Overview
When the cost of Gillian Makowski’s old EHR stopped making sense for the size of her speech therapy practice, she went looking for a better fit. The features she relied on every day, like appointment reminders and calendar syncing, were only available on higher-tier plans. Spreadsheets filled the gaps. After switching to Carepatron, scheduling, billing, notes, and templates all run from one place, on a plan built for a part-time solo practice.Meet Gillian Makowski
Gillian Makowski, M.A., CCC-SLP, runs Say More Speech Therapy, LLC as a part-time solo private practice in the United States. As the only clinician, she handles scheduling, documentation, billing, and client communication herself.
Before Carepatron, she was using a different EHR alongside a few spreadsheets to manage the parts that didn’t quite fit. The pricing on her old system kept going up while the features she actually used stayed locked behind higher tiers. For a small part-time practice, the math stopped working.The first change was the price.
On her old platform, the features she relied on most weren’t part of the standard plan. Appointment reminders. Email syncing. To get them, she’d have had to upgrade to a top-tier plan and pay for a long list of features she’d never use, just to get the ones she actually needed.
For a part-time solo practice, that didn’t add up. Gillian had started thinking about going back to doing more admin by hand, just to avoid paying for software that kept asking her to spend more.
“As someone who has a small part-time private practice, the costs of my former platform just did not justify continuation.”
Carepatron works the other way. The basics every clinician uses are included at every tier: calendar syncing, automated reminders, billing, notes, templates. Smaller practices aren’t priced out of the features that should come standard. Gillian pays a fraction of what she was paying before, for more of what she actually uses every day.The bigger change was the calendar.
On the old system, every booking lived on three calendars. The EHR. Her work Google account. Her personal calendar. She’d copy each appointment across by hand, which meant the morning started with cross-checking before anything else.
With Carepatron, the syncing happens for her. Personal, professional, and clinical commitments all show up in one place.
“Not having to copy and paste events from my EMR, to my work Google account to my personal calendar has been amazing. I can simply look at my iPhone calendar each morning and see everything I have scheduled for the day rather than cross-checking various calendars.”
The other thing Gillian brings up is what happens when she has a question. Early on, she jumped on a video call with Marco from the Carepatron team and he sorted out what she needed. Since then, AI chat handles most of her questions, and when something needs a human, someone replies within a day.
“It’s nice to know that I can continue to make requests for how Carepatron can better serve me and the efficiency of my work.”
For a part-time solo clinician, having software that fits the practice matters. The pricing makes sense. The calendar handles itself. The support, when she needs it, is human.
“It’s perfect for what I need.”
