The protocol

Every platform we review goes through the same 90-day workflow. We sign up as a paying customer using a real practice email, complete vendor onboarding without preferential treatment, and then run a fixed set of tasks every week — schedule a session, collect intake forms, run a telehealth visit, generate a clinical note, send a superbill, handle a refund, process a no-show, run a group session, and export data.

We time every task to the second and document every point of friction. At the end of 90 days, two reviewers score the platform independently using the rubric below. We only publish a final score when both reviewers' numbers match within 0.2 points on every dimension.

The six dimensions

1. Ease of use (15% weight). Time-to-first-completed-task, intake-to-first-session friction, time spent in support chat during onboarding.

2. Feature depth (25% weight). Coverage of the workflows the platform claims to handle. Depth, not breadth — a great food journal beats a thin grab-bag of half-features.

3. Pricing value (15% weight). Total cost of ownership including add-ons, transaction fees, and the next-tier-up unlock point. We always test the recommended plan, not the cheapest one.

4. Customer support (15% weight). Response time, depth of answer, willingness to escalate. We file at least 3 support tickets per review using common practitioner questions.

5. Integrations (15% weight). Practical reach of integrations — calendar, payments, labs, telehealth, accounting. Quality of native integrations beats long API partner lists.

6. HIPAA & compliance (15% weight). BAA availability, encryption posture, data residency, audit logs, breach disclosure history.

What we don't do

We don't accept vendor-supplied review accounts. We don't take press accounts that are flagged as such in vendor admin panels. We don't run paid reviews, we don't sell ranking placements, and we don't accept gift hardware or services. We don't let vendors review drafts before publication — they can request a correction after publication if there's a factual error, and we'll mark the correction inline with a timestamp.

Updates and corrections

Healthcare software changes constantly. We re-test our top three platforms every 6 months and the full review list annually. When a vendor ships a major feature or pricing change, we add a dated update note to the top of the review. Corrections are marked inline with the date and brief description of what changed.