As a blended care practitioner, there’s no end of telehealth software to choose from when you’re growing your online business. With all the great solutions designed to optimize, enhance, and streamline your practice, it can be tough to make the right choice.
Cliniko is one such telehealth service, combining a suite of virtual care and practice management tools to automate daily tasks and centralize your patient records – but is it right for you?
Keep reading to learn more about the different features in our Cliniko review and how it looks on the inside, as we test drive the software with the platform’s free trial.
Features of Cliniko
Among its many practice management and mental healthcare features, Cliniko offers appointment scheduling, HIPAA-compliant communications, billing, and real-time reporting.
The table below gives a full overview of the Cliniko features available, which unlike many solutions, are included in all subscription levels.
Feature | Yes/No | Details |
| Practice Management | ||
| Appointment Scheduling | ✓ | Supports group sessions, individual appointments, recurring appointments, as well as flexible viewing and new client registration through the calendar. |
| Billing & Invoicing | ✓ | Medical billing is not included, however, Cliniko supports invoices, online payments, taxes, refunds, prepayments, and more. Billing and payment information sync with patient profiles, and it is possible to create custom-branded email invoices for digital issuing. |
| Insurance Claims Management | ╳ | |
| Note-taking and Document Management | ✓ | Custom notes supported, as well as easy-to-use drag and drop templates, treatment notes, uploading, and SMS notifications. |
| Multiple Providers | ✓ | Standard solo practitioner and multi-provider subscriptions for unlimited locations, file storage, and users. |
| Practice Management Reports | ✓ | Includes financial reporting, patient reports, and other data exports. |
| Inventory Management | ╳ | |
| Mental Healthcare | ||
| Client Portal | ╳ | |
| E-Prescriptions | ╳ | |
| EMR/EHR | ✓ | |
| Custom Forms | ✓ | Secure patient forms can be built from templates and shared with patients prior to telehealth sessions, e.g. appointment confirmation forms, therapy intake forms, informed consent documents, etc. |
14 Advantages and Disadvantages
According to Cliniko customers, the software is easy to navigate and simple to learn. We found the same but also agreed that it lacked some functionality compared to other practice and client management solutions we’ve tested.
In this table, you’ll find the key pros and cons of Cliniko summarized.
Advantages | Disadvantages |
Practice Management | |
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| Mental Healthcare | |
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Target Audience and Pricing
While it allows for telehealth sessions with a limited number of participants, Cliniko is best as a telehealth solution for the management of smaller- to medium-sized practices that need neither prescriptions nor medical billing.
Its functions and features make it great for:
- Telepsychologists
- Mental health coaches
- e-Counselors, and
- Non-prescribing mental health practitioners.
A Look at its Integrations and Apps
Cliniko can be integrated with Facebook to enable online bookings through the social media platform, as well as with MailChimp for marketing, client engagement, and health outreach programs. For users with an existing accounting system, Cliniko is compatible with Xero.
This makes it a convenient tool for smaller e-clinics, private practices, and solo practitioners that conduct most of their client relationship management activities in-house.
Cliniko Pricing
One positive element to Cliniko’s pricing is that all packages come with full access to the software’s features, SMS credit not included.
Users can thus opt for a monthly subscription, based on how many providers will be using the system:
- Solo practitioner: €39/month
- 2-5 providers: €79/month
- 6-8 providers: €129/month
- 9-12 providers: €169/month
- 13-25 providers: €259/month
- 26-200 providers: €349/month
Alternatives to Cliniko (Comparison Chart)
Artificial Intelligence and scheduling software that mental healthcare practitioners consider alongside Cliniko include Nookal, Power Diary, CorePlus, Front Desk AI (now True Lark), and Jane AI (now Capacity).
In the table below, we take a peek at how these software solutions compare, side by side.
Cliniko | Nookal | Power Diary | CorePlus | Front Desk/True Lark | Jane/Capacity | |
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| Pricing | Starts at $45+/month | Starts at £25/month (GBP) | Starts at $5+/month | Starts at $5/month | Starts at $230/month | Starts at $74/month |
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Case Study Review
Cliniko offers a free 30-day trial without any credit card information required. We used this trial to test the software’s practice management and mental healthcare features from the perspective of a small teletherapy clinic with multiple providers.
Practice Management
While the software offered a useful Getting Started guide, as well as an extensive resource library, we found things easy to navigate right away with a very intuitive user interface.
Dashboard options included:
- Appointments: Both on-site and telehealth sessions for up to 3 clients are supported
- Patients: Here, Cliniko’s EHR capabilities include centralized electronic health records – though not as in-depth as some other providers, e.g. ICANotes
- Invoices: Bulk billing and individual invoices can be created here, and automatically appear in patient records
- Payments
- Products: e.g. Pharmaceutical products, equipment
- Expenses
- Contacts: e.g. Third-party suppliers
- Communications: A centralized hub with an overview of all communications
- Reports: Including appointment reports, patient, transaction, practitioner, and marketing reports, and
- Settings: Where we added new providers, suppliers, edited billing information, and controlled different access settings (e.g. turn on online bookings).
Calendar Management
First, we tested Cliniko’s scheduling features by entering customers into its database using the CSV Import Feature. Seconds later, we were able to begin scheduling appointments with existing clients directly in the calendar.
Quick and simple to do, we were also able to enter new patient information by creating an upcoming appointment.
In the Settings panel, we could also create new appointment types, such as Group Therapy, and Telehealth Sessions, which support up to 3 patients at a time.
Unfortunately, testing Cliniko’s Telehealth Sessions requires a credit card and is not part of the free trial.
As the main practitioner, we were able to view all providers’ appointments, as could all the other providers in our e-clinic.
When an appointment was scheduled, rescheduled, or canceled for one of our psychologists, Cliniko offered the option of updating them via SMS or email, saving us the hassle of email back-and-forths.
Billing and Payments
Creating an invoice manually was extremely straightforward with the software pre-populating different fields to produce an email-friendly or printable PDF. From the Billings tab, Cliniko also enables bulk billing and thus claims for medical insurance providers once the software is integrated with Medipass.
For smaller providers, however, invoice creation only takes a few seconds and takes the user directly to the Payments function to streamline the invoicing process very conveniently. We could also accept pre-payments for services yet to be delivered.
Cliniko also allows for some basic inventory management in that products and costs can be added (e.g. medicine, equipment), and entered as Expenses for easier reporting – at the end of a period, or on demand.
Reporting
The platform can also be used to generate:
- Patient Reports: Such as scheduled, missed, or uninvoiced sessions. Some client relationship management features here include reports of patient birthdays and stats on clients without upcoming appointments.
- Transaction Reports: Including Practice Revenue, Expenses, and Outstanding Invoices.
- Practitioner Reports: E.g. Performance and Revenue statistics, and
- Marketing Reports: Where we could get an overview of appointments, patients, and referral sources.
Mental Healthcare
Our next goal was to see how helpful the platform would be as a mental healthcare solution.
Treatment Plans and Case Creation
With some care management features, Cliniko can be used to create patient ‘cases,’ or digital profiles containing each client’s details, notes, referrals, and recurring appointments.
As well as viewing their invoice history, payments, appointments, treatment progress notes, and message history, we were able to upload files to our test patient’s case to centralize several administrative and medical information together.
Unlike some more comprehensive behavioral software systems, however, Cliniko does not support the creation of detailed treatment plans.
Forms, Notes, and Templates
The platform offers two standard templates – Initial Consultation and Standard Consultation, but also supports Customized Forms and Treatment Note Templates. Our custom forms could also be shared with or added to Appointments for patients to be filled before a session.
One positive worth mentioning was that we found Cliniko’s knowledge bank extremely helpful as we learned to navigate the software. Inside the dashboard, Cliniko also provides a helpful link to a community forum and live support during business hours.
5 Customer Reviews
The most positive responses regarding Cliniko concerned its ease of use; users described it as taking very little time to learn:
“The system is so simple to use in comparison to other systems (a couple of the others made my head spin). One can install Cliniko and be using it effectively an hour, or so later.” – Capterra
Its calendar management and appointment scheduling features were also straightforward and efficient:
“I like the ease of rescheduling appointments and how easy it is to schedule appointments in general.” – Capterra
Others reported some technical problems with integrations, as well as appointment reminders:
“The integration with the accounting software Xero isn’t fantastic. It syncs one way only so any changes to the invoice in Cliniko don’t get reflected automatically in Xero. The finance features are basic…The automatic SMS to patients to remind them of their appointment is a hit and miss.” – Getapp.com
Another issue was that some would have preferred the capability to accept online client payments:
“If it could manage subscriptions and allow routine ‘ in-app’ payment that would be perfect.” – Getapp.com
But when it came to customer support, clients were generally satisfied, feeling that staff were responsive and the knowledge base was highly valuable:
“Customer service is second to none, with online replies in your inbox within an hr or so.” – Capterra
Conclusion
Within a few hours, we could quickly see how Cliniko could add significant value to a smaller healthcare practice or e-clinic, simply by automating routine tasks and cutting down on potential administration errors.
One of the most positive features, in our eyes, was the way Cliniko consolidated administrative and health data on individual patients into a single easy-access patient profile. Here, we could switch seamlessly between patient histories and the treatment notes we had created for an efficient, integrated overview of our clients’ records.
While it lacks the full functionality of more specialty-specific platforms, with no e-prescriptions or Client Portal, it does allow for telehealth video sessions in real-time – even for smaller groups. In this sense, it straddles the line between being a full-blown telemedicine solution and performing very well as an appointment-scheduling software.
With the introduction of more marketing tools besides MailChimp integration and performance reports, Cliniko could be a powerful system for medium- to large providers. As it stands, in our eyes, it is a good option for solo practitioners and smaller practices looking to try out blended care software for the first time.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for an easy-to-navigate, yet cost-effective solution to your practice management needs, Cliniko subscriptions cater to a wide variety of practice needs and sizes. With all features available at all pricing tiers, there’s no chance of paying for more than you need.
Perhaps its most redeeming features are Cliniko’s intuitive interface, consolidated patient profiles, and the platform’s well-stocked knowledge base of helpful articles, which make familiarizing yourself with the software much easier. As many customer reviews suggest, it’s possible to understand and utilize the system’s functions within the space of a few hours.
At the end of the day, however, it’s best to start with a needs-based list of what your practice requires when you’re on the hunt for your ideal software. Do Cliniko’s features and functions meet your needs as a provider?
