How to Set Up and Customize Your Client Portal

Role Required: Practice Administrator

Every TherapyNotes account includes a free client portal that you can customize to suit the needs of your practice. Your custom client portal is located at TherapyPortal.com, a TherapyNotes owned, operated, and secured website. Your client portal allows clients to view when clinicians are available for appointments; request to schedule, reschedule, and cancel appointments; view their upcoming appointments; join telehealth sessions; and review, sign, or complete documents and forms electronically; and make credit and debit card payments.

All functionality on the client portal is optional, allowing you to choose how your clients and visitors to your portal can interact with your practice online. TherapyPortal allows you to be responsive and flexible with scheduling requests, facilitate a paperless intake process, and even meet with your clients remotely.

Once enabled, you can customize what services are available to visitors to your client portal. Once your client portal is ready to go, be sure to invite your clients to create their own portal accounts. To learn more, read How to Manage Client Portal Access.

Step 1: Enable Your Client Portal

To enable TherapyPortal for your practice:

Click the User Icon > Settings > Client Portal
Select the Enable your client portal checkbox.
Click the Save Portal Settings button.

Step 2: Make Staff Available for Appointment Requests

In order for visitors to your client portal to schedule and manage appointments, you must make clinicians in your practice available for scheduling on your client portal. Clinicians who are available for scheduling on the portal must have a work schedule set up.

To make clinicians available on your portal:

Click Staff > Staff Name > Work Schedule tab
Verify that the user has a work schedule set. Work schedules are required to allow clients to view a clinician's availability on your client portal. To learn more, read How to Set Up Work Schedules.
Click anywhere on the Client Portal Scheduling box to edit.

Select the Allow patients to utilize client portal features... checkbox to make the clinician available on the portal.
If desired, select the Email <User> notifications about appointment requests for him/her checkbox to notify the clinician of requests made for them on the portal.
Click the Save Work Schedule button.

Non-clinical users such as Practice Schedulers and Practice Administrators can also opt-in to receive email notifications about appointment requests for the practice.

To allow schedulers to receive email notifications about appointment requests:

Click Staff > Staff Name > Work Schedule tab
Select the Email <User> notifications about all appointment requests for the practice checkbox.
Click the Save Work Schedule button.

For a list of clinicians who are available on TherapyPortal for scheduling and users who are set up to receive email notifications for appointments, click the User Icon > Settings > Client Portal and refer to the User Settings section. Here, you can also configure your own portal settings under My Portal Settings.

Step 3: Choose How Clients Use Your Portal

You choose how your current and potential clients can schedule appointments online and if your client portal can be used for sharing documents with clients and accepting online payments. When you upload documents to share, you can decide whether the documents need to be electronically signed, completed and sent back to your practice, or simply reviewed.

To set up scheduling on your portal:

Click the User Icon > Settings > Client Portal

Under Practice Scheduling Settings, choose who can view available appointments, who can request appointments, who can cancel and reschedule appointments, and how far in advance appointments can be scheduled, cancelled or rescheduled
You can customize client permissions to Nobody, Anyone, Logged in Clients Only, and Existing Clients.
• Nobody – no patient access/visibility in the portal.
• Anyone - anyone with access to your portal link can review and request appointments, no login required.
• Logged in Clients Only – the client has created a portal account but has not established if they have had prior appointments.
• Existing Clients – for clients who have already had appointments and will connect them to similar appointment types.
To customize the instructions provided to visitors when scheduling, cancelling, or rescheduling appointments, enter your custom instructions in the New Appointment Instructions and Cancellation Policy fields.
Click the Save Portal Settings button.

To set up document sharing:

Click the User Icon > Settings > Client Portal
Under Document Sharing Settings, select Allow documents to be shared with patients via the client portal.
Click the Save Portal Settings button.

To enable payments:

Click the User Icon > Settings > Client Portal
Under Portal Payment Settings, select the Allow clients to make payments on the portal checkbox.
Click the Save Portal Settings button.

The practice must be enrolled in credit card processing services to accept payments through the portal. Read more about payments on the portal.

Step 4: Customize Your Portal

TherapyPortal features a variety of configurable settings to help your client portal fit your practice's brand and style. You're able to customize the welcome message on your client portal to provide specific instructions based on whether a visitor is logged in or not, and you can choose from a variety of color themes for your portal to match your brand.

To customize the welcome message on your portal:

Click the User Icon > Settings > Client Portal

Under Customize Your Client Portal, enter your custom welcome message for visitors who are not logged into the portal in the Before clients log in, they will see: field. Enter your custom welcome message for logged-in visitors in the After clients log in, they will see: field.
Click the Save Portal Settings button.

To change your portal's color theme:

Click the User Icon > Settings > Client Portal
Under Customize Your Client Portal, click the Change Portal Design button.
If you have a practice logo uploaded in TherapyNotes, TherapyNotes will recommend color themes that complement your brand. Click on any of the theme colors to generate a preview of the theme under Preview.
When you're happy with your chosen color theme, click the Save Portal Settings button.

Next Steps

Once your client portal is ready to go, click the User Icon > Settings > Client Portal, copy the code provided under Link to Your Client Portal, and paste the code into your website's source code to add a link to your portal to your website.

Be sure to invite your existing clients to your client portal so that they can take advantage of this convenient tool. To learn how to manage the appointment requests that you receive through your client portal, read How to Approve or Deny Appointment Requests.

You may begin sharing documents with your clients via TherapyPortal as soon as your portal and document sharing are enabled, and they will receive an email each time you share a document with them to complete. For more information on sharing documents, read How to Share Documents With Clients.