A buyer’s guide
11 questions to ask any practice-management vendor — including us.
Buying practice software is hard because most of the real costs and catches don’t show up in the demo. Here are the questions that surface them — and our own honest answer to each, the one we don’t fully pass yet included. Ask every vendor on your list the same eleven. The ones who dodge are telling you something.
Can you see the price without booking a demo?
Why it matters — When a vendor won't show a number until a sales call, the number is usually negotiable — which means it's high, and what you pay depends on how hard you push.
Our answer
Yes. Every price is on our pricing page, in public, right now — no form, no call. (Some platforms publish no pricing at all; you have to book a demo just to get a number.)
See the pricing →What's the all-in cost per provider in year two — in writing?
Why it matters — Per-provider pricing, plus a per-claim clearinghouse, plus bolt-on add-ons means the real number climbs every time you grow. Year two rarely looks like the first quote.
Our answer
One flat price per practice — no per-provider fees, no per-claim fees, no setup fee. The optional extras: two add-ons (custom domain $19/mo, concierge support $49/mo) and three usage-based items (ambient scribe minutes, eligibility checks past the included 50/mo, postcard print + postage) — every one published on the pricing page. Year two is the same as year one unless you choose to change tiers. Run your own numbers and see.
Open the true-cost calculator →Can you turn a feature off later — and is there a bill to cancel?
Why it matters — Practices get sold modules they don't need and then can't remove. Ask whether the product bends to your workflow, or whether you bend to its pricing tiers.
Our answer
Features are toggleable per practice, so you can switch off what you don't use and keep it out of the way. And because it's one flat price, there's no per-module charge to cancel in the first place.
Can you edit your own note templates today — yourself?
Why it matters — Charting you can't customize fights your workflow on every visit. “We'll build it for you” means a support ticket and a wait.
Our answer
Yes. Edit your own SOAP templates and smart-pick option lists in the app — no ticket, no wait — so the note matches how you actually document.
What happens to your data the day you cancel?
Why it matters — Your patient records are yours. Some vendors make leaving expensive or slow — a cancellation fee, a charge to export your data, or a “request it and wait” process.
Our answer
One click, and you're holding everything: a complete practice archive — patients, appointments, notes, billing, claims, audit log — in both JSON and CSV, free, any time, no ticket and no exit fee. Uploaded file binaries (X-rays, PDFs) ride along as a full manifest today and are handed over on request during offboarding. Worth being precise about what that file is: it's a portability record, not a restore point — recovery runs on our side, on automated daily backups of the database and your patient files, held 35 days in a lock-protected vault with a copy in a second AWS region.
Who actually owns the company?
Why it matters — Private-equity roll-ups and VC-backed challengers answer to investors first. That tends to show up as price hikes once you're locked in, and support that quietly thins out.
Our answer
ChiroFlow is built by Dr. Don Lavigne — a practicing chiropractor — under WellSpring Digital LLC. No private-equity owner, no VC board pushing the next increase. The person who answers your support email is the person who wrote the software.
What was your uptime last quarter?
Why it matters — Software your whole practice runs on can't be down when tomorrow's schedule needs to print. Ask for a real, recent number.
Our answerone we don’t fully pass — told straight
Here's the honest one: we're new, so we can't hand you eight quarters of uptime history the way an incumbent can. What we can show you is the architecture underneath it — AWS, multi-region daily backups, tamper-locked recovery points — and a live status page as it comes online. We'd rather say that than quote a number we haven't earned yet.
Do you have an ambient AI scribe?
Why it matters — Ambient documentation is fast becoming table stakes. If a vendor claims it, ask what it actually does today versus what's on a roadmap slide — and how it's priced.
Our answer
Yes. Record the encounter with the patient's consent and the scribe drafts the SOAP note for your review — you approve every word before it touches the chart. It runs on AWS's HIPAA-eligible medical transcription stack, not a third-party scribe vendor. And the pricing is worth asking any vendor about: only the scribe's recording minutes are metered, at $0.20 a minute — the rest of the AI in the product (note narratives, rewrites, documentation checks) is included in the flat subscription. Prefer plain dictation? Still there.
Is support included, or is it an upcharge?
Why it matters — “Support” that costs extra per month is a price increase wearing a different label. Ask what the baseline actually includes.
Our answer
Email support with same-day weekday responses is included on every tier. There's an optional concierge add-on (weekends + a direct line to the founder), but the baseline is never paywalled.
Has the person who built it ever run a clinic?
Why it matters — Software designed by people who've never worked a front desk optimizes for the demo, not for a real chiropractic day.
Our answer
ChiroFlow runs at Advanced Health & Physical Therapy Solutions every day — the founder's own hybrid chiro + PT clinic. Every feature ships there first. If it doesn't survive a real clinic day, it doesn't reach yours.
How do I get my data IN?
Why it matters — Everyone asks about getting data out — the lock-in fear. But the first real project of switching runs the other direction, and a vendor whose import plan is “send us a spreadsheet and we'll see” is handing your staff weeks of re-keying.
Our answer
With an actual import toolkit, not a shrug. Pick the system you're leaving, upload its exports, and the columns map themselves — patients, appointment history, open balances — with a preview before anything is written and a one-click rollback if a run looks wrong. Run it yourself or hand us the files and we'll do it white-glove as part of onboarding. Billing survives the move too: claims filed in your old system stay reconciled when the insurance payments arrive, and the app warns before you file to a payer whose electronic enrollment isn't live yet. (Notice question five covers getting data out — this direction matters just as much, and fewer vendors will answer it.)
See the switching toolkit →
We answered all eleven — including the one we’d rather not.
That’s the whole idea. A vendor willing to name its gaps before you find them is a vendor you can trust on the other ten. See the pricing in public, run your own cost math, or just try the whole thing free for 14 days.