Telehealth software and your PMS: how they fit together

Telehealth software and your practice management system (PMS) do different jobs. The PMS runs your appointments, records, prescriptions and billing; telehealth software runs the video consult. The neatest setups let each do what it’s best at — which usually means your telehealth tool pairs with your PMS rather than trying to replace it.

If you use Halaxy, Cliniko, Best Practice or Medical Director, here’s how the video consult fits in.

What your PMS does vs what telehealth software does

It helps to be clear about the boundary:

Your PMS handles	Telehealth software handles
Appointment booking and diary	The live video consult
Clinical records and notes	Patient joining the call
Prescriptions and referrals	In-consult tools (screen share, chat, file sharing)
Medicare and private billing	Encryption and consult privacy
Recalls and reminders	The device check before the call

The PMS is the system of record for the patient. Telehealth software is the room the consult happens in. Keeping that distinction clear is what stops you ending up with two half-populated record systems.

Two models: all-in-one vs pair-with-your-PMS

Broadly, there are two ways telehealth and practice management come together.

All-in-one suites try to own more of the workflow — the video plus scheduling and payments, sometimes with an integration into your PMS. Coviu is the clearest example. If you want booking, payment and the consult in one place, and you’re happy to pay for it, this model can reduce double-handling. See our MedCall vs Coviu comparison for where that approach wins.

Pair-with-your-PMS tools deliberately stay in their lane: they do the video call well and leave booking, notes and billing to the software you already run. Nothing about your records changes; the telehealth tool simply slots in for the part of the appointment that happens over video.

Neither is objectively better. If your PMS is already the centre of your practice and you’re happy with it, the pairing model means less to learn and nothing to migrate. If you’re building a workflow from scratch, an all-in-one suite might appeal.

How pairing works in practice

With a pair-alongside tool, a telehealth appointment looks like this:

1. Book it in your PMS, exactly as you book any appointment, flagged as telehealth.
2. When it’s time, start the consult in your telehealth tool and bring the patient in.
3. Document in your PMS as you go — the clinical note lives where all your notes live.
4. Bill through your PMS using the appropriate Medicare item, the same as an in-person visit.

The video tool touches only step 2. Everything else stays in the system you already trust, which keeps your records in one place and your billing consistent.

For reception, the change is small. The appointment shows in the same diary, marked as telehealth, and the only genuinely new step is sending or confirming the consult link at the right time. Because attendance, recalls and billing all still run through the PMS, front-desk staff aren’t learning a second system — they’re adding one quick action to a workflow they already know. That difference is often what separates telehealth that sticks from telehealth that quietly gets abandoned after a few weeks.

The goal isn’t to bolt a second mini-record-system onto your practice. It’s to slot a clean video consult into the workflow you already run — one diary, one set of notes, one billing process.

The simplest link between the two: a permanent room link

Most practice systems let you put a link in appointment confirmations and reminders. If your telehealth tool gives each clinician a permanent room link, you paste it in once and it goes out with every telehealth booking. At appointment time the patient opens it, types their name and waits for you. Nobody at reception has to send anything.

• Halaxy: set the appointment Location to Online Consultation and paste the link into Telehealth URL, or add it to your reminder templates.
• Cliniko, Power Diary, Nookal and others: add the link to the confirmation or reminder template for your telehealth appointment types.

MedCall gives every doctor a room link. Here’s how to set it up with Halaxy, Cliniko and other systems.

Records, privacy and not splitting your data

Wherever the consult happens, the health information you generate is sensitive and has to be handled accordingly. The Australian Privacy Principles expect reasonable steps to protect it, and the OAIC’s guide to health privacy is the practical reference for health service providers (OAIC). The RACGP’s guidance on privacy and managing health information covers how practices should store and manage that information (RACGP).

Two practical points follow:

• Keep the clinical note in your PMS, not scattered across a video tool. Your documentation obligations don’t change because the consult was remote — there’s more in our guide to telehealth documentation and medico-legal basics.
• Know where each tool stores data. A telehealth tool that records or stores consult content offshore is a different privacy proposition to one that’s Australian-hosted and records nothing. The Australian Digital Health Agency’s telehealth resources for providers are a useful starting point (Australian Digital Health Agency).

A note on “integration”

Clinicians often ask whether a telehealth tool “integrates” with their PMS. Real API integration — where the video tool writes back into your diary or records — exists on some paid platforms and can be convenient. But it isn’t the only way to get a clean workflow. A tool that simply runs beside your PMS, with a quick manual step to start the call, achieves the same clinical outcome with nothing to install into your practice system and nothing to break when the PMS updates. Weigh the convenience of deep integration against the simplicity of a tool that just gets out of the way. Our checklist for choosing telehealth software covers how to judge PMS fit for your practice.

Where MedCall fits

MedCall is a pair-with-your-PMS tool by design. It does the video consult — made for Australian clinicians, Australian-hosted, encrypted and never recorded — and leaves your booking, notes and billing exactly where they are, in Halaxy, Cliniko, Best Practice, Medical Director or whatever you run. There’s nothing to migrate: you book in your PMS, start the consult in MedCall, and document and bill as you always have. Patients join by tapping a texted link, with no app or account. You can read more on the telehealth software page.

If you’d rather have scheduling and payments bundled into the video tool itself, that’s a genuine reason to look at a paid all-in-one suite instead. MedCall’s bet is that most clinicians already have a PMS they like, and just want the call to be simple.

The bottom line

Telehealth software and your PMS are complementary, not competing. Decide whether you want an all-in-one suite that absorbs scheduling and payments, or a focused video tool that pairs with the practice system you already run. Keep your clinical notes in your PMS, know where each tool stores data, and pick the model that means the least friction for your team. For the privacy fundamentals, start with the OAIC’s guide to health privacy.