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Frequently Asked Questions

Subscription Plans

  • What kind of iCouch subscriptions are available?

    iCouch has two products. Connect is for practitioners that only need HIPAA-compliant videoconferencing and messaging. Connect does not include scheduling, payments, files, forms or documents, a therapist website, nor does it include tools to manage appointments. It’s a “minimal” iCouch designed specifically for practitioners that might use other practice management systems but want to use our simple online therapy system.

    Manage is the “everything” product. It includes unlimited use of all features. It also includes new features as they are released. Even if you aren’t planning to use a particular feature yet, Manage gives you the most options.

  • What are the subscription costs for solo practitioners?

    Connect for solo practitioners is $25 per month. Manage for solo practitioners is $40 per month. This is paid month to month with no minimum contract required. There are no set-up fees and premium support is included. You can also pay annually. Annual plans offer a substantial discount over monthly plans and are a good choice if you’re looking to save money and want the convenience of annual billing.

  • What are the subscription costs for organizations?

    Organization plans are billed based on the number of active practitioners in your account. As an account administrator, you can set your practitioners as “active” or “inactive.” This is not done automatically by the. system. Non-practitioner admins are free.

    Connect is $20 per active practitioner per month. Manage is $25 per active practitioner per month. If you add a new practitioner during your billing cycle, that will incur a prorated charge for the time remaining in that billing cycle. If you deactivate a practitioner during a billing cycle, no refund is given, however you will not be charged for that inactive practitioner for the next billing cycle.

    All organization accounts are billed for a minimum of 2 practitioners. Even if you only have 1 active practitioner, the minimum charge will be for 2 practitioners.

  • What is your refund policy?

    Refunds are only provided in the following situations:

    • You can ask for a full refund within the first 14 days of signing up for iCouch. For example, if you sign up for the free trial on December 1, you upgrade to a paid plan on December 5, you can ask for a refund of your fee until December 14. On December 16, no refunds will be provided.
    • A billing error.
    • In the event of a serious technical failure that results in you being unable to use the system, a full or partial refund of that month’s subscription fee may be provided at our discretion.

    The maximum refund amount in any circumstances will not exceed one month’s subscription fee. If you are an annual plan subscriber, the maximum refund amount will not exceed the fee you paid divided by 12.

  • Can I upgrade or downgrade my subscription?

    Yes. Just send us an email at support@icouch.me and we’ll be glad to help.

  • How hard is it to cancel?

    It’s simple. Send us an email at support@icouch.me and request a cancellation. You will not get a refund, unless your situation is covered by our refund policy, however, you will no longer be billed.

  • Can I “freeze” my subscription in case I want to come back later?

    Yes. You can request your subscription be frozen for up to three months. At the end of the “freeze” period, you normal billing will resume. Your data will be secure during that time, but you will not have access to your account unless you email us at support@icouch.me to unfreeze you early. You can’t freeze your account more than once per year.

    Account freezes are not available to organizations or annual plan subscribers.

  • Why are your prices so low (or high) compared to other systems?

    Our pricing reflects our costs of delivering the service, the cost of engineering, research and development and security. We don’t particularly care what the competition is charging or not charging. We want to offer the best product at price that enables us to continue to innovate while being as affordable as possible. However, with regard to competitor prices, we offer the best value when comparing our system feature-by-feature with the competition. For example, we don’t charge extra for premium support. We don’t charge setup fees and we don’t have complicated pricing structures based on usage. Our pricing is transparent and simple.

  • Do you offer student discounts?

    We do! If you are a student in a recognized degree program, contact us as support@icouch.me.

  • Can I get a discount if I don’t plan to use a particular feature?

    No.

  • Will iCouch ever raise prices?

    A better question is whether or not we’ll ever raising your prices after you become a subscriber. And the answer to that is no. If our prices change in the future, you will always maintain your current price for as long as you remain a subscriber.If you cancel and come back later, you will have to subscribe at whatever the current price is, however, we do NOT raise prices on existing customers. The price you pay today is the price you will always pay.

  • Are there any charges for clients or the client portal?

    No. Unlike some other systems, we don’t charge extra for your client portal and we don’t charge based on usage. It’s a flat rate that never changes. Client accounts are always free.

  • Do you charge extra if I want to use a custom domain?

    No. We’ll even help you set it up!

Therapist Website

  • What is the iCouch Therapist Website?

    It’s a website for your behavioral health practice. You can use it much like you would a traditional website, however it’s designed to be very simple to use with a layout designed specifically to make it easy for clients and potential clients to learn about your business, send you HIPAA-compliant messages and book appointments.

  • Can I use a custom domain?

    Yes. Contact us at support@icouch.me if you need help getting it set up or consult our help center article for detailed instructions on setting up your custom domain for your therapist website.

  • Does the therapist website have a blog feature?

    Yes.

  • Can I add videos or images to my therapist website?

    Yes. Easily.

  • How is the iCouch website different from TherapySites?

    1. We aren’t overcharging you. TherapySites costs more for just a website than the entire cost of using the iCouch system.
    2. Your website domain is secured using SSL (https://) — TherapySites does not use SSL and thus are not secure. See this article about SSL for therapists to learn more about why this is important.
    3. iCouch Messaging is HIPAA compliant. The TherapySites contact form is not only not HIPAA compliant, but the form does not even use SSL for security. This is a serious security and privacy risk to your clients. For example, if they’re at a Starbucks using public wifi and they submit a TherapySites form — the entire content of their submission can be visible to other users of that WiFi network. It’s a patient privacy nightmare. Remember, even an appointment request is consider Protected Health Information, so if you are using a TherapySites appointment request form, you are violating HIPAA.
    4. Design. Your iCouch therapist website is designed around one goal — to make it easy for clients and potential clients to take an action, whether that action is sending you a message or booking an appointment. TherapySites websites aren’t optimized around actually increasing your bookings and facilitating client communications.

  • I already have my own website, why should I care about the iCouch therapist website?

    You can use your existing site in concert with your iCouch site. For example, does your current site allow your clients to book appointments or send you HIPAA-compliant inquires? Probably not. What many practitioners do is they link their “Book an Appointment” button on their existing website to their iCouch site. This allows you the best of both worlds — you can continue using a website you probably spent a lot of time building while also taking advantage of the powerful features that are a part of your iCouch site. If you want to chat more about this, please reach out to us at support@icouch.me and we can suggest some strategies that have worked well for other practitioners. If you already have a good website, you can think of your iCouch site as an augmentation. It’s a supercharger of sorts to your existing site.

  • Do you have any examples of iCouch websites?

  • Can you help me set up my therapist website?

    Yes. Contact us at support@icouch.me

Calendar & Scheduling

  • What is the Public Calendar?

    When you have a published iCouch website, you also have a booking calendar with which new and existing clients can book sessions, this is called the Public Calendar.

  • How do I set up my Public Calendar?

    First, you will publish your iCouch website. After that you will add some appointment types as well as prices and durations for those appointment types. Next, you will add availability. These are days and time ranges within those days that you are available for appointment bookings. Finally, you will connect your bank account. This serves as both a verification tool as well as a means for you to collect payments for bookings made through your public calendar.

  • How does someone book an appointment on my Public Calendar?

    The visit your calendar page. They’ll then select the appointment type they want. Next, they’ll choose the duration. Finally, they’ll select a date and a time. Next, they can add additional sessions if they want or they can checkout.

  • How does the Public Calendar work?

    When a client selects an appointment type, that will then show the available durations for that specific appointment type. Then the resulting time slots are calculated based on your booking settings to show only available time slots. If a client sees a time slot, that means it’s available. The calendar is “smart” in that it calculates in real-time what slots are available to a client. There is no need to “request an appointment” — if a time slot is available, it can be booked.

  • How do booking settings work?

    Your iCouch booking settings are extremely powerful. You can read the details, along with example on our Support Center article “How the Booking Calendar Works.” But the basic idea is that you set rules such as how much time you want between appointments, how far in the future you want to allow bookings as well as how much advance notice you require. You can even specify the minimum payment percentage required for a booking. This can range from 0% in which no payment is required at the time of booking up to 100% which would require full payment at the time of booking. You stay in complete control: no last minute bookings (unless you want that,) no bookings 3 years from now (unless you want that,) and you can even specify how much break time you want between appointments. The Public Calendar uses these settings to show your clients only time slots that fit the rules. Once you’re set up, you don’t even have to think about it. Your bookings will always conform to your preferences.

  • Can I use iCouch like a paper calendar?

    Sure! Your Public Calendar is all about client self-booking, however your iCouch calendar works just like you would expect. You can manually add appointments, you can even color code appointment types as well. Your personal iCouch calendar is yours — the booking “rules” don’t apply to you.

  • Is there synchronization with Google Calendar?

    Yes! One of the problems with other systems’ synchronization is that it’s a one-way process: if you add an appointment in your system, it will show up on Google Calendar. However, what happens if you add an event in Google Calendar? The iCouch system is two-way, which means that anything you add to Google will automatically adjust your Public Calendar availability in iCouch. It will definitely make your life much easier and give you far more power than competing systems. If you use Mac or iOS, you can easily syncronize your Google Calendar to your iCal as well. And, all of this syncronization is HIPAA compliant!

  • Do you have appointment reminders?

    Yes. You can add one or more reminders to any appointment. If your client has consented to email notifications, they’ll get an email reminder at the designated time. If they have consented to SMS communications, they’ll also get an SMS notification. You must have client consent of the system will not send anything to a client via email or SMS.

  • How can clients see their upcoming appointments?

    They can sign in to their client account and see upcoming appointments.

  • What kinds of appointments can iCouch support?

    You can create appointment types with one of three possible modes:

    • Video
    • Messaging
    • In Person

  • Do clients have to have a credit or debit card to book appointments?

    If you require a 0% booking deposit, a client will not need a credit or debit card to book an appointment. If you require a booking deposit, a credit, debit or pre-paid credit card is required to book.

  • Do I have to use your payment system for the Public Calendar?

    To use the iCouch Public Calendar, you have to use our system. We can’t guarantee the security of other systems, especially since our system is HIPAA compliant.

Money

  • Can I accept credit cards with iCouch?

    Yes. When clients book using your public calendar, they can pay with a credit or debit card. Also, you can manually create credit card payments if the client is in your office. Finally, you can send invoices to clients which they can pay within their client portal using a credit card.

  • What are the credit card fees?

    3.5% + $0.30 per successful transaction.

  • What’s so good about your credit card system?

    The main benefit over using iCouch for your credit cards is that you can fully manage credit card payments right within iCouch. You can issue refunds for full or partial amounts and you also can track when payments have been transferred to your bank account. You don’t need a merchant account. You don’t need to buy a card reader. Additionally, we have powerful fraud-prevention technology that automatically alerts us to suspicious transactions and behaviors. You won’t ever have to deal with this directly, we are pro-actively working to ensure all charges are legitimate.

  • How long does it take for credit card payments to be deposited into my bank account?

    It’s generally 2-3 business days. If a charge is deemed higher risk, that could delay a payment by an additional business day. Most practitioners are seeing funds hit their accounts in 2 business days.

  • How are disputed credit card handled?

    In the event of a credit card dispute, there is a $15 fee automatically applied to your account. We will then contact and assist you in resolving the dispute. We’ll help you assemble documentation and we’ll submit that documentation on your behalf to the card issuing bank. If the dispute is resolved in your favor, the dispute fee is refunded. One of the additional benefits with iCouch is we will provide as much support as possible in the event something goes wrong with a charge. That would include providing relevant information to help you prove that the charge was legitimate. We can’t guarantee an outcome in the event of a credit card dispute, but we’re going to be there to help you win the dispute.

  • What is an Invoice?

    An invoice is a bill you can send to your clients. You can add items, qualities and prices. When you send it to a client, they can view and pay it within their client account.

  • Can iCouch track cash or check payments?

    Yes. You can enter these into the system just as easily as creating a credit card payment.

  • Can I add payments to invoices?

    Easily. You can apply all or part of a payment to one or many invoices.

  • Why do I need to connect my bank account to iCouch?

    This is a requirement if you want to use the public calendar or accept credit card payments. We need a place to send your money! Additionally, a connected bank account is an additional verification tool that helps us protect against fraudulent practitioners.

  • Can I use PayPal?

    Not through iCouch. You are free to use PayPal outside of our system, but we don’t, nor will we ever allow connectivity with PayPal through iCouch. You can read our blog article “PayPal for Therapists” as to why we don’t use or support PayPal on our system.

  • I already use Square, can I opt out of your payment system?

    If you want to use Square for your in-office transactions, you can certainly continue doing that. However for any payments that are coming through iCouch, you’ll have to use our system. But, you can definitely keep using Square for in-person payments if you choose to do so.

  • Can I process insurance claims on iCouch?

    Not yet. That feature will be coming soon.

  • Can I create superbills on iCouch?

    You can use our invoice system for that currently, however, we are soon going to be introducing a superbill feature that will make superbills incredibly easy. That feature will be coming soon.

  • Can I do insurance eligibility verification through iCouch?

    Not yet. That feature will be coming soon, along with insurance claims submission.

Clients

  • Is the client portal included with my iCouch subscription?

    Yes. And it’s awesome.

  • What features does the client portal have?

    Clients can see upcoming appointments, create and complete To Do list items, create, share and receive documents, forms and files, and pay invoices. They can even store personal files or create journal documents — all with HIPAA compliant security.

  • When I invite a client to iCouch, what happens?

    They’ll get an email inviting them to create a password. They click the link, create a strong password and they’re “in.”

  • Are there any limits to the number of clients I can invite?

    No.

  • Can I add clients but not invite them to the client portal?

    Yes.

  • Is the information of my clients used for marketing purposes?

    Never. iCouch is serious about security. We don’t use Protected Health Information for any purpose. It’s not only morally wrong, it’s illegal!

  • Can I use custom fields in my client records?

    Yes.

Documents, Files, and Forms

  • Can I store files in iCouch?

    Yes. You can store any kind of file within iCouch — in HIPAA compliant security.

  • Can I create documents in iCouch?

    Yes. iCouch has a document editor that works similar to a normal word processor.

  • Can I create forms in iCouch?

    Yes.

  • Can I share files, forms, and documents with clients?

    Yes. As long as they have a client portal account, you can share things with clients.

  • I have a lot of PDF or Word forms, can I use those in iCouch?

    Yes. However, if you want a client to be able to electronically complete or sign those forms, you will need to create the forms within the iCouch Form Template Manager. We know this can be a time-consuming process, so we offer a free service to paid subscribers — send us PDF or Word files of your forms and we will convert them to iCouch format and add them to your account. Contact us at support@icouch.me. This is a free service, however it’s only available to paid subscribers. If you don’t care about clients being able to electronically complete or sign the forms or documents, you can simply share the actual file with the client through iCouch.

  • Do you have a form library of example forms?

    Yes. You can visit the iCouch Form Library and easily copy forms into your account. Then you can customize and modify them to your requirements.

  • Does your system have electronic signatures?

    Yes.

Video

  • What are the minimum system requirements for a video session?

    For Mac, you need Chrome, Firefox or Safari version 11 or greater. For iOS, you need to be running iOS 11. For Android, any recent version of Chrome on Android will work. Essentially any device with updated software will work. Internet Explorer will not work, nor do we support Microsoft Edge. Of course, you’ll also need a webcam and microphone and a reasonable broadband internet connection.

  • How does a client join a video session?

    1. You create a link, share it with the client.
    2. They click and join. They do not need to be signed in, nor do they need a client portal account.

  • Does iCouch support group sessions?

    Yes. Up to 30 simultaneous participants. Though with a session that size, it does get a be crowded!

  • How do I do a group session?

    Create a link. Share that link with the participants. Everyone clicks and joins. It really is that simple.

  • Is iCouch video encrypted?

    Yes. It’s end-to-end encrypted.

  • Are sessions recorded? Can I record a session using iCouch?

    Sessions are never recorded, nor do we allow practitioners to record sessions through our system. There are other means by which you can record sessions, but definitely not using our system.

  • Does iCouch have an app? What do I need to download?

    There is no app. There are no downloads. Assuming you meet the minimum system requirements, you just click a link and join the session. No plugins, no apps, no downloads, no special equipment. iCouch works on any device that meets the minimum system requirements.

  • Is there a waiting room feature?

    Yes. You can upload images for a slide show, upload up to five music files or, alternatively provide up to five links to YouTube or Vimeo videos. You can even select a background color.

  • How can I improve video quality?

    Video quality is a function of available network bandwidth. If you or you client have issues with pixelation or other issues, the problem is almost always related to available network bandwidth. Closing unnecessary applications, especially streaming services such as Netflix, Spotify or other bandwidth-intensive applications is recommended. On faster connections, this is unnecessary, normal home broadband works great with iCouch, but like any video conferencing system, there must be a connection of reasonable quality. However, the iCouch system is smart enough that it will automatically scale video quality based on the available bandwidth. If bandwidth is too low, it will automatically fall back to an audio-only stream until the bandwidth improves.

Messaging

  • How does messaging work?

    If your client has a client portal account, you can have real-time chats with your client just like you would in a chatroom. However, the difference is that these chats are protected by HIPAA compliant security.

  • If I am not in the messaging session, what happens when I get a new message?

    You will get an email notification for new messages. If you enable SMS alerts within your account, you can also get an SMS alert to a new message.

  • Can I do group messaging?

    Yes. You can have a conversation with multiple clients in the same chat if you want. Essentially it’s the text version of a group session.

  • Emojis?

    Yes.

Customer Service & Support

  • Is support included in my subscription fee?

    Yes. World class support. This means you don’t wait days for answers, if it takes us longer than a few hours, that’s not acceptable to us. Most support queries are answered within a few minutes, even on weekends and holidays.

  • Is onboarding help provided?

    Yes. As much as you need.

  • Is there phone support? Is there someone I can call?

    Yes. We don’t publish our phone number, however if you reach out to us at support@icouch.me we can schedule a call. Paid customers will have access to a direct support phone number.

  • Why don’t you publish your phone number?

    We’re a small team. When we had a published phone number, the majority of calls are from people trying to sell us something. We also want to ensure that paid subscribers who do need our help are always able to get a person who can help on the phone right away. We don’t want critical support requests being delayed because a salesperson wants to sell us something.

    We LOVE talking to our users and we’ll gladly schedule a call with any of our users (or prospective users) to answer questions or provide technical support, but it’s much more efficient for both you and us for initial requests to come via email at support@icouch.me. This ensures that the right person is available to solve the problem or answer the questions. Inquiries are received immediately and they are immediately assigned to the most relevant person who can help.

  • Will you provide technical support to my clients?

    They are always welcome to reach out at support@icouch.me for any questions they may have. We’re happy to schedule calls with your clients if needed to solve technical issues. We’re not only there for you, we’re there for your clients as well.

Organizations

  • How does an organization account differ from a solo account?

    Organization accounts use a single bank account for all practitioners. Organization accounts also can have admin users. Admin users can add other users, view bank transfers as well as view all clients within the account. Additionally, admin users can create To Do list items and assign them to other users within the account. Admins can also manage the calendar and appointments of practitioners. Admin users can also see all non-private documents, forms and files within the account. Admin users also can assign clients to specific practitioners.

    iCouch for Organizations also has a team chat feature. Using iCouch Messaging members of the same organization can have 1-on-1 as well as group chats with other members of their organization.

  • How does the organization website work?

    Each practitioner in an organization account gets their own therapist website, just like in solo accounts. In addition, the organization has a website as well. Admins can edit this website as well as include practitioners on the organization site. Scheduling and messaging is done through the individual practitioner pages.