Occupational Therapy Practice Management Software in Australia: A Buyer's Guide

Quick answer: Australian occupational therapy practices usually shortlist HeroMed, Power Diary, coreplus or Cliniko. HeroMed is the option built to remove the admin rather than reorganise it: occupational therapy note templates and appointment types, an AI Scribe included in the Core AI plan that drafts notes for the practitioner to review and sign, and optional AI Hero modules for reception, booking, invoicing, messaging and marketing on the same platform.

Occupational therapy is the discipline most poorly served by software designed around a clinic room and a 30-minute appointment. A large share of OT work is non-contact: report writing, equipment prescription, case conferences, travel, and plan documentation. If the software cannot capture and bill that time accurately, the practice loses money on every complex client.

Non-contact time is the core requirement

Test this before anything else. The system should let you:

• Record non-contact activities — reports, phone calls, case conferences, research — against a client, with time.
• Log travel time and distance against a client or visit.
• Bill those items at the correct rate on the client''s invoice.
• Report on billable versus non-billable time per practitioner.

If a platform can only bill appointments in a diary, your report writing becomes unpaid work by default.

NDIS and plan-managed invoicing

Most Australian OT practices carry significant NDIS work. Check:

• Plan type recorded per client — self-managed, plan-managed or agency-managed — because it determines who is invoiced.
• Service agreements stored with dates and budget, and remaining budget visible.
• Support item numbers and correct rates applied per service.
• Invoices addressed to the plan manager with the required references.
• Aged receivables by plan manager, since payment timeframes vary a lot.

Our NDIS and telehealth software guide covers this in more depth.

Mobile and community work

OTs work in homes, schools and workplaces. That means:

• Notes and diary usable on a phone or tablet, ideally usable with poor connectivity.
• Visit scheduling that accounts for travel between appointments.
• Photo capture attached to the client record for home environment and equipment.
• Consent and forms completed on the device at the visit.

Documentation and reports

The real bottleneck in OT is not the session note, it is the functional assessment report, the equipment or home-modification recommendation, and the plan review report. Look for:

• Assessment templates with structured functional and environmental fields.
• Goal tracking that carries into reports rather than being retyped.
• Document generation from record data.
• Version history on reports.

HeroMed Core AI includes AI clinical scribing, which drafts the consultation record for review and sign-off — the largest single time saving available in a report-heavy discipline. HeroMed does not generate clinical treatment plans or equipment recommendations for you; the clinical reasoning stays with the therapist.

Equipment and third parties

Where you prescribe equipment or home modifications, check whether the software can track a recommendation through quote, approval, order and installation, with supplier documents attached. Practices without this run parallel spreadsheets, which is where approvals expire unnoticed.

What to look for: checklist

• Non-contact time and travel captured and billable
• Billable versus non-billable time reporting per practitioner
• NDIS plan type, service agreements and remaining budget
• Plan-manager invoicing and aged receivables by payer
• Mobile-capable notes and diary for community work
• Travel-aware scheduling
• Structured functional assessment templates and goal tracking
• Report generation from record data with version history
• Equipment recommendation tracking through to installation
• Written answers on hosting, access logging, export and AI retention

Where HeroMed fits

HeroMed Core AI provides the diary, client records with AI scribing included, invoicing and patient messaging in one subscription, with optional AI Hero modules for booking, invoicing, reception and marketing. See the comparison tables for a feature-by-feature view against coreplus, Cliniko, Power Diary and PracSuite, and our allied health discipline guide for a cross-discipline comparison.