For South African psychologists & Registered Counsellors
Getting board certified was the hard part. Figuring out medical aid billing, tariff codes, compliant notes and everything else behind a practice shouldn't be the next mountain. Wholistic gives you simple, intuitive tools to open your doors and start seeing clients — without understanding every detail first, and without paying someone else to run your admin. Built by a Registered Counsellor in active practice, who knows exactly what you need to track, how billing really works, and which tools you'll actually reach for.
About Wholistic Private Practice
Wholistic wasn't designed in a boardroom. It was built session by session, claim by claim, inside a working solo practice — by a Registered Counsellor who had to figure it all out the hard way.
Getting board certified is a mountain of work. But nobody warns you about the second mountain: medical aid billing, tariff codes, compliant record keeping, intake forms, claim follow-ups — an entire admin profession you're somehow expected to master overnight, alone, while building a caseload.
Wholistic exists to take that sting out. Every tool in the app answers a problem we actually hit in practice: what to track, how billing really works, which forms hold up, and how to keep it all together without an admin team behind you.
The result is simple, intuitive software that lets a newly certified practitioner open their doors and start seeing clients — without needing to understand every detail first.
“You should be able to build a great, successful solo practice without a degree in admin and medical aid billing systems.”The idea Wholistic is built on
Because the whole point is helping you keep your well-earned money. Starting a practice already means income that builds slowly while costs arrive immediately. If our software priced out the very people it was built for, we'd have missed our own point.
Most practice software is priced for established group practices — and then you still end up paying someone to run the admin side. Wholistic is priced so a practitioner with a handful of clients can afford it from day one, do their own admin in minutes instead of hours, and put the savings back into growing the practice.
When I opened my own practice, I quickly learned that getting board certified was only half the qualification. The other half — tariff codes, co-payments, claim rejections, compliant notes, intake forms — nobody teaches you that. You figure it out alone, after hours, while trying to build a caseload.
I built Wholistic because I don't think it should be that hard. Every feature in this app is something I needed in my own practice and couldn't find in software I could actually afford. It's practical, it's intuitive, and it's priced so that the newest practitioner in the smallest town can use it from their very first client.
If you're just starting out: you can do this. And you don't need a degree in admin to do it well.
Sumarie Engelbrecht
Registered Counsellor (HPCSA) · Founder, Wholistic Private Practice · In practice in Mbombela, Mpumalanga
What's inside
Every feature in Wholistic is here because a practicing Registered Counsellor needed it in a real practice — not because it looked good on a feature list.
Up-to-date tariffs and rates for all major SA schemes, built straight into your invoicing — most of the work happens for you.
Why it's here Billing is the single biggest headache for new practitioners. It shouldn't take a course to send a compliant invoice.
Invoices calculate the co-payment for you, showing exactly what's due from the scheme and what's due from the client.
Why it's here Guessing the split leads to awkward money conversations and unpaid balances. Now it's just there, in black and white.
Codes organised by how psychologists and Registered Counsellors actually use them — not an endless alphabetical list.
Why it's here You shouldn't have to scroll past tropical diseases to find Z71.9. The codes you use live where you'd look for them.
See every submission's status at a glance, get reminders when an invoice needs chasing, and track rejected or queried claims to resolution.
Why it's here Money gets lost in the follow-up, not the session. A claim you forgot to chase is work you did for free.
Structured notes with sign-and-lock record keeping — locked entries can't be edited, and corrections happen as dated addenda, exactly as the guidelines require.
Why it's here Compliance shouldn't rely on you remembering the rules. The system holds the standard so you can hold the session.
A clear, visual overview of client risk across your practice, with a breakdown that shows you exactly who needs follow-up.
Why it's here When you're carrying a full caseload alone, no at-risk client should ever slip through the cracks.
Diagnosis, relational bonds and key context on one screen — a thirty-second scan before each session and you're fully oriented.
Why it's here Walking in prepared is what makes clients feel remembered — without you carrying twenty caseloads in your head.
HPCSA- and POPIA-compliant consent and intake forms, set up for you and stored directly on each client's profile.
Why it's here Nobody starting out should lie awake wondering if their paperwork is legal. It's done. It's compliant. Move on.
Worksheets, psychoeducational material, app and directory suggestions — everything for building a practice from the ground up.
Why it's here Starting solo means nobody hands you the playbook. This is the playbook.
See inside
Not a mock-up or a promise — Wholistic is already running real sessions, real notes and real invoices. Here's a look inside.
Billing
Pick your scheme, pick a tariff code, and the invoice fills in the rates, the ICD-10 code and the co-payment split for you — then tracks it until it's paid.
Clinical records
Structured session notes with built-in risk assessment, signed and locked to HPCSA record-keeping guidelines — corrections only as dated addenda, exactly as required.
Getting paid
Every invoice has a status, an outstanding amount and a follow-up date. Rejected or queried claims get their own queue, so unpaid work never quietly disappears.
The honest maths
These are the going rates in South Africa for getting your billing and admin done. We checked, so you don't have to.
Typically charges 3–8% of what you collect. On a modest practice collecting R30 000 a month, that's a recurring slice of your income — forever, and it grows as you grow.
Established medical practice systems in SA typically run R450 to R2 500 per month — priced for doctors' rooms and group practices, not a counsellor starting out. Some also charge R9.50–R15 per claim on top.
A receptionist or admin assistant in South Africa averages around R8 000 – R12 000 a month full-time. Even a few hours a week of paid help adds up to thousands a year.
The billing, the tariffs, the notes, the tracking, the forms — done by you, in minutes, with the system doing the heavy lifting. No per-claim fees. No percentage of your income.
Bureau, software and salary figures are typical published South African market rates as at mid-2026 and will vary by provider, region and practice size. Bureau example calculated on R30 000/month collections at 3–8%. Wholistic is software that streamlines your own admin; it is not a billing bureau service.
How we compare
South Africa's established practice systems are good at what they do — for GPs and specialists with receptionists and claim volumes to match. For a solo mental health practice, the numbers tell their own story.
Your first year, on each system
Wholistic
R0 – R468
Free up to 5 active clients; R39/month founding rate after that. No setup fee.
GoodX
± R15 900
Users report ± R1 200/month quotes for a solo practice, plus ± R1 500 setup. No free trial.
Bookem (Medical plan)
R17 940
R1 495/month for the tier with medical-aid features. Cheaper tiers exist without them.
| Comparison criteria | Wholistic | GoodX | Bookem |
|---|---|---|---|
| Can you start without paying anything? | Yes — free forever up to 5 active clients | No — setup fee just to begin | No — 21-day trial only |
| Can you see the price without a sales call? | Yes — R39/month, right here on this page | No — quote only | Yes |
| What happens to your fee as you grow? | Steps up gently by caseload — and caps at R249/month, no matter how big you get. No percentages, no per-claim fees. | Quote varies by practice; possible per-claim and payment fees on top | Flat tiers; extra users cost more |
| Built for mental health practitioners? | Yes — by a practicing Registered Counsellor, for psychologists & counsellors | No — all medical disciplines | No — healthcare & service businesses broadly |
| ICD-10 codes you can actually find | Yes — searchable, specific to mental health practice, grouped the way you'd look for them | Full medical code sets | Full searchable code lists |
| Tariff codes & rates for your profession | Yes — searchable, mental-health-specific, per scheme, kept up to date for you | Price lists supported — you set up and maintain them | Load your own codes and pricing |
| Semi-automatic invoicing | Yes — assign a client's medical aid once, and that scheme's tariffs and rates load into the invoice automatically. No searching, no rate sheets. | Billing groups and price lists — configured and selected yourself | Reusable line-item groups; copy previous invoices |
| HPCSA sign-and-lock note-taking | Yes — locked records, corrections as dated addenda, per HPCSA guidelines | Clinical notes; lock-and-addendum workflow not advertised | Clinical notes; lock-and-addendum workflow not advertised |
| Tracks cash & medical aid invoices to paid | Yes — with follow-up reminders and a rejected/queried queue | Yes | Partly — real-time claims limited |
| Client risk oversight for your caseload | Yes — see your whole caseload's risk at a glance | – | – |
| Referral network contact book | Yes | – | – |
| Free practice-building resource library | Yes — on every tier, including Free | – | – |
| Who steers the roadmap? | You do — we actively take and build feature requests from solo practitioners | General medical market | Broad healthcare market |
Those systems are excellent — for a doctor's rooms with a receptionist and thousands of claims. You'd be paying for a practice you don't run.
Wholistic gives a solo mental health practice the parts you actually need — compliant notes, semi-automatic billing, claim tracking — for less per year than the others cost per month. Start free. Upgrade when your caseload does.
Competitor information is drawn from publicly available pricing pages, published reviews and user-reported quotes as at July 2026, and may have changed — please verify current pricing with each provider directly. GoodX uses quote-based pricing that varies by practice; the figure shown is a published user-reported quote of ±R1 200/month plus ±R1 500 setup. Bookem Medical plan at its published R1 495/month. Wholistic year-one figure at the R39/month founding rate. GoodX and Bookem are established, capable platforms; the comparison reflects fit and cost for a solo mental health practice, not overall quality. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Pricing
Your price is based on your active caseload — it only goes up as your income does. No per-claim fees. No percentage of your turnover. Ever.
Full resource library, HPCSA-compliant session notes and client profiles. No invoicing. Perfect while you're registering, studying, or seeing your first few clients cash.
6 – 20 active clients
± R1.95 per client
Everything unlocked — invoicing, medical aid billing, claim tracking, forms, the lot. The tier most new practitioners start on.
21 – 50 active clients
± R1.58 per client
A full solo caseload. Same features, more room — and your cost per client actually drops as you grow.
51 – 200 active clients
± R0.75 per client
For the busy, multi-stream practice. Still a fraction of what a single month of outsourced billing costs.
201+ active clients
Unlimited clients
A full group-practice system for less than the cheapest entry-level competitor's solo plan.
Only your active clients count toward your tier. Inactive and archived client records stay stored and accessible on every plan — you're never charged for keeping the records you're required to keep.
Founding member offer
Waiting list members aren't just first in line — they get the best deal Wholistic will ever offer, plus something useful today.
Founding price, locked in
Join the waiting list and lock in R39 per month as your founding-member rate — everything included, no per-claim fees, no percentage of your income.
Free at signup, sent today
The step-by-step checklist for going from board certified to seeing your first client — registrations, practice numbers, billing setup and forms, in order, nothing missed.
Your founding rate stays yours for as long as you stay subscribed — even when the standard price goes up.
Questions, answered straight
Mental health professionals in South African private practice — especially Registered Counsellors and psychologists, and especially those just starting out. If you're newly board certified and staring down the admin side of practice for the first time, Wholistic was built with you specifically in mind. Established practitioners who want to stop overpaying for admin will feel right at home too.
There's a free plan, and paid plans start at R39 per month. Pricing scales with your active caseload: Free covers up to 5 active clients (notes and resource library, no invoicing); Starter is R39/month for up to 20 active clients with everything unlocked; Established is R79 for up to 50; Practice is R149 for up to 200; and Group is R249, unlimited. Only active clients count — archived records are stored free on every plan. No per-claim fees, no percentage of your income, and waiting-list members lock in the R39 founding rate.
Soon — the app is already running real sessions and real invoices in practice, and we're polishing it for public release. Waiting-list members hear first, get first access, and lock in the founding price. One email, the moment the doors open.
Yes. Invoicing handles both cash and medical aid direct billing — and everything else (compliant notes, intake and consent forms, client management, risk tracking, the resource library) is just as useful in a cash practice. If you add medical aid clients later, the billing side is ready and waiting.
Client confidentiality is the foundation this was built on — it's a practitioner's tool, made by a practitioner bound by the same ethics you are. Records are stored securely, session notes lock against editing per HPCSA guidelines, and the intake and consent forms are POPIA-compliant out of the box. [Add your specifics here before publishing: where data is hosted, encryption, backups — visitors will ask.]
All the major South African schemes — Discovery Health, GEMS, Bonitas, Momentum Health, Medshield, Fedhealth, POLMED, Bankmed and more — with scheme-specific tariff codes built into the invoicing, kept up to date so you're never billing off an old rate sheet.
That's the whole point. Wholistic was designed so that someone who has never sent a medical aid claim in their life can produce a correct, compliant invoice on day one. If you can fill in a form, you can run this app — the system carries the complicated parts.
Launching soon
Join the waiting list and we'll send you one email the moment Wholistic Private Practice opens its doors.
No spam. No newsletters you didn't ask for. Just the launch.