Upheal vs Healthie: Purpose-built AI vs comprehensive EHR platforms
What’s better for a therapy practice: a general medical EHR, or a few intelligent tools specialized in mental health care?
The answer is different for different therapists and practices.
And — as more EHRs release AI features, and more AI tools become full EHRs — it can be difficult to suss out each platform’s area of strength.
The biggest difference between Upheal and Healthie is that Upheal offers AI tools for therapists, whereas Healthie is a more general-purpose system for medical records.
Upheal specializes in AI-powered documentation and clinical insights designed specifically for behavioral health practitioners.
Healthie provides comprehensive practice management — scheduling, billing, documentation, and client portals — with AI features integrated into their EHR system.
Platform strengths and focus areas
Upheal: specialized behavioral health AI
Upheal was designed exclusively for mental health professionals, with features that address the specific requirements of therapeutic documentation. The platform understands therapeutic modalities, tracks alliance dynamics, and provides insights relevant to behavioral health practice.
The platform's advanced analytics offer insights into therapeutic dynamics, session patterns, and client behavior that support professional development alongside documentation efficiency.
The Golden Thread treatment planning system creates client-centered narratives that integrate all care components, linking interventions directly to treatment goals while tracking progress over time. This system was built specifically for therapeutic workflows rather than adapted from general medical documentation.
Healthie: comprehensive practice management
Healthie operates as a complete EHR system handling scheduling, billing, client portals, telehealth, ePrescribe, and outcome measures within a single platform. The system serves multiple medical specialties including nutrition counseling, primary care, and behavioral health.
Healthie's AI Scribe generates industry-standard documentation including SOAP notes, ADIME notes, intake forms, and progress notes. The AI capabilities focus on transcription and workflow automation rather than clinical insights, with notes generated within 7-15 minutes after session completion.
The platform's strength lies in comprehensive infrastructure management. For practices requiring integrated business operations, scheduling, billing, and documentation under one system, Healthie provides established EHR functionality.
Healthie's approach suits practices seeking single-platform simplicity and established healthcare technology infrastructure, particularly for multi-specialty practices or large healthcare organizations.
Feature comparison
Golden Thread treatment planning
Upheal's Golden Thread feature creates a comprehensive narrative connecting all aspects of client care. The system automatically links session notes to treatment goals, tracks intervention effectiveness, and generates case snapshots that demonstrate progress over time. This integration ensures every session builds meaningfully toward therapeutic outcomes, making it easier to demonstrate progress to clients, supervisors, and insurance providers.
Healthie offers traditional EHR treatment planning tools with outcome measure insights and timeline charts. While functional for basic treatment planning needs, the system lacks the automated integration between session content and treatment goals that characterizes specialized behavioral health platforms.
Smart Sections and customization
Upheal's Smart Sections allow therapists to create custom AI-powered template sections using their own prompts. Clinicians can instruct the AI to capture specific therapeutic approaches — tracking window of tolerance in trauma work, documenting co-regulation techniques, or monitoring family systems dynamics. This section-level customization creates templates that truly reflect individual clinical expertise.
Healthie provides customizable templates within their charting system, allowing providers to select from existing template options or create specialty-specific documentation. However, customization is limited to template selection and field arrangement rather than AI prompt engineering.
Compliance Checker for audit readiness
Upheal's Compliance Checker analyzes notes against real payer standards from Aetna and Optum, identifying gaps in treatment necessity justification, progress measurement, risk assessment completeness, and diagnostic consistency. The system provides line-by-line compliance reports, helping therapists identify specific documentation elements that could trigger claim reviews before submission.
Healthie maintains HIPAA compliance and security standards within their EHR infrastructure but does not currently offer automated compliance checking against specific payer requirements. The platform focuses on general healthcare compliance rather than behavioral health-specific documentation standards.
Pricing comparison
Healthie was designed to be a complete EHR for large practices. Its plan structure reflects this focus, with significantly higher costs that might preclude small and independent practices from using Healthie. Upheal’s more modest pricing offers plans for solo and large practices alike, even offering some unlimited AI tools as part of its Free plan.
Upheal pricing
- Free: Unlimited notes, video calling, manual uploads
- Starter ($19/month annually): All note types, Smart Edit, template customization
- Premium ($69/month annually): Advanced analytics, custom AI prompts, treatment planning
Healthie pricing
- Essentials ($45/month annually): 250 active clients, basic features
- Plus ($115/month annually): Unlimited clients, advanced features
- Group ($135+/month annually): Multi-practitioner support
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for large organizations
Choosing the right platform
Upheal serves mental health professionals seeking AI-native documentation tools with advanced clinical insights, specialized behavioral health features, and flexible integration with existing systems. The platform's strength lies in purpose-built features like Golden Thread treatment planning, Smart Sections customization, and compliance checking that understand therapeutic practice nuances.
Healthie works well for practices requiring comprehensive platform integration — scheduling, billing, documentation, and client management within a single system. The platform suits multi-specialty practices, large healthcare organizations, or practices prioritizing administrative simplicity over specialized clinical features.
The choice comes down to depth versus breadth. Upheal offers specialized tools that enhance clinical practice while integrating with existing workflows. Healthie provides comprehensive practice management with basic AI features included.
