Registered counsellors

Practice software for registered counsellors

Private-practice counselling: the enquiry, the note and the invoice, with HPCSA record keeping and POPIA left as your duties.

Registered counsellors in South Africa work under the HPCSA, often in private practice, with a scope that is not the same as a psychologist’s and not the same as a hospital record. The software question is still practical: where does the enquiry go, where is the note, and who can see it? This page answers that for Reach + Within.

The fee is from R500 a month per clinician. Admin and finance users are free. Medical aid claims are coming soon. Outcome scales are coming soon. If either of those is the reason you are buying this month, wait, or look at a system that already publishes them. Bookem is the comparison we keep current for that reason.

Notes a registered counsellor can stand behind

The note should show what the client came for, what you did, any risk you assessed, and what happens next. DAP notes are often a better fit than a long medical SOAP for counselling work, but SOAP is there if your supervisor wants that layout. Both examples are fictional. HPCSA Booklet 9, in the text we read, asks for a proper patient health record and for retention that is at least six years from dormancy when you do not keep records indefinitely. Minors are different. Read the quotations in how long to keep therapy records and put your period in the contract.

You can type the note. You can also record, with consent stored on the file first, and let Assist draft. You sign. The POPIA guide and the recording checklist are the two documents to read before you switch recording on for the practice. Do not switch it on by default.

A small practice, not a clinic chain

Many registered counsellors work alone or in a room inside a larger practice. The software should still separate the person who takes the booking from the note. A shared reception desk is how counselling notes leak. Roles stop that. Personal logins and an audit trail matter when the room is not always yours. A record in the system matters when the laptop used to be the only copy.

Reach keeps the enquiry and the invoice. Within keeps the note. The client is created once. That is the whole argument for practice software, and it is the same argument on the psychologists’ page at the same fee. The work differs. The shape of the fee does not.

Hosting and the notice

Client data is hosted in the EU (Netherlands). You are the responsible party under POPIA. Tell clients where the record lives, how long you keep it, and that a recording is optional. Tell them that scheme claims are not submitted from this system yet, if they are likely to assume otherwise. We do not claim a certification.

The South Africa pricing page is the fee in one place. The home page for South Africa links the other professions, including social workers in private practice, who are not HPCSA-registered counsellors and should not be sold this page as if they were.

A 30-day trial uses demo clients and does not take a card. Watch the demos if you want to see a note drafted and signed before you ask for access. Bring a supervisor’s question with you: can they read a risk line in your note without calling you? If the answer is no, fix the note habit before you blame the software.

Related reading

• South Africa pricing
• SOAP notes
• For psychologists