Questions therapists ask

Harbor Office is the AI front office for behavioral health — the phone, intake, scheduling, notes, and insurance billing of a therapy practice, handled in one system, built for solo therapists and small group practices.

Ellie, the receptionist, answers the phone and books appointments; the same system holds the chart, drafts notes from a few lines you write after a session, and files claims. Harbor Office was built for a working therapist by her son, and her practice was the first to run on it. The longer version is on the about page.

Solo therapists and small group practices in the United States that do not have a front desk — counselors, social workers, psychologists, and marriage and family therapists who answer their own phone and write their own notes at night. It is not built for primary care, dental, or hospital settings.

No. Nothing in Harbor Office listens to a session. Notes are drafted from a brief you write after the session, and you read and sign every note before it enters the chart.

Calls to the receptionist line are recorded, and the caller is told so at the start of the call. A client can opt out of AI on their record and still be treated in Harbor Office.

Harbor is $99 per clinician per month, solo or group, with no base fee; practices with 25 clinicians or more are quoted individually. Groups sign up through checkout with their clinician count, or book a call first if they prefer. There is no setup fee and no per-patient or per-call charge. The receptionist, the chart, the patient portal, intake, scheduling, billing, and telehealth are included. Any optional or usage charges are disclosed and agreed before they apply. Billing is monthly, by card.

See full pricing

Start with guided onboarding. Your first 30 days are free. After that, standard Solo or Group pricing applies. Existing signed pilot agreements retain their terms.

We take a card at signup and do not charge it during the trial. You can cancel any time before the first charge and nothing is billed. The exact date of the first charge is shown at checkout. See the pricing details.

Harbor integrates an AI receptionist, clinical draft assistance, and automated safety screening. Clinicians review clinical drafts before adoption; routine administrative interactions can be delivered automatically. Optional AI preferences do not disable the receptionist or safety screening. Screening can miss concerns and does not guarantee delivery or response.

TherapyNotes and SimplePractice are established EHRs with broad feature sets and large customer bases; both offer AI note-taking as a paid add-on. With Harbor Office it is included in the price. A side-by-side is on the comparison page.

Yes. Harbor Office checks eligibility, files claims electronically, tracks whether the payer received them, and posts payments to invoices when the payer responds. Your therapist is the rendering provider and your practice is the billing provider. Harbor Office charges a flat monthly fee and takes no percentage of what you collect. It is billing software your practice runs, not a billing service: it does not guarantee that a claim will be accepted or paid, or how quickly.

It is not a payer network and does not bill under its own tax ID. If you want someone else to be the billing entity and to credential you on panels, a network is the better fit.

No. Credentialing is its own field, with services that do nothing else. Harbor Office assumes you are already credentialed, or self-pay, and provides the software: the chart, the receptionist, the patient portal, and the billing. If you need paneling, pair Harbor Office with a credentialing service.

Yes. Harbor Office is a HIPAA Business Associate and signs a BAA with every practice at signup. It holds BAAs with the cloud and AI provider, the email provider, the clearinghouse, and the phone and text carriers. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Clinician sign-in requires a second factor (authenticator app or text code). Changes to patient records and many record views are written to an audit log the application cannot edit or delete, and daily copies are archived to write-once storage kept for seven years — HIPAA requires six, and seven matches the strictest state clinical-record baseline. Current BAA status is on the HIPAA page.

You own it. After cancellation you can export everything from the dashboard, so you can move without a gap. Under the BAA you then choose, in writing, between taking a full export (after which Harbor Office returns or destroys its copies) or a written archival arrangement. Until you choose, Harbor Office keeps and protects the records. How long you must keep records is set by your state and licensing board, not by Harbor Office — retention periods differ by state and are usually longer for minors.

Yes. Harbor’s importer reads SimplePractice and Valant client exports directly, plus a CSV from any other EHR: demographics, insurance, contact details, status and assigned clinician. We run the import with you during onboarding. Past clinical notes stay in your previous EHR’s archive.

With your direction, Harbor Office drafts progress notes from a few lines you write after a session, drafts treatment plans from intake, drafts replies to portal messages, suggests ICD-10 and CPT codes, summarizes receptionist calls, and flags risk language so it reaches you. You read and sign every AI-drafted note and treatment plan before it becomes part of the chart, and AI-drafted portal replies are sent only by you. The AI never signs a note or makes a clinical decision. The receptionist handles routine front-desk work on its own: it books and changes appointments, answers routine texts, records call transcripts and summaries, and emails you a summary of each call.

Yes. Any client can opt out of AI on their record. When they do, Harbor Office stops AI drafting and predictions for them and stops AI replies to their texts: notes and portal replies are written by hand, and their record is left out of any per-practice tuning. Calls from their number on file go to your practice instead of the AI receptionist. A fixed-phrase safety check on texts still alerts the care team. Opting out does not change their care.

Onboarding is done for you. Harbor Office provisions your phone number, sets up your receptionist, and connects your calendar.

What we need from you is about 30 minutes of practice detail: your hours, how you would like the phone answered, the insurance you accept, and your license and board. Compliance settings — which fill in your state’s details on client-facing legal documents — take about 15 minutes more. Your go-live date is confirmed with you during onboarding.

Your data is protected either way.

• You can export everything at any time, in standard formats that open without Harbor Office.
• The 90-day post-cancellation window applies in a shutdown too.
• Client information is never sold.

Anything else you want to know about the company, ask — the founder answers directly.

Commercial insurance, Medicaid — including Medicaid managed-care plans — and self-pay are supported end to end: eligibility, claims, secondary claims and payment posting. Medicaid claims carry the Medicaid filing code and your Medicaid provider ID. Traditional Medicare Part B claims are not yet filed from Harbor; if most of your caseload is traditional Medicare, talk with us first.

The software runs anywhere in the United States. On the compliance side:

• Your state-specific legal documents — the privacy notice, patient rights, telehealth consent, mandated-reporter agency — are filled in from your practice compliance settings rather than from a value chosen for you.
• For telehealth, you must be licensed in the state where your client is physically located at session time.
• Harbor Office does not currently accept new practices in Washington, Nevada or Illinois.

Yes. Ellie, the receptionist, reads your availability, books the appointment, sends the client a confirmation, and emails you a summary. She takes new-client intake — name, date of birth, insurance, and what brings them in — runs an insurance eligibility check on the call, and sends the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 to complete after the call. Ellie is instructed to offer crisis resources when she recognizes concerning language and may attempt a configured transfer with the caller’s agreement. Call-transcript screening runs after the call ends. Detection, connection, alert delivery, and response are not guaranteed. Harbor is not an emergency service and does not replace 988, 911, or clinical judgment.

Text reminders carry no clinical detail — an appointment time and your practice name, nothing about diagnosis or treatment. Clients opt in, and STOP, START, and HELP are handled the way the FCC requires. Anything sensitive goes by secure email instead. The carrier that moves the calls and texts is under a BAA.