How Spring Health’s Compass Is Making My Life Easier

If you’re a therapist like me, there’s a good chance you’ve experienced frustration with the technology you use to schedule, track, document, and bill for your interactions with patients. The products and services I’ve used in various practice settings can be clunky, costly, and confusing. 

At Spring Health, we believe that technology should complement—not impede—your clinical work. So, we’ve built an electronic health record (EHR) that does precisely that. 

Compass by Spring Health (Compass) gives you a clear, streamlined, and evidence-based pathway for guiding patients through care. As a Provider Lead at Spring Health, I had the opportunity to be among the first handful of Compass users in June 2022. 

Keeping you headed in the right direction

It was evident to me right away that this platform has been thoughtfully built, applying insights from every stakeholder involved—from the member to the therapist and Care Team, billing specialists, data scientists, engineers, and support staff, who drive the overall experience of accessing mental health support through Spring Health.

Compass is intuitive, well-organized and, just like a real compass, keeps me headed in the right direction when it comes to delivering patient care. 

5 things you want to know about Compass 

This new platform is empowering therapists, medication managers, and care support staff to deliver world-class, transformational mental health care. Here are five things I’ve learned since starting to use Compass by Spring Health this summer.

One-stop shopping

Providers often use multiple, disparate systems to manage their caseload, view or schedule upcoming appointments, review a patient’s assessments or prior notes, track invoices and payments, and host their telehealth sessions. 

Personally, I did not become a therapist because of a passion (or frankly, skill!) for remembering usernames and passwords. 

Bouncing between platforms is disruptive and distracting, wastes time, and can result in mistakes and frustration. For example, I have:

• Double booked myself because I forgot to double check one calendar against another
• Gone into a session only to realize that I forgot to complete or sign my progress note from the prior session with that patient

Compass by Spring Health brings all of the vital resources together in one, beautifully designed and intuitive system. 

Evidence-based practice

Data is our co-pilot at Spring Health. We’re thinking about getting bumper stickers with this slogan! 

Compass has built-in functionality that displays a patient’s ongoing mental health assessments right in their chart, and provides clear visualizations of their progress over time. I can see a clear shift in a patient’s scores month over month, as they begin to apply the skills and techniques we discuss in session. 

These quantifiable data points give providers and patients invaluable information that can help all parties know what is—and perhaps isn’t—working, so you can adjust your approach as needed.

Real-time updates

Compass integrates patients’ clinically-validated assessments immediately, getting this information to the therapist when it matters—right away. Getting this information in real time empowers providers to make smarter and easier decisions about care planning, with fast access to patient progress and engagement data.

For example, last week I met with a patient who has been experiencing a depressive episode over the past two months. We’ve been working on how they can apply mindfulness techniques, and the patient was a bit skeptical about how “doing nothing,” as they described it, could possibly “help” them.

After a month of practicing those skills in session and on their own time, I was able to review a PHQ9 (clinically validated measure of depressive symptoms) that they completed just a day prior to their follow up session. The depression score had decreased (improved) significantly since the assessment they took during the low point of their depressive episode. 

Seeing this progress is important for patients, especially when they may feel hopeless or helpless—as so many patients do.

Having this data point at my fingertips prior to the follow up session helped the patient concretely view the growth and change they achieved through their efforts. By highlighting that progress in real time, the patient felt more supported and had more hope for continued growth through therapy. 

Compass keeps me on track

The work that occurs between appointments can be cumbersome for providers, and may even interfere with the ability to focus on patient care. Compass makes it easy for me to stay organized and on track. 

From prompting me with a to-do list that ensures I enter my progress notes on time, to providing a snapshot glance of a patient’s benefits, Compass simplifies the administrative functions that can otherwise be complex and time consuming. 

Compass makes note writing a simple, succinct, and organized process that ensures my work is being captured accurately and efficiently. It keeps me from forgetting to complete a note, then scrambling to recall a prior session several days later—and I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this used to happen from time to time. 

Why it’s called Compass

Like a navigational compass, this new platform keeps therapists oriented toward our metaphorical north star—a world where everyone has access to precise, personal, proven mental health care. 

Compass by Spring Health keeps providers focused on what matters most: delivering care to patients. It does this by leveraging our cutting-edge research on how to drive strong clinical care with a demonstrated ROI, and our track record of success in delivering millions of hours of care to hundreds of thousands of people, 

And that’s the important part—these systems set us up to be successful in the physical room or online with our patients.

Compass is revolutionizing the relationship between therapy and technology. It feels like an extension of your hand. It’s a second-nature tool that amplifies your ability to deliver great care, instead of distracting from it. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how Compass by Spring Health can help you improve your therapy practice, consider joining our diverse, talented, and growing network of providers.