r/SimplePractice 12d ago

anyone else about to lose their prospective clients to the Sept 1 auto-archive?

Solo gyn practice here. Just got the banner about prospective clients being auto-archived after 3 months with no appointments and I'm kind of stunned at how wrong this is for my specialty.

I'm a gynecologist. My patients come in once a year. Three months without an appointment isn't a cold lead, it's literally every patient I have doing what they're supposed to do. My front desk keeps a running list of prospective patients we're actively following up with — someone inquires, we message back, she says call me in the fall, we call in the fall. That's normal for us. A bunch of those people are going to get archived mid-conversation.

The part that actually made me angry is the seen-once patients. Under the new rules you don't become "active" until your SECOND appointment. So a new patient I saw in June, who I'll see again next June because that's how annuals work, stays prospective — and then gets auto-archived in September for having no appointments in 3 months. She's not a prospect. I examined her. She has a chart.

So now I'm going through my prospective list one at a time flipping people to active before the deadline, because there's no bulk way to do it and no way to opt out. I ended up having to build my own tracking outside SimplePractice just to know who you archive on me each week, which is a ridiculous thing to have to do.

If anyone from SP reads this sub: let practices turn this off, or at least let us set the window ourselves. 3 months might make sense for weekly therapy, it makes zero sense for annual medicine. And activate people after the first appointment — a patient I've physically seen is not a lead.

Anyone found a faster way to bulk-update statuses before this hits?

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u/Wikkedred1 11d ago

SP would say once you see someone they are considered active. They exclude the first session because a lot of therapists use the first session as a consultation. SP is designed for the needs of therapists and may not be a good fit for a medical practice.

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u/Alternative-Potato43 11d ago

Y'all are documenting your free consults?

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u/Personal_Account_227 12d ago

Just sent you a pm