Vital Stats
Relevant Product Characteristics
- This product is designed specifically with mental/behavioral health professionals in mind.
- The leadership or management behind this product includes at least one mental/behavioral health professional.
What Is This Product?
Ivy Pay is a payment system designed exclusively for therapists and features instant payment, secure credit card storage, and progress notes. It is primarily for solo practitioners, although there is some support for group practices. The main interface is accessed through smart phones or tablet devices on android or apple platforms. The practitioner never needs to touch the client’s credit card as Ivy Pay sends an SMS message to the client providing them a link to a secure web page to enter their credit card info.
***Person Centered Tech is not affiliated with Ivy Pay.
Our impressions:
Ivy Pay has put a lot of thought into features and functionality that facilitate HIPAA security compliance, credit card security, and align with therapist’s ethical standards.
In order to sign up for the service, Ivy Pay will interview you and ask for your licensure information to ensure that you are licensed — or in the process of becoming a licensed practitioner.
If you navigate out of the app, you need to re-enter your pin code each time, so that information is not left viewable if someone else picks up your phone or tablet.
We also like the fact that they consult with a panel of therapists regarding feature development, including security and privacy, and they have a mental health practitioner on staff. They have done a fantastic job at limiting the information contained in SMS messages to clients, such that it does not identify or allow for the identification of their particular therapist.
It is worth mentioning that we greatly appreciate that they utilize our preferred terminology of HIPAA-secure as opposed to HIPAA-compliant. Could they have referenced our article, “HIPAA-Compliant” Is a Meaningless Phrase. Let’s Use “HIPAA-Secure”?!
**Please note that Person Centered Tech has received a high volume of calls looking for customer service from Ivy Pay. It seems as though they are difficult to get a hold of and have found many clinicians frustrated with their services.
This product offers a free service tier or a free trial account:
We encourage all clinicians interested in this product to try out the free trial or experiment with the free tier to see if it suits your needs.
If you discover anything of concern that isn’t addressed in this review yet, please tell Liath about it at [email protected].
- Click here for the free trial or free service tier information→. Important note about Business Associate Agreements: This product offers a Business Associate Agreement with the free trial or free service tier. Be sure to get your BAA from the company before using client information while you test the product.
Caveats
Caveats are criticsms of the company or product that we feel are relevant to your risk management or other important considerations.
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Notes
Notes cover points where the product can’t ensure compliance or ethical action for you. These help you know what your part of the compliance puzzle looks like when using this product. A high note count usually correlates with a feature-rich product, and not necessarily with a product that has problems.
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