD? In the mid 1990s, researchers ( Robert L. Spitzer, MD, Janet B.W. Williams, DSW, and Kurt Kroenke, MD, and colleagues) at the Columbia University realised that recognizing signs of mental health disorders is not always easy. And to solve this, they went on to build the PRIME-MD, a diagnostic tool containing modules on 12 different mental health disorders. And the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. funded this project. Although the copyright of the PHQ-9 is with Pfizer, it has kept the access open to all to stay true to the original intent to enable clinicians easily recognize signs of mental illness stays intact.The PHQ, a self-administered version of the PRIME-MD, contains the mood (PHQ-9), anxiety, alcohol, eating, and somatoform modules as covered in the original PRIME-MD. The GAD-7 was subsequently developed as a brief scale for anxiety. The PHQ-9, a tool specific to depression, simply scores each of the 9 DSM-IV criteria based on the mood module from the original PRIME-MD. The GAD-7 scores 7 common anxiety symptoms.Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) Family of MeasuresLet us have a quick look at the most commonly used versions of the PHQ scales and their scoring;More detailed information – scoring, interpretation, printable PDF etc. about the popular assessments in the PHQ is available at; Who is the PHQ for?Age rangeMost of the PHQ scales have been validated for ages 13 years and above.TranslationsDue to it’s popularity and demand by clinicians, researchers, social workers and therapists, the PHQ has been widely translated into numerous languages; Please note the above list of languages is not exhaustive.Criticism of the PHQWhile the PHQ assessments are insanely popular. But this does not come without any criticism. In the defence of the questionnaire, all such tools serve the purpose of screening and must be followed up with a clinical interview with a professional to establish diagnosis.PHQ with PsyPack AssessmentsIf you are a therapist, social worker, GP, you can easily conduct the PHQ-9, GAD-7 and PHQ-15 online with PsyPack online assessments. PsyPack can help you conduct psychological assessments via tele-health easily. PsyPack is an online software to help psychologists, therapists, social workers and counselors, administer psychological tests online to their clients, score tests automatically, and prepare detailed reports in a fraction of second. It helps you store your clinical records of your testing in a HIPAA compliant manner.PsyPack comes pre-loaded with numerous standardised psychological tests. Staying true to the spirit of the PHQ, we have included PHQ-9 and the GAD-7 in the free forever Beginner Plan of PsyPack. Try PsyPack now; References

Team PsyPack

Wed Jan 04 2023

SOAP Notes – Example, Template and Format

What is a SOAP note?The Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan (SOAP) note is an acronym represents a cognitive framework to help healthcare professionals organise treatment information of a client in a highly structured format.SOAP Notes template with exampleA SOAP note is structured into four parts;SubjectiveThis section focusses on the subjective experience of the patient or their caretaker. It includes the symptoms they are experiencing, feelings w.r.t. the illness, medical history, previous diagnosis (if any), and their personal views. Simply put, this is what the patient says about their problem.Example: 37-year old female presenting chest pain, decreased appetite and shortness of breath. Diagnosed with mild depression 1 year ago. Underwent psychotherapy for 3 months. Recent physical manifestations concurrent with family feuds.ObjectiveThe focus of this section is on objective data. This includes vital signs and symptoms, findings of the clinician, laboratory diagnostic data and objective reports from other clinicians. Unlike the “Subjective” section which gives a description of patient’s own account, the “Objective” section is backed by evidence. An example of this is a patient stating they have “stomach pain,” which is documented under the subjective heading. Versus “abdominal tenderness to palpation,” an objective sign documented under the objective heading.Psychological tests like , , etc. are particularly useful at this stage since they are objective in nature.Example: The client's results on the signals moderate depression, extremely severe anxiety and mild stress.It is recommended that you store the data in the client’s file securely in accordance with HIPAA . is a HIPAA compliant software you can use to conduct with your clients. It can help you maintain client notes automatically and save you tons of time.AssessmentThis section is the clinician’s analysis of the subjective and objective evidence to arrive at a diagnosis.For behavioral health practitioners, one would generally expect a differential diagnosis where they would list various problems in order of importance. At this stage, therapists could mention ICD-10 or DSM5 classification of the illness. This can be particularly helpful for therapists who are empanelled and accept insurance plans like United Healthcare, Aetna, BlueCross and BlueShield etc.Example: Client is most like suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder (ICD-10 code F41.1)PlanThis section details the treatment approach – interventions, goals/objectives of the intervention, expected time frame, and follow-up and next steps.Therapists could weigh various psychotherapy approaches like CBT, EMDR etc. at this stage to plan. Additionally referrals to psychiatrists can be considered to pharmacotherapy.In case, further information is required for planning the treatment, this section will include plan (additional testing, consultation with other clinician etc.) to obtain the required information.Example: Immediate initiation of pharmacotherapy and, if severe impairment or poor response to therapy, expedited referral to a mental health specialist for psychotherapy and/or collaborative management.DAP Notes and BIRP NotesSOAP notes are not the only format available for charting treatment. The other popular approaches include DAP (Data, Assessment, and Plan) and BIRP (Behavior, Intervention, Response, Plan). Among all these formats, SOAP notes format is most widely used.You should choose the format of documentation based on what’s best suited to your practice. But having a framework can be really helpful.  “One of the biggest problems I see with new therapists,” says  “is a lot of anxiety about how to write adequate professional notes. So many new therapists haven’t been adequately trained and carry a lot of anxiety about having their records audited. Following an official framework, like SOAP notes, can really help relieve that anxiety.” Additionally, you must be wary to not adjust your treatment to fit any particular format. Always remember, treatment notes follow the treatment and not vice versa.PsyPack Practitioner’s NotesAt , we are constantly working to ensure that therapists are empowered with technology to streamline their practice. Apart from helping you embrace evidence based approach by digitising a , we now allow you to add your own therapy notes to the assessment reports. You can now add notes in any format in the “Practitioner’s notes” section of reports. .Today the world is increasingly moving towards mandatorily maintaining treatment documentation. A part of this shift is to ensure best practices, choice of patient to switch their clinician, insurance empanelment and claim settlement etc. To stay competitive, it is critical to embrace best practices and technology in your therapy practice.

Team PsyPack

Mon Apr 11 2022

Psychological assessments

Diversity is beautiful. But why does nature create each one of us so unique? We look different, we feel differently, we think differently, we behave differently and so on. In fact, no two of us have the same fingerprints!Why wouldn’t nature create all of us the same – something of “a standardised homo-sapien”?The challenge with such a high level of predictability is vulnerability. One adverse predator, one adverse virus, one adverse event could destroy the entire species. Diversity is not just beautiful but it is the essence of survival. Individual differences make us stronger as a species.One could imagine that since individual differences are so intrinsically linked to survival and nature, it makes studying them of immense value.Individuals vary in terms of physical characteristics, such as height, weight, strength, hair colour, and so on. They also vary along psychological dimensions. They may be intelligent or dull, dominant or submissive, creative or not so creative, outgoing or withdrawn, etc. The list of variations can be endless. Different traits can exist in varying degrees in an individual. In this sense, each one of us is unique as s/he exemplifies a typical combination of various traits.Behavioral health professionals and social scientists have devised multiple instruments over the years to study these differences scientifically. Psychological assessments help us study the amazing diversity in human beings and give us sneak peek into the mysterious ways of nature.What is a psychological assessment?All sciences are built on systems of constructs and their interrelations. The natural sciences use constructs such as temperature, gravity, and global warming. Likewise, the behavioral sciences use a variety of constructs or attributes. These can be very simple phenomena like time taken to react to a stimulus, i.e. reaction time, and also in highly global concepts like happiness. Behavioral health professionals study both non-psychiatric attributes, like intelligence, aptitude, interest, personality and values etc., and psychiatric constructs like depression, anxiety, somatoform disorders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) etc. , a strong proponent of deliberate practice, recommends using outcome measures to improve clinical outcomes.Psychological attributes are not linear or unidimensional. They are complex and expressed in terms of dimensions. They are usually multi-dimensional. For example, if a child is having trouble in school, they might not fit strictly into a categorical diagnosis of a reading problem such as dyslexia, or an attention problem such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or difficulty with impulse control? They might have different se­verity levels of the constituent symptoms of each of those. If you want to have a complete assessment of a person, you will need to assess how s/he functions in various domains or areas, such as cognitive, emotional, social, etc. With regards to diagnosis of mental disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) favours the dimensional approach over the categorical approach.Assessment is the first step in understanding a psychological attribute. Assessment refers to the measurement of psychological attributes of individuals and their evaluation, often using multiple methods in terms of certain standards of comparison. Once assessment is done, we can use this information to predict future behavior of an individual. If the predicted consequence is not what we want, we may want to intervene to effect a change.The American Psychological Association defines psychological assessment as “the gathering and integration of data to evaluate a person’s behavior, abilities, and other characteristics, particularly for the purposes of making a diagnosis or treatment recommendation. Psychologists assess diverse psychiatric problems (e.g., anxiety, substance abuse) and non-psychiatric concerns (e.g., intelligence, career interests) in a range of clinical, educational, organizational, forensic, and other settings. Assessment data may be gathered through interviews, observation, standardized tests, self-report measures, physiological or psychophysiological measurement devices, or other specialized procedures and apparatuses.”Assessment MethodsPsychologists use several techniques for assessment;Characteristics of a good testAll measuring instruments, be it a measuring tape, a bathroom scale, medical tests like  X-rays or blood tests, or a psychological test must follow certain basic scientific principles to be any useful.ValidityA psychological test is useful only to the extent to which it actually measures what it purports to measure. For example, a test measuring a stable personality trait should not be measuring transitory emotions generated by situational conditions.There are multiple statistical methods of establishing validity;ReliabilityThe extent to which any measuring device (including a psychological test) yields the same result each time it is applied to the same quantity. For example, the measuring tape should not measure your height differently when measured by two different people. It must be consistent. Several different methods exist for assessing a psychological test’s reliability;NormsYou would never compare scores of two students from, say grade 5 and grade 10, on a mathematics test. Clearly, that would be unfair. Similarly, psychological constructs are also relative in nature. For example, constructs like intelligence are not absolute, but measure standing of an individual relative to a group. Test norms consist of data that make it possible to determine the relative standing of an individual who has taken a test. By itself, a subject’s raw score (e.g., the number of answers that agree with the scoring key) has little meaning. Almost always, a test score must be interpreted as indicating the subject’s position relative to others in some group. Norms provide a basis for comparing the individual with a group.To ensure fairness, it is essential that the norms used to assess an individual are based on a population which is representative of that particular individual.Ethics of assessmentsPsychological tests serve many useful purposes such as selection, counselling, guidance, self-analysis, and diagnosis. Unless used by a trained practitioner, they may be misused either intentionally or unintentionally. A practitioner is expected to follow certain ethics (or moral principles) while conducting the tests.The future of psychological testingWhile telemedicine and digital tools have become increasingly common over the past few years, the COVID-19 pandemic has super-charged and accelerated the adoption of telepsychology. Practice management tools like help psychologists, therapists, social workers and counselors to conduct not just likert scale assessments like , , etc. but also digital tasks based assessments like and .Startups like and are beginning to provide game-based psychometric evaluations to assess attention, decision making, risk tolerance etc., for the hiring process. ‘Gamified’ assessments are more engaging than traditional psychometric tests.Further the use of artificial intelligence (AI), including facial recognition and text analysis software, in psychometric assessments are promising in supplementing a clinicians’ efforts to spot mental illnesses earlier and improve treatments for patients. Computers could be trained to analyse a variety of data – mobility, physical activity, facial expressions, sleep patterns, typing behavior, body language and more. Apple is already working on iPhone features to help detect depression and cognitive decline. Although promising, these technologies first need to be shown to be effective. Additionally, some experts are wary of bias and other ethical issues as well.

Team PsyPack

Mon Oct 04 2021