I know this is kind of an older thread but since I know people are still wondering about the best software services/charting etc for a private practice and also how to handle things like intake forms I thought I'd share my experience with what works and doesn't and what has changed in the landscape since I started my practice in 2017.
When I started, I looked into a BUNCH of different options for charting/EHR and settled on Luminello for charting and eprescribe. At the time, I think it was the best option and I still use it now. However, Luminello seemed overly clunky to me for intake forms, scheduling and billing and in private practice inefficiency is the kiss of death so I used other software solutions for that, most notably IntakeQ for intake forms, which blew any other software out of the water (also really useful for gathering credit card authorizations for billing, having patients submit rating scales, etc). Over time I hobbled together a collection of different software services that worked for me.
HOWEVER, I mentor a group of early career private practice psychiatrists and what I hear from others is that the practice management software now available from IntakeQ (branded now as PracticeQ) is even better than Luminello, including for charting patients notes, which is a new feature they added since I started. I have moved my scheduling and billing over to IntakeQ and continue to use Luminello for charting and eprescribe, but for people who are starting their practices now I recommend using IntakeQ/PracticeQ right out of the gate for everything except eprescribe. I bet at some point they'll add eprescribe, but for now what people I know are using is IntakeQ plus something like iPrescribe for eprescribe.
To sum up, here are the software solutions I recommend currently (as of March 2022) if you are starting a psychiatry private practice:
IntakeQ/PracticeQ: charting, scheduling, intake forms, billing (easy to set up auto billing via credit card that is integrated with scheduling - merchant account via Square or Stripe integration), telehealth (integrates w/ Doxy)
Eprescribe: iPrescribe (or similar)
Lab ordering: set up account directly with Quest or LabCorp to order labs electronically. In the meantime, giving the patient a lab order written on a prescription pad (scan and email if needed) works in a pinch when you are first starting your practice.
Phone: Google voice is fine, phone.com or Ring Central good if you want extra features like phone tree or have multiple phone numbers (ie you have an assistant or something like that)
Email: Google Workspace
eFax: SR Fax (integrates with IntakeQ) - unfortunately even though we live in the 21st century pharmacies will still fax you as if it were 1980 so you will need a fax number
Website: Squarespace (do NOT pay someone some crazy amount of money to do your website right off the bat... patients don't really care about the design of your website, they care about the words, and no one else will know how to write your website copy like you will)
I agree with clozareal in terms of how to write your intake forms -- look at others who have their forms on their website and swipe/edit for your purposes. You will NOT write the perfect intake forms right out of the gate so don't try. Just write some good enough intake forms (esp office policies) and then edit/adjust based on where expectations need to be better set up front. The ideal office policies set a proper frame without being overly harsh or rigid. There are no perfect office policies that will prevent you from having to learn the skill of how to set appropriate boundaries when dealing with patients face to face.
I just want to add one last thought on this... there is a concept in the startup world called Minimum Viable Product (a la Eric Ries from The Lean Startup). The idea is don't try to be perfect out of the gate when you are starting a business (and a private practice IS a business), because you will be wasting your time optimizing for the wrong things. Instead, start lean, mean and scrappy and then build what you need after once you have a few patients and have a sense for what systems you need to run everything efficiently. A lot of physicians are too perfectionistic (which is good for medicine, but bad for business). If you learn how to take your "physician hat" off while setting up your business systems you will be more successful.
