For couples and family therapists
An EHR built for couples and family therapy
Practice Harbor is an EHR for couples and family therapists that treats the couple or family as its own chart, and it costs $19 a month for a licensed solo clinician or nothing for pre-licensed clinicians. The couple has its own notes, diagnosis, treatment plan, and billing, while each partner or family member keeps a personal chart.
Nothing is copied between charts, so records do not drift. You pick a primary client for insurance and a guarantor for payment, and every member gets their own portal account for paperwork and telehealth.
Price
Licensed clinicians in solo practice pay $19 a month and pre-licensed clinicians use Practice Harbor free, with couples and family charts included on every plan. Practices with a team pay $39 a month.
One chart for the relationship, one for each person
Create a couple or family from the New Client drawer, adding new people or reusing existing clients. A family can be any size from two people up, such as a parent and child. The group profile shows its members, balance, upcoming sessions, and files, and each member’s own profile shows which couples or families they belong to.
A client can belong to more than one group, for example couples work and a separate family unit. Deactivating a group ends it without deleting anything: the group chart, its billing history, and each member’s record are preserved.
Notes written for conjoint sessions
Notes for the couple or family start from the group profile and file on the group’s chart, not on any one member’s. Couples Therapy and Family Therapy note templates capture the interaction and each participant rather than a single-client narrative, and AI drafting works from a recording, dictation, or a few typed lines. You review and sign every note.
The group has its own diagnosis and treatment plan area. A measure you send to one partner, such as a PHQ-9, lands on that partner’s individual record, so individual scores and conjoint notes stay separate.
Billing and insurance for a conjoint session
A couples or family session is billed once. The primary client carries the diagnosis on claims and superbills, and the guarantor is responsible for payment. If you change the primary client, the change applies going forward and existing notes and claims are not rewritten.
The group has its own default service, up to four default modifiers, and a default rate that fill in when you schedule. Custom service rates let you set a group rate, such as a sliding-scale couples fee.
Intake, messaging, and telehealth for every member
Share Documents walks through the group member by member. Each person gets their own selection of questionnaires, consents, and measures, visible only in their own portal account. Two partners who share one inbox still get separate portal profiles.
- Messaging: a group conversation reaches every active member at once, and individual conversations with each person stay private.
- Telehealth: everyone joins one video room from their own portal, from separate locations or one shared device, and you admit the whole waiting room at once.
- Session notes from a recorded couples or family video session use your couples or family template and file on the shared chart.
Minors and guardians
Each parent or guardian is a contact with their own portal login and five separate permissions: view appointments, request appointments, message, see billing documents, and pay. Separated parents can each get their own login with different access. Paperwork for a minor member routes to the guardian, and consent forms record the guardian as the signer.
Guardian portal access ends automatically on the client’s 18th birthday, as long as a date of birth is on the chart.
Where Practice Harbor is not the right fit
- If you want each partner’s individual chart to receive a copy of every conjoint note, that is not how Practice Harbor works. Conjoint notes live on the group’s chart by design.
- Couple and family group message threads are text-only. File attachments work in individual client conversations.
- A member without an email address cannot receive portal paperwork until one is added.
Common questions
How should an EHR handle couples therapy notes?
In Practice Harbor, the couple has its own chart and conjoint notes file there rather than on either partner’s individual record. Each partner keeps a personal chart for individual measures, individual sessions, and their own paperwork. Nothing is copied between charts, so there is one authoritative note for each conjoint session, written with a Couples Therapy template that captures the interaction between partners.
Whose insurance is billed for a couples session?
The primary client’s. Their diagnosis carries the claim, and the guarantor covers what insurance does not. A couples session is one service billed once, so submitting it to both partners’ plans, or alternating between plans, is treated by payers as fraud. If one partner also sees you individually, those separate sessions bill to their own insurance as usual.
Can each partner join a telehealth session from a different place?
Yes. Each member opens their own client portal and clicks Join Session, from separate devices in separate locations or together on one device. Arrivals collect in your waiting room, and Admit All brings everyone in at once. With two or more people in the call, the video area becomes a labeled grid so you can see everyone.
How do guardians get access in family therapy?
Each guardian is added as a contact on the child’s record with their own email and their own portal login. Five permissions are set per guardian: viewing appointments, requesting appointments, messaging, billing documents, and paying. Separated parents can each have a login with different access. Guardian access ends automatically when the client turns 18, provided a date of birth is recorded.
Can I import my couples clients from another EHR?
Yes. Practice Harbor’s EHR import brings in client demographics, notes, treatment plans, and documents from a previous EHR’s export, including couples. Couples and family groups import in a second pass after individual clients, so shared records land on profiles that already exist. If your EHR is not in the import list, you can email the export to support and we will import it for you.
How it works, step by step
- Couples and family therapy
- Telehealth for couples and families
- Minor clients and guardians
- Contacts and guardians
Related reading
- Couples therapy notes: what to document
- Family therapy notes
- Treating minors: consent and records
- Informed consent template
- Discover your negative cycle (couples exercise)
Practice Harbor for other practices
Licensed clinicians in solo practice pay $19 a month and pre-licensed clinicians use Practice Harbor free, with couples and family charts included on every plan. Practices with a team pay $39 a month.
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