ClinicNote vs. TherapyNotes for Speech Therapists

TherapyNotes is a well-regarded practice management platform, for mental health therapists. It's clean, reliable, and purpose-built for psychotherapy. But speech-language pathology isn't psychotherapy, and the gap shows when SLPs try to adapt TherapyNotes to their clinical workflow.

If you're a CCC-SLP in private practice or a director at a university speech clinic, you need a system built around how you actually document and bill, not one you're borrowing from behavioral health. ClinicNote was built for the specific documentation, supervision, and billing realities of SLP clinics.

Who Each Platform Is Built For

TherapyNotes

TherapyNotes serves mental health professionals: psychologists, counselors, social workers, and behavioral health therapists. It's highly optimized for psychotherapy documentation, mental health billing codes, and the solo or small-group mental health practice model.

It is not designed for speech-language pathology. It doesn't include SLP-specific documentation templates, supervisor-student workflows for clinical training programs, or the multi-discipline environment that most university SLP clinics operate within.

ClinicNote

ClinicNote was built for allied health clinics with speech-language pathology as a foundational discipline. 117 speech clinics currently run on ClinicNote. The platform supports 13 disciplines, including SLP, audiology, OT, PT, AAC, and behavioral health, in one integrated system. It was built by a team that has spent 7+ years learning directly from clinic directors, faculty supervisors, and student clinicians.

Why SLP Clinics Look for TherapyNotes Alternatives

The most common reasons SLPs and clinic directors move away from TherapyNotes:

1. Wrong documentation model. TherapyNotes' note formats are built around psychotherapy. SLPs document differently: articulation targets, expressive and receptive language goals, fluency baselines, voice and resonance data, dysphagia and swallowing function, aphasia treatment progress, and AAC device usage don't map cleanly onto mental health SOAP note structures.

2. No clinical supervision tools. University SLP programs and clinical fellowship placements require real-time supervisor oversight. ASHA mandates specific supervision requirements for CFs and student clinicians. TherapyNotes has no mechanism for co-documentation, in-platform feedback, or document completion verification by a supervisor.

3. Pricing pressure on sliding-scale clinics. TherapyNotes' per-clinician pricing model can become unaffordable for university clinics running on grant funding or sliding-scale fee structures. (This was cited directly by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee when they evaluated TherapyNotes before choosing ClinicNote.)

4. Single-discipline focus. Most university SLP clinics also serve audiology, OT, or other allied health disciplines. Running them on separate platforms multiplies administrative burden and creates data silos.

At-a-Glance Comparison

Documentation

TherapyNotes

TherapyNotes is genuinely excellent at what it's designed for: psychotherapy progress notes, treatment plans, intake forms, and mental health diagnostic documentation. The interface is clean, the workflow is logical, and mental health providers consistently rate it highly.

For speech-language pathologists, the picture is different. TherapyNotes templates are structured around mental health diagnostic and treatment models: DSM diagnoses, psychotherapy goals, mental status exams. Adapting these for SLP documentation (SOAP notes tracking articulation targets, language development milestones, fluency measures, voice quality, dysphagia management, aphasia treatment, or AAC usage) requires workarounds that slow documentation and introduce inconsistency.

For private practice SLPs, that friction has a real cost. Every session requires adapting a template that wasn't designed for your work, and every billing cycle requires mapping mental health-oriented workflows onto speech therapy CPT codes. That's time and risk you shouldn't have to absorb.

ClinicNote

ClinicNote ships pre-built documentation workflows for the full SLP clinical cycle: initial intake and evaluation, treatment planning, session SOAP notes, lesson plans, and progress documentation. Templates are available as narrative forms or fillable electronic forms.

Thousands of ICD-10 diagnosis codes are supported, including the full range of communication and swallowing disorder codes relevant to SLP practice. More are added at client request. Speech therapy CPT codes link directly to documentation, closing the loop between clinical notes and billing without re-entry.

Bottom line: TherapyNotes is excellent for mental health documentation. For SLP, you'd be retrofitting a system that wasn't built for your work. ClinicNote starts from the SLP clinical model.

Clinical Supervision and Training Program Support

This is the most significant functional gap between the two platforms.

TherapyNotes

TherapyNotes has no clinical supervision workflow. It's built for independent practitioners who own and sign their own notes. There is no native support for:

• Supervisors reviewing student or clinical fellow documentation before it's finalized

• In-platform supervisor feedback on clinical notes

• Document completion tracking across a cohort of student clinicians

• Caseload-level access restrictions (students seeing only their assigned patients)

• IP address restrictions for university network compliance

For any clinic running a training program, whether a university SLP program or a site that hosts clinical fellowship placements, this isn't a missing feature. It's a missing category. And for programs that need to document ASHA supervision hours and maintain compliant records, the absence is a compliance problem, not just a workflow inconvenience.

ClinicNote

Supervision and training clinic workflows are built into the platform at the permission-set level. Supervisors can review documentation in real time, leave feedback before notes are finalized, and verify completion across their student caseload. Student access is restricted to their assigned patients only.

IP address restrictions let university IT departments ensure that patient records are only accessible from approved locations. These aren't add-on features. They're part of the foundational architecture.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was able to consolidate scheduling, documentation, billing, and room reservation into one platform, and eliminated a legacy billing system in the process.

Pricing

TherapyNotes charges per clinician per month. For university clinics staffed by faculty, supervisors, and rotating student cohorts, per-seat pricing creates budgeting challenges, especially at programs running on grant funding or sliding-scale revenue.

ClinicNote's pricing is customized to your clinic's structure and built to be affordable for the types of organizations that typically operate university speech clinics and allied health training programs. The goal is a structure that works for you, not one that penalizes you for having students.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee specifically evaluated TherapyNotes and found it "financially unaffordable" for their sliding-scale clinic model before selecting ClinicNote.

Multi-Discipline Clinic Support

TherapyNotes

TherapyNotes serves mental health disciplines. If your clinic also includes audiology, occupational therapy, or other allied health services, TherapyNotes doesn't cover them. You'd need separate platforms: separate logins, separate data, separate billing systems.

ClinicNote

ClinicNote supports 13 disciplines in one platform: Speech-Language Pathology, Audiology, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Counseling, Behavioral Health, Art Therapy, Music Therapy, Social Work, Psychology, Athletic Training, Exercise Science, and AAC. This matters for university clinics that serve multiple departments and for practices that offer co-treatment or cross-discipline services.

Support

TherapyNotes

TherapyNotes offers email and phone support with solid documentation. Response times and resolution quality are generally rated well for routine platform questions.

ClinicNote

ClinicNote's support model is built around genuine partnership. When the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee needed custom reporting for urgent compliance purposes, ClinicNote delivered it within one week. When a clinic needs a new diagnosis code added, it's added.

"My favorite thing about ClinicNote is the customer support. Everyone has been so incredibly patient and willing and generous with their time."

Stacey Nye, Clinic Director, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Who Should Choose TherapyNotes

TherapyNotes is a strong fit if:

• You're a mental health therapist, psychologist, or counselor

• You work in solo or small-group private practice

• You don't have clinical training program or supervision requirements

• Your documentation is primarily mental health-focused (DSM diagnoses, psychotherapy goals)

Ideal TherapyNotes customer: Independent mental health practitioners who need a polished, purpose-built psychotherapy practice management system.

Who Should Choose ClinicNote

ClinicNote is built for you if:

• You're an SLP in private practice, a clinic director, or a university faculty member

• You run or supervise a clinical training program or host CFs working toward their ASHA hours

• You need SLP-specific documentation templates from day one, without building them yourself

• Your clinic treats across disorder types: articulation, language, fluency, voice, dysphagia, aphasia, AAC

• Your clinic serves multiple disciplines under one roof

• Pricing needs to work for sliding-scale or grant-funded models

• Your IT department has network and compliance requirements

Ideal ClinicNote customer: SLP clinic directors at university programs and private practices who need a platform built for how speech-language pathology clinics actually operate, not one borrowed from behavioral health.

Making the Switch

If you're evaluating ClinicNote as an alternative to TherapyNotes:

• Implementation timeline: Full implementation typically within 60 days
• Historical records: Migrated as PDFs
• Templates: Built collaboratively with your clinic during onboarding
• Training: Basics mastered in 1-2 hours of virtual training; cohort training included for university programs
• Custom features: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee had custom reporting built within one week for compliance needs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is TherapyNotes designed for speech-language pathologists? TherapyNotes is designed for mental health therapists. SLPs can use it, but the documentation templates, billing codes, and workflows are structured around psychotherapy, not speech pathology. You'll need significant customization and will still lack SLP-specific supervision and training features.

Can ClinicNote support a university speech-language pathology training clinic? Yes. This is one of ClinicNote's core use cases. Supervisor-student collaboration, caseload restrictions, cohort training, and IP address controls are built into the platform.

Does ClinicNote support billing for SLP services? Yes. Speech therapy CPT codes are integrated directly into documentation, with clearinghouse integration for electronic claims submission.

What makes ClinicNote different from TherapyNotes for SLPs? Three things: purpose-built SLP documentation templates, clinical supervision workflows that support ASHA requirements, and pricing designed for the kinds of organizations that run speech therapy programs. TherapyNotes is excellent for mental health. It simply wasn't built for SLP.

Can ClinicNote handle both SLP and audiology in the same clinic? Yes. ClinicNote supports 13 disciplines in one platform, including both speech-language pathology and audiology.