What families expect from a therapy parent portal: a buyer guide for clinic owners

Start from the questions a family brings

Think of a portal as answering five questions. Build your evaluation around them rather than around a feature list, and notice that each one also needs a decision from the clinic.

Decide who in the family sees what

Families are not one person. A child may have two households, a grandparent who drives to sessions, or a guardian who only handles invoices. Ask any vendor whether access is set per guardian and per child, and whether the clinic can remove access immediately.

In TherapyCRM, families join by invitation from the practice. For each linked guardian and child, the practice chooses four access levels: Clinical (updates, home program, documents, forms and progress), Photos and video, Billing (invoices, payment plans and packages) and Scheduling (request visits, report unavailable dates, ask to move or cancel). Visits, attendance history and secure messages are included. Arrival and pickup notices require a matched guardian and respect custody restrictions, and a practice can turn a level off for a custody-restricted or billing-only guardian. Removing a guardian’s access to a child takes effect immediately and leaves their sign-in working for any other children linked to it.

• Which guardians get which levels for each child.
• Who records custody restrictions, and who updates them.
• Whether a billing-only guardian should see any clinical information.
• Who removes access when a family’s circumstances change.

Visits: today, upcoming and changes

Families need to know where the schedule stands. They expect today’s visit to say what stage it has reached, and they expect to ask for a change without phoning the front desk.

In the Family app, the Visits tab shows upcoming and past visits, requests and attendance history. Today’s visit moves through checked in, in session, ready for pickup and picked up. A family can request a visit, ask to cancel or move one, or report dates when the child is unavailable, with a note for the care team. These are requests: staff approve or decline each one, so tell families what happens next and how long it usually takes.

Messages and updates: set the response-time promise

A portal that lets families message the team creates an expectation of an answer. Decide the clinic’s response window and say it in the invitation, because software cannot supply staffing.

TherapyCRM Family has secure messages to the care team with attachments, practice announcements and care updates. Photo and video consent must be granted for a child before staff can add or publish media in an update, and the app lets a guardian whose authority the clinic has confirmed allow or stop photos and video for that child. Families can add comments and reactions to updates. Staff decide what is posted.

Progress and home practice

Families want to know whether the work is helping, and many are asked to practise at home. Decide what the clinic is willing to share, how often and in what words. A chart without context can mislead, and clinical interpretation stays with clinicians.

In TherapyCRM Family, the Progress screen shows the goals the care team has shared, with the latest measurement, the target and a chart. Until a plan is published it says that no goals have been shared yet. Home practice lists activities to try between visits, and a family can log an activity, rate how it went from 1 to 5 and leave a note for the care team.

Forms, documents and invoices

Families expect to complete forms on a phone, sign documents, read what the team shares and pay an invoice without a trip to the front desk. Check that signing works on a phone and that the clinic controls what appears.

TherapyCRM Family supports assigned forms with attachments, shared documents that a family can sign with a typed or drawn signature, and invoices, payment plans and session packages. A family can pay an invoice balance through the practice’s online checkout, which opens a payment processor’s page, so card details are not entered in the app. Invoices shown in the app are for services from the practice and are paid to the practice.

The privacy details families notice

Parents hand over information about their child, and they notice how an app behaves. Test these on a real phone with a fictional family.

• Notifications: Family asks for notification permission once after sign-in and starts with quiet delivery. The notification text is general and carries no names, so the Lock Screen shows nothing about a child.
• App Switcher: the app covers its content while it is inactive or in the background, so the App Switcher snapshot does not show a child’s information.
• Inactivity: the app signs a family out after 15 minutes without use.
• Consent: photos and video need consent on file for that child, which a guardian the clinic has recognized can change in the app.
• Account deletion: a family can delete its own app account under More, then Account. The practice’s care records stay with the practice.
• Tracking: the app declares no tracking in its Apple privacy manifest and shows no ads.

Questions for any vendor, and what TherapyCRM Family does not do

Put these questions to every portal you shortlist. The right-hand column shows how TherapyCRM Family answers each.

Limits to state plainly to families

TherapyCRM Family runs on iPhone and iPad. It needs an active TherapyCRM practice account and an invitation from the practice, and it shows information that the clinic chooses to share. Invited families can also use the family portal in a web browser. It is separate from government and school portals and from AccessOAP, does not submit insurance or government claims, including Ontario Autism Program claims, and has no telehealth or video visits. TherapyCRM serves English-language practices in Canada outside Quebec.

Frequently asked questions