The three questions
The right EHR for a solo practitioner depends on the intersection of three things:
- What kind of practice do you run? Talk therapy, nutrition, physical therapy, massage, integrative medicine, coaching, or general medical.
- Do you bill insurance, or are you cash-pay only? This decides 50% of the choice on its own.
- What's your monthly budget for software? Realistic ranges: free, $30-60/mo, $60-100/mo, $100+/mo.
Decision tree
Path A — Talk therapy / counseling, billing US insurance
Pick SimplePractice. The native US insurance claim handling, ERA posting, supervisor sign-off workflow, and pre-built DAP/SOAP/BIRP templates are best-in-class for this practice type. Budget: ~$69/mo at the Essential tier.
Path B — Nutrition, functional medicine, integrative practice
Pick Practice Better. The protocol library, lab integrations (Rupa, DUTCH, Evexia), food journaling with macro detection, and group program support fit this practice type better than anything else on the market. Budget: ~$59/mo at the Professional tier.
Path C — Registered dietitian, billing in-network insurance
Pick Healthie. Best-in-class for Medicare MNT and commercial in-network billing for RDs. Pricier than alternatives ($99/mo at the Plus tier where the platform actually shines), but the billing reliability pays for itself within a few months.
Path D — Cash-pay only, just starting out, want zero spend
Pick Carepatron. The free tier is genuinely usable indefinitely — unlimited clients, real charting, AI note drafting, telehealth, and superbills all included. Upgrade to Professional ($29/mo) when you want to remove Carepatron branding from client-facing emails.
Path E — Multi-disciplinary clinic (even if you're solo right now but expanding)
Pick Jane App. Strong scheduling engine, clean modern UI, good for clinics that handle rooms, equipment, and recurring patient series. Pricier ($79/mo for Practice tier), but if you're already adding a second practitioner, the architecture pays off.
What to actually test during your free trial
Most practitioners blow through free trials looking at the dashboard and the booking widget. That's the wrong test. During a free trial, you should:
- Time yourself completing a SOAP note from scratch. If it takes more than 8 minutes, the platform is wrong for you.
- Run a real telehealth session with a friend acting as a patient. Check audio, video, and how the link arrives on their phone.
- File a support ticket with a small specific question. Measure how long the response takes. This number predicts your future frustration level better than any feature comparison.
- Generate a superbill or a claim and check that the codes are formatted correctly.
- Export all your data. If the export is hard now, switching away will be much harder later.
What doesn't matter as much as people think
The booking widget aesthetic. Patients book on whatever you put in front of them. Don't pick an EHR over a competing platform because the booking page is prettier.
The AI features. Most AI note drafting is now competitive across platforms. It's a feature, not a deciding factor.
Integrations you'll never use. Long integration partner lists are marketing assets, not buyer signal. The 3-5 integrations you'll actually use are usually all available on every platform.
How to switch later if you change your mind
Demographics and basic client records transfer cleanly via CSV between most platforms. Notes and superbills usually don't transfer without manual work. The realistic switching cost is one weekend of grunt work plus 2-4 weeks of "where is this button" frustration. Worth it only if the new platform is meaningfully better at something you actually do.
Bottom line
Don't optimize for the "best" platform — optimize for the right platform for your practice type. The mistake most practitioners make is picking the most popular EHR (often SimplePractice) when their practice would be better served by something else. Match your billing model and your discipline first; everything else is downstream.