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Video sessions

Conduct HIPAA-compliant video sessions directly in the browser — no downloads for you or your client.

In this guide, we'll cover:

Starting a video session​

  1. Schedule the appointment with a virtual/telehealth location (see Calendar Overview)
  2. At session time, open the appointment on your calendar and click the teal video icon (Video Session) — it appears only on virtual-location appointments
  3. You land on the Pre-call Check first: camera preview, mic level, device pickers, and an optional background blur. Click Join Session when everything looks right; your client joins from their client portal appointment ("Join Session" on their side too)

The waiting room​

Clients don't drop straight into your room. When your client arrives you'll see "[Client name] is in the waiting room" with an Admit to Session button — nobody joins until you let them in. Clients can open the waiting room any time before the session, but you won't see them waiting until 30 minutes before the start time (or right away, if you've already started the session). The Last Note button (on the pre-call screen and in the session, whenever the client has a prior note) opens Session Prep — refresh yourself before admitting them.

For minor clients, a parent/guardian with portal access can join, with your confirmation at admit time.

During the session​

Your in-call controls: mute, camera on/off, background blur, screen share, the Notes recording toggle, a session timer, and End Call. (There's no in-call text chat — use secure messages for anything written.)

  • Session recording for AI notes — the Start Notes toggle transcribes the call and drafts your progress note through the same pipeline as in-person recording. No special audio setup is needed here — the call's audio is captured directly. (The separate "Telehealth with Headphones" mode exists for recording external video calls from the Live Session page.)
  • Ending: End Call wraps up any in-progress note processing and frees the room; you'll see "Session Ended" with a Return to Calendar button.

Clients can only join their own appointment, near its start time — you can join early to set up.

Preparing yourself and your client​

A minute of preparation prevents most mid-session problems:

  • Use the Pre-call Check every time. It shows your live camera preview, a mic level meter, and pickers for camera, microphone, and speaker — if the wrong device is selected (a common aftermath of plugging in headphones), fix it here, before the client sees you.
  • Background blur is available on the pre-call screen and in the call. On older devices or browsers that can't support it, the toggle simply doesn't appear — that's expected, not a bug.
  • Tell first-time clients what to expect: they join from their portal's appointment page, their browser will ask to use the camera and microphone (they should click Allow), and they'll wait in the waiting room until you admit them. A phone or tablet works — the portal runs in their mobile browser with nothing to install.
  • Close what you don't need. Video competes with everything else the computer is doing; other video apps in particular can hold the camera hostage.

Troubleshooting​

"Please allow camera and microphone access in your browser settings." The browser blocked device access. Click the camera/padlock icon in the address bar, set Camera and Microphone to Allow, and reload the page. The same fix applies on the client's side — this is the single most common joining problem.

Your client can't hear you (or you can't hear them). Almost always a device-selection problem, not a connection problem. Both sides should check the mic and speaker pickers (yours are on the Pre-call Check and in the call) — Bluetooth headphones that connected mid-call are the classic culprit. The mic level meter tells you instantly whether your microphone is actually picking you up.

The camera shows a black square. Another app (Zoom, Teams, another browser tab) is holding the camera. Close it and reload.

Video is choppy or keeps freezing. Bandwidth. Move closer to the router or switch off Wi-Fi to wired if you can; asking the client to turn off other streaming in their household genuinely helps. Turning your own camera off for a moment lets a struggling connection recover.

The client says there's no Join button. They can only join their own appointment near its start time, from the appointment on their portal — walk them to the portal's Appointments page. If they were never invited to the portal, that's the actual problem: see the client portal.

Something else went wrong mid-session. Both sides can simply reload the page and rejoin — the room survives a refresh, and you'll pass through the waiting-room flow again. If a session error appears repeatedly, try another browser (Chrome and Edge are the most dependable), and tell support@practiceharbor.com what the message said.

Technical requirements​

  • A modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge)
  • A working microphone and camera
  • A stable internet connection
tip

For the best experience, use Chrome and close unnecessary tabs. If video quality drops, turning your own camera off temporarily frees bandwidth for the client's stream.