Overview

Island Practice Management (IPM) is a Management Services Organization (MSO) that provides operational support for mental health clinicians, managing administrative functions such as billing, scheduling, phones, and HR so practices can focus on patient care. IPM was founded in 2018 by Randall Solomon, MD, the owner and founder of Island Psychiatry, alongside the same leadership team from that practice. Many of these clinicians still see patients there and have firsthand experience with the barriers that mental healthcare practices have to overcome.

Supernova Award Category

Digital Safety, Governance, Privacy, and Cybersecurity

The Problem

The healthcare industry lacks software that can reliably support both the clinical and operational sides of our business. IPM needed to find a way to empower clinicians to provide the best care possible, ensure a reliable experience for patients, and manage privacy concerns. Caught in between traditional Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, which lack necessary operations and sales functionality, and standard business software, we were left to rely on handwritten notes and informal tracking systems to bridge the gap, taking time from clinicians and administrative staff and introducing risk to the patient's data and experience.

The Solution

IPM's goal as a company is to help clinicians provide the best care they can to patients without being bogged down by managing the business, but being clinicians ourselves, we were acutely aware of the problems we would face on a disconnected system: information buried in charts, patients lost in the vetting process, and limited patient capacity. When evaluating software, we found that we were boxed out of many vendors because we don't follow a traditional sales pipeline, but we needed to track and convert potential patients the way a sales team manages leads. Zoho was the only software that would adapt to meet specific needs of the healthcare industry (like vetting leads to determine good fit) and centralize data for a smoother onboarding process to prioritize patient experience.

The results

We built a solution that actually gives healthcare providers the ability to manage all parts of their practice and provide better care to their patients. Zoho has genuinely moved the needle on the quality and efficiency of care. Patients move through intake more smoothly, communication is faster, and the administrative complaints we used to hear ("I never hear back," "no one answers the phone") have been replaced by compliments on how responsive and helpful our team is. That shift is directly tied to having automated workflows and centralized communication in place. Patient intake used to be entirely manual: every touchpoint, confirmation, form, and follow-up was an email or phone call someone had to make. Now the entire process is workflow-driven with automated communications at each stage. Zoho Forms captures prospective patient information and pushes it into Zoho CRM. It gets automatically assigned, recorded, and a reminder is created to follow up, creating a frictionless intake pipeline. Because this vetting process is faster and more accurate, patients are either connected with the right level of care sooner, or they have more time to find a new provider if we determine they aren't a good fit for the practice. We aren't trying to make a sale; we'd rather tell someone right away if they're in the wrong place. Clinical data used to live across disconnected systems, relying on providers who were already stretched thin to keep it accurate and compliant. Now, we've customized CRM to mirror how a practice actually runs, building a dedicated "Patients" module by customizing the existing "Contacts" module, and converting "Deals" into an "Appointments" module that anchors daily operations. Using Zoho Creator, key information is pulled from the EHR into CRM, so clinicians can confidently use both tools knowing that the information they need is all in the same record. Compliance also improved through the automated tracking of clinician certifications and renewals, which now rarely require any manual intervention to stay current. Before Zoho, we had a DEA registration lapse that left a clinician unable to prescribe for approximately 48 hours. It was a nightmare. Everything was tracked manually and maintained through individual follow-up, which meant it was only as reliable as whoever was doing the chasing that week. Since implementing automated renewal tracking and workflow-driven reminders, we have had zero compliance lapses. It went from one of our most stressful ongoing administrative responsibilities to something that essentially runs itself. The short amounts of time that clinicians have between appointments is critical. Before, clinicians were forced to spend this time digging through patient charts to find information. Now, CRM pushes that information to them automatically in a Zoho Cliq message before each appointment with special instructions. Even if they see patients back to back, they walk into an appointment knowing if a client has certain needs, specific visit instructions, or other details that could otherwise slip through the cracks. Practices used to struggle with the additional risk of gaps in client contact going unnoticed because catching them depended on the vigilance of an already overwhelmed provider. Now, custom CRM workflows automatically trigger follow-up reminders and next steps, improving both the intake experience and patient retention. These automations are critical to ongoing client care, notifying clinicians so they can check in with the patient proactively. This isn't just an improvement for the practices we manage; it's a repeatable model for how clinical practices can operate on connected, owned data instead of stitched-together point tools. Client information is securely and centrally stored, processes are automated to remove opportunities for error, clinicians have the information they need to provide fast and personalized care, and the business is able to give clients a consistent quality of service without growing headcount. This same system can be deployed to the next provider and the one after that, giving this approach reach well beyond a single organization.

Metrics

- Revenue per staff member increased by approximately 86%. - From 2021 to 2024, we grew revenue by over 80% while total headcount stayed essentially flat, 37 staff in 2021 and 36 in 2024. - IPM went from a peak of 22 administrative staff down to 13, a 41% reduction, while supporting the increased revenue. - 10 hours per week saved on HR tasks. - Recruiting coordination (roughly 30 minutes per week eliminated), offer letters (15 minutes down to 1), and staff onboarding (30 minutes down to 5).

The Technology

Zoho One serves as an operational backbone to run the entire patient lifecycle, from first contact to ongoing care. We tailored the traditional sales pipeline management approach to address our unique lead vetting process and took advantage of sales tools to manage our customer relationships, while integrating with specialized tools for healthcare industry needs. - Pipeline management: Zoho Forms pushes to Zoho CRM, integrated with phone and email systems. - CRM customization: Custom fields, modules, and integrations manage industry-specific requirements. - Blueprints and automations: Patient follow-ups, clinician appointment updates, and credentials are all supported with automations built through custom functions and blueprints. - Integration: Zoho Creator pushes specific information from our EHR system to CRM while payment forms are connected through Authorize.net and Zoho Books, feeding financial data into CRM for visibility. - Clinician access: Clinicians receive patient information on Cliq, powered by nineteen apps integrated on the back end.

Disruptive Factor

Everyone interfaces with healthcare, but the software industry has left providers behind. Our use of Zoho One to build a custom platform around the patient lifecycle challenges a status quo that most healthcare organizations accept today: that we must compromise on our business needs when EHRs can't come through for us. We have proven that a single, integrated system can allow our practice to serve patients better without growing staff or accepting long hours of manual labor. This same underlying need is universal across healthcare, meaning IPM can serve as a blueprint for the industry to improve patient care and provider experience at scale.

Shining Moment

Our intake process: from the moment someone applies to the moment they become a patient, every step is designed to get them to the right person for their specific needs. Reaching out for mental healthcare can be a daunting process on its own. Friction in the intake process can create further stress or lead to people dropping off and not receiving the care they need. If someone goes through a full intake and gets into an appointment with a doctor only to find out that they are not a good fit, this can also be demoralizing and take away time they could have been using finding the right provider. Our intake and vetting system means we can prioritize patient care before they even become our patient, and even if they never do. It also improves our ongoing care. If a clinician hasn't heard from a client in a while, CRM automatically creates a task so the team can check in proactively to support their patients' safety. In a field where friction can mean someone gives up on getting help, we're proud that our system is built to carry people towards care, not away from it.