Healthie alternatives for dietitians who bill insurance
Duo Practice, in short
- What it is
- Duo Practice is a free EHR with insurance billing built in. It drafts the note and the claim from the visit, files the claim under your NPI once you approve it, matches the payment and explains denials.
- Who it's for
- Independent registered dietitians who bill insurance.
- Price
- The chart is free. Billing is 3.9% of what the insurer pays on each claim, with no monthly fee, so a claim paid $0 costs $0. You pay Claim.MD directly for your own clearinghouse plan.
- How it differs
- Practice Better, Healthie and SimplePractice give you claim tools and leave the claim work to you. Duo Practice does that work, and it can run on top of the EHR you already use.
By Javier Alvarez · Updated · 6 min read
| Healthie plans (billed monthly) | Core $19.99, Essentials $49.99, Plus $129.99, Group from $149.99 |
|---|---|
| Healthie insurance claims | From Essentials, plus the ClaimMD integration from $30/mo and a $50 to $100 setup fee |
| Healthie AI Charting | $35/mo for 40 hours, Plus plan and up |
| Your Claim.MD account on Healthie | Transferred to Healthie for the integration to be supported |
| Duo Practice | Free chart and AI notes; 3.9% of what the insurer pays on each claim, no monthly fee |
| Prices checked | October 13, 2026 (Healthie, Practice Better, Kalix, SimplePractice, Claim.MD) |
Disclosure: Duo Practice is one of the options on this page, and we wrote it. Every price and feature for the other tools comes from the vendor's own public pages, checked on October 13, 2026. Prices change, so click through before you decide. The calculator above uses those same published prices.
You chose Healthie because it looked like the grown-up option: an EHR with scheduling, charting, a client app and insurance claims in one place. A year in, the insurance side is where your evenings go. You moved up a tier to get CMS-1500 claims, connected Claim.MD, and you still pick the codes, count the units, chase the rejections and read the ERAs yourself.
That doesn't mean Healthie is wrong for you. It means the question changed. It's no longer "which platform has the most features". It's which steps between the visit and the payment still depend on me, and what am I paying to still do them.
Where Healthie wins
Be fair to it first. Healthie is a real platform:
- Teams and growth. The Group plan adds a shared calendar, roles and team members ($50 a month per added clinician), and Healthie is built to run multi-provider practices and nutrition companies.
- Programs and the client app. Group telehealth and online programs sit on Plus and above, with a client portal and mobile app on every plan.
- An API. If you plan to build your own product on top of an EHR, Healthie is built for exactly that.
- Claims inside the chart. Its Claim.MD integration runs eligibility, submits CMS-1500 claims and brings statuses back into Healthie.
Stay put if you run a group, sell programs, or plan to build on an API. None of the alternatives below beats Healthie at being a platform.
Why insurance-billing RDs start looking
Each of these comes from Healthie's own pages:
- Claims sit behind a tier, plus an add-on. Core ($19.99 a month) doesn't include CMS 1500s or the ClaimMD integration. They start on Essentials ($49.99 billed monthly, up to 250 active clients), and the integration is listed from $30 a month with a $50 to $100 setup fee.
- AI notes push you to Plus. AI Charting is $35 a month for 40 hours, and only on Plus ($129.99) and up. A solo RD who wants AI notes and claims pays about $165 a month before Claim.MD.
- Your clearinghouse account changes hands. Healthie's FAQ says it can't support the integration unless your Claim.MD account is transferred to Healthie, and the Claim.MD subscription moves onto your Healthie bill. Convenient, but know how you'd take it back if you leave.
- The coding is still yours. Healthie builds the claim from what you enter. It doesn't decide 97802 vs 97803, count 15-minute units from the visit, or stop a Z68 BMI code from going first.
- Eligibility answers in general terms. Asked whether you can check eligibility for specific CPT codes, Healthie's FAQ lists what payers typically return: active coverage, deductibles and out-of-pocket amounts, subject to the payer. Nutrition visit limits usually still take a call.
The alternatives, side by side
| Healthie (baseline) | Practice Better | SimplePractice | Kalix | Duo Practice | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lowest plan with claims, billed monthly | Essentials $49.99 + ClaimMD integration from $30/mo | Starter $35 (10 clients) or Professional $69 (300 clients) + your Claim.MD plan | Starter $49 + from $0.39 per claim | Standard $27 + $15/mo managed clearinghouse | $0 chart; 3.9% of what the insurer pays + your Claim.MD plan |
| Clearinghouse | Claim.MD, account transferred to Healthie | Claim.MD, your account | SimplePractice's own | Kalix managed, unlimited claims | Claim.MD, your account |
| AI notes | $35/mo for 40 h, Plus plan and up | Add-on from $10/mo (20 h), Professional and up | Note Taker add-on | Auto-complete notes on all plans; transcription "coming soon" (Virtual Plus) | Included |
| Who picks codes and units | You | You | You | You | Duo, from the visit; you approve |
| Who posts the payment | You review the ERA | You review the ERA | You review the ERA | Kalix posts remittances | Duo matches the ERA to the claim |
| Client portal, programs | Yes | Yes, its strength | Yes | From Virtual Practice ($47/mo) | No |
| Best fit | Groups, programs, API | Programs and packages, hybrid cash and insurance | Practices shared with therapists | Budget-minded solo RDs | Solo RDs whose bottleneck is note-to-claim |
All prices billed monthly, checked October 13, 2026 on each vendor's pricing page; SimplePractice's per-claim fee is from its October 1, 2026 notice. Claim.MD's own plans run $30 to $120 a month on its pricing page.
Who each alternative fits
Practice Better fits when what's pushing you off Healthie is cost or client experience, not billing depth. Its portal and programs are excellent, its Claim.MD integration covers eligibility, claim submission, status and ERAs, and the Claim.MD account stays yours. Codes and units are still typed by you; our Practice Better + Claim.MD breakdown goes step by step. If you're weighing just these two, read Practice Better vs Healthie.
SimplePractice fits practices that share admin with therapists. Its claims engine is mature. For MNT, know that unit-billed services default to 1 unit and you set the rest by hand, and that every electronic claim now carries a per-claim fee. Details in our SimplePractice MNT billing guide.
Kalix is the lowest list price here with US claims: $27 a month plus a $15 managed clearinghouse with unlimited claims. If your frustration with Healthie is mostly the bill, start there. We compare it with its own alternatives in Kalix alternatives.
Duo Practice fits a narrower case: you're a solo RD, most visits go to insurance, and the hours you want back are the note and the claim. Duo records the visit, writes the MNT note with the PES statement and units counted from the minutes, builds the claim with CPT, ICD-10, modifier and place of service, and files it under your NPI through your own Claim.MD account once you approve. When the ERA arrives it matches the payment and explains any denial in plain English. That is insurance billing on autopilot, with you approving every claim. So far: 333 paid claims and about $42,000 collected for two practices since May 2026. How the pricing works is on our dietitian billing service page.
Where Duo Practice is not the right Healthie replacement
Say it plainly so you don't waste a trial:
- You run a group or a nutrition company that needs team scheduling, sub-organizations or an API. Stay on Healthie.
- Your clients live in an app. Duo Practice has no client app, food logs, meal plans or programs.
- You're mostly cash-pay. A free chart is nice, but Practice Better's programs will do more for a coaching practice.
- Your insurance volume is high and you're happy coding it yourself. A percentage grows with your collections; a flat subscription doesn't. The calculator above shows where that line falls on your numbers, and our billing software cost comparison goes further.
- You need prior authorizations, appeals or credentialing handled. Duo doesn't do those.
How to switch without losing money in flight
- Export first. Pull client demographics, insurance details, notes and documents out of Healthie before you cancel anything.
- Finish open claims where they started. Claims already submitted get worked to payment in the old system. Timely filing limits don't pause for a migration.
- Sort out the clearinghouse. If your Claim.MD account was transferred to Healthie, ask both companies how to move it back. ERAs go to one clearinghouse per NPI and Tax ID, so re-enrollment can move where payments land. Our Claim.MD integration page covers enrollment.
- Run three real visits end to end on the new tool, from eligibility to a paid ERA, before moving everyone. The dietitian insurance billing guide lists every step to check.
The honest bottom line
Healthie is the right answer for teams and platforms. If you're solo and insurance is your engine, the alternatives split by what you want to pay for: the lowest list price (Kalix), the client experience (Practice Better), one system shared with other disciplines (SimplePractice), or less of the note-to-claim work landing on you (Duo Practice). Whatever you trial, run one real claim through it and time every step you do by hand. That number is the comparison.