NexHealth vs SimplePractice: Which Is Better in 2026?

At a glance

	NexHealth	SimplePractice
Best for	Medical and dental practices that want booking synced to the EHR	Therapists and solo clinicians on a budget
Starting price	Custom pricing	$49 / month
Free plan or trial	No (sales demo)	Free trial
Deployment	Cloud, connected to your existing EHR or PM system	Cloud, all-in-one EHR
What it replaces	Nothing; it adds patient access tools to your current EHR	Your EHR, scheduling and billing tools
Online booking	Patients book real open slots in your live schedule	Clients request or book appointments online
Clinical notes and insurance billing	Stay in your EHR	Built in
Integrations	Two-way sync with dental and medical systems such as Dentrix, Open Dental, athenahealth and eClinicalWorks	Self-contained; it is the system of record
Group pricing	Quoted per practice	$74 per additional clinician on Plus; six or more clinicians need a quote

NexHealth is the better fit for medical and dental practices that already have an EHR and want patients to book into it directly, while SimplePractice suits therapists, counselors and solo clinicians who want scheduling, notes and billing in one affordable account. The two are often compared because both handle online booking, but they sit in different places in a practice’s software stack.

NexHealth is a layer on top of the system you already use. SimplePractice is the system. That single difference drives almost every other decision below.

What each tool actually is

NexHealth adds online booking, reminders, digital forms, recalls, a waitlist and payments to an existing practice management system or EHR. Its Synchronizer reads your live schedule, so patients see true openings instead of submitting requests your front desk has to confirm. NexHealth describes its integrations as two-way and real time across dental systems such as Dentrix, Eaglesoft and Open Dental and medical systems such as athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, NextGen Office and ModMed, and it connects to Epic as well.

SimplePractice is a full practice management system and EHR built mainly for mental and behavioral health. Scheduling, progress notes, insurance billing and telehealth live in one login, and clients can request or book appointments online. You do not connect it to another EHR because it replaces one.

Winner: neither in the abstract. If you are happy with your EHR, NexHealth fits. If you need an EHR, SimplePractice fits.

Online booking and scheduling features

For booking specifically, NexHealth goes deeper. Because it reads and writes your actual schedule, a patient picking 10:30 on Tuesday gets 10:30 on Tuesday, and the appointment appears in your EHR without staff retyping it. The waitlist offers last-minute openings to other patients, and recall tools bring back patients who are due for hygiene visits or follow-ups. For a busy dental or primary care office with several providers, those tools cut phone time where it hurts most.

SimplePractice covers what a therapy practice needs: recurring appointments, online appointment requests, automated reminders and telehealth sessions attached to the calendar. Clients use a portal to book, sign forms and pay. It is simpler than NexHealth, and for a clinician seeing the same clients weekly, simpler is usually fine.

Winner: NexHealth for booking depth, waitlists and recalls in multi-provider practices. SimplePractice is enough for most solo therapy schedules.

Clinical workflow and billing

This is where SimplePractice pulls ahead for its audience. A therapist can see a client on video, write the note, submit an insurance claim and collect payment without leaving the app. Nothing needs to be synced because everything lives in one place.

NexHealth does not do clinical notes or claims. It collects payments and forms, then hands information to your EHR, which still handles charting and billing. That is the point of the product, but it means NexHealth is never the whole answer for a practice that lacks a capable EHR.

Winner: SimplePractice, because it covers the full day for a small practice.

Ease of use and setup

SimplePractice is quicker to start. You can sign up for a free trial, set your hours and services, and start booking clients the same week. Migrating from another therapy EHR takes more work, mostly for client records and recurring appointments.

NexHealth requires a sales demo before you see a quote, then an integration with your EHR. Once connected, front-desk staff work mostly in their existing system and NexHealth fills in the patient-facing pieces, so the learning curve for staff is modest. The setup itself depends on how cleanly your EHR shares data.

Winner: SimplePractice for speed to launch. NexHealth asks more up front but changes less about how staff already work.

Pricing and total cost

SimplePractice publishes its prices. Plans run $49, $79 and $99 a month for one clinician, and group practices pay $74 a month for each additional clinician on the Plus plan. Groups of six or more clinicians need a sales quote. Because it includes the EHR, that monthly price may replace several other subscriptions.

NexHealth does not publish pricing. You will get a quote after a demo, and it sits on top of what you already pay for your EHR. For a practice with several providers, the return comes from fewer phone calls, fewer no-shows and filled cancellations, so build a before-and-after estimate of those numbers when you compare quotes.

Winner: SimplePractice on price transparency and cost for small practices. NexHealth can still pay off for larger offices, but you cannot judge that until you see a quote.

Reminders, forms and patient communication

Both tools send automated appointment reminders, which is the single feature most practices notice first after switching. The difference is what surrounds the reminder.

NexHealth builds a patient experience around your existing EHR. Patients receive reminders, fill out digital intake forms before the visit, and pay balances online, and the information flows back to the system your staff already use. Recalls bring overdue patients back, and the waitlist turns a cancellation into a filled slot instead of a gap. For a dental hygiene schedule or a primary care panel, those automated loops are where most of the value sits.

SimplePractice keeps communication inside its own client portal. Clients receive reminders, complete intake paperwork, join telehealth sessions and pay, all tied to the same record a clinician uses for notes. There is less automation aimed at filling empty slots, because a therapy caseload tends to be steady and recurring rather than driven by recalls.

Winner: NexHealth for practices whose revenue depends on filling cancellations and bringing patients back. SimplePractice is the tidier option when the same clients return every week.

HIPAA and security

Both tools handle protected health information and are sold to healthcare practices, so both should sign a business associate agreement with you. Ask for the BAA during the sales process or trial and keep a signed copy on file. With NexHealth, also confirm how data flows between it and your EHR and who supports the interface if it breaks. With SimplePractice, everything stays inside one vendor, which keeps the compliance picture simpler.

Winner: tie. Both are built for healthcare. SimplePractice has fewer moving parts, and NexHealth keeps your existing EHR as the system of record.

Which practices should pick which

Pick NexHealth if you run a dental office, primary care clinic or specialty practice with multiple providers, you are committed to your EHR, and your biggest problem is phone volume and empty slots. Pick SimplePractice if you are a therapist, counselor or small group practice that needs an EHR, wants telehealth built in, and prefers a published monthly price.

A few edge cases are worth thinking through. A multi-specialty clinic that added a behavioral health provider should keep its main EHR and look at NexHealth for booking, rather than splitting records across two systems. A solo therapist who is happy with a basic calendar but tired of paper intake will get far more from SimplePractice than from any booking layer. And a therapy group approaching six clinicians should request a SimplePractice quote early, since pricing changes at that size.

If neither fits, you have other options. Jane suits physical therapy and chiropractic clinics, and Acuity Scheduling works as a simple standalone booking page. You can compare all six tools in our ranked list of the best patient scheduling software.

Pros and cons

NexHealth

SimplePractice

Which should you choose?

Frequently asked questions