Practice Model
Individual Consultation
How to use an individual consultation case for one clinician or professional receiving consultation services, with consultation appointments, invoices, payments, messages, documents, and consultation notes.
Use individual consultation for one clinician or professional receiving consultation from the provider.
The consultation client is a client of the professional consultation service. They are receiving consultation rather than psychotherapy in this context.
Use individual consultation when the work should support scheduling, billing, secure communication, consultation-specific documents and forms, and consultation notes without psychotherapy-specific workflows such as diagnosis, treatment plans, insurance claims, or superbills.
Individual consultation uses a parallel non-clinical setup. Consultation clients cannot be assigned a diagnosis, cannot use insurance-eligible therapy services, and should not receive psychotherapy-facing clinical documents. Use consultation services, consultation agreements, consultation-specific forms, and consultation notes instead.
What individual consultation supports
An individual consultation case can support:
- consultation appointments
- consultation invoices
- payments and automatic payment collection
- receipts
- secure messages and emails
- consultation agreements or other consultation-specific forms
- consultation notes
- client portal access when appropriate
The case gives the consultation relationship a stable home, even though only one consultation client is involved.
Create an individual consultation
To create one:
- Open Contacts.
- Choose New client or case.
- Select Individual consultation.
- Add a new consultation client or choose an existing contact if the person is already in your contacts.
- Review the details and create the case.
After creation, use the case for scheduling, billing, messaging, documents, and consultation notes.
Scheduling
Schedule consultation appointments from the calendar or from the case.
When type-specific language is shown, use consultation wording such as “consultation appointment.” This keeps the appointment distinct from psychotherapy sessions.
Associate supervision
Individual consultation can be used for one-on-one supervision of an associate. In that setup, the associate is the consultation client, not a client receiving therapy.
Use the individual consultation case to schedule supervision meetings, send consultation-specific documents, collect any needed agreement, and keep consultation notes about the supervision relationship. This is separate from the associate’s therapy cases, client diagnoses, CPT-coded client services, and supervisor review of client progress notes.
Billing and payments
Individual consultation uses invoices and receipts by default.
Use consultation language on invoice line items where possible, such as:
- Individual consultation
- Professional consultation session
- Consultation services
- Clinical supervision
In Settings → Services, use Consultation service for individual consultation, practice consulting, supervision, and other paid professional consultation work. If the service is a free intake call or a paperwork-only item, use No-charge or administrative item instead.
Payments and automatic payment collection can be used when the consultation client has agreed to that billing workflow.
If your practice uses a Clinical Supervision service for associate supervision, you can create it from Settings → Services as needed. A setup template is available, and the fee can be set according to your professional agreement and practice policy. The fee can be zero when supervision is included in employment, contractor, or training arrangements, or it can be billed according to the practice’s supervision policy.
Do not use superbills by default for individual consultation. Consultation services are professional services, not psychotherapy reimbursement workflows.
Notes
Use Consultation notes for individual consultation.
Consultation notes should not require diagnosis, CPT, treatment plans, mental status exam, or psychotherapy-specific metadata.
Useful consultation note sections may include:
- consultation focus
- topics discussed
- guidance or recommendations
- follow-up items
- ethics or risk considerations, if relevant
- administrative notes
Documents and agreements
If your practice uses documents or forms for consultation, prefer consultation-specific materials such as a consultation agreement instead of psychotherapy intake forms, consent forms, treatment-plan documents, or other psychotherapy-facing clinical documents.
Consultation clients can use the client portal when portal access is enabled. The practice can share consultation-specific documents and forms through the portal, such as a consultation agreement, payment authorization, or other consultation materials.
PracticeRunner includes a consultation agreement template that uses document template variables. When the agreement is delivered to the consultation client, variables can fill in details such as the practice name, provider, client name, case name, service, fee, cancellation notice, and payment terms. This helps keep the agreement useful over time without editing the document for each client, and it is especially helpful when a group practice has multiple clinicians.
A consultation agreement may explain:
- there is no psychotherapy relationship
- confidentiality limits
- how clinical material should be de-identified
- payment and cancellation terms
- the distinction between consultation, supervision, coaching, and therapy
- that the consultee remains responsible for their own clinical and legal decisions
Portal and communication
Portal access can be used when appropriate.
The client portal can support consultation work without showing psychotherapy or insurance workflows that do not apply. A consultation client may see:
- Your consultation appointments
- Secure Messages
- Consultation invoices
- Payment method
Use Share Documents & Forms to send consultation materials, such as the consultation agreement described above.
Consultation is not therapy
Individual consultation does not display clinical or insurance-related fields such as diagnosis, CPT coding, or insurance setup by default.
This keeps consultation work clean and complete without treating your consultees as if they were receiving psychotherapy.