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Doxy.me is the best free option here and the only platform bundling a HIPAA BAA at zero cost. SimplePractice includes telehealth on every tier for solo and small behavioral-health practices, and Healthie is the API-first pick for digital health startups. Amwell and eVisit sell exclusively to health systems, and Zoom is the answer when Epic-native ambient documentation matters more than a dedicated telehealth tool. All seven were compared on published pricing, BAA terms, EHR depth, and API access.
Doxy.me is the best telemedicine software pick for solo clinicians and anyone who wants patients joining without a download. SimplePractice is the better buy if you need scheduling, notes, and insurance billing in the same subscription, and it's also the best telemedicine software for small business practices that want telehealth bundled into an existing subscription rather than a separate line item.
Last updated: August 30, 2026. PickMySoft is reader-supported and independently researched. Every price, compliance term, and integration claim below came from vendor documentation on that date. This article is not clinical or legal advice; confirm your own compliance obligations before selecting a platform.
Why You Need Telemedicine Software
- Consumer video tools are not HIPAA-covered by default. Without an executed BAA the platform is not a compliant channel for protected health information, whatever the encryption claims.
- Patient-side friction drives no-shows. Every download, account creation, and password reset between the appointment and the visit loses patients.
- The EHR connection is where time is actually saved. A visit that drops into the chart and the claim beats one that needs manual reconciliation afterward.
- Included versus add-on changes the real price. Telehealth bundled into a practice subscription costs very differently from telehealth sold per clinician on top.
- Group visits are a separate feature. Several platforms include one-to-one video and charge extra for group sessions, which matters for therapy and education programs.
How We Evaluated
Each platform was scored on pricing transparency, whether telehealth is included or an add-on, HIPAA and BAA terms, EHR integration depth, and API access. We treated BAA availability as a threshold rather than a feature, because a platform without one is not usable for clinical work regardless of its video quality. Facts came from vendor documentation only. Full criteria live in our methodology.
1. Doxy.me
Doxy.me removes the single largest source of telehealth no-shows: the patient does nothing but click a link. No download, no app, no account, no login. They land in a virtual waiting room in a browser. The free tier also ships with a real BAA at no cost, which almost no competitor does, so a solo clinician can be HIPAA-covered at zero spend.
Pricing: Two tiers currently sold. Free at $0 with unlimited one-to-one video visits, a waiting room link, appointment management, and HIPAA compliance with a BAA included. Premium is per user per month billed annually, but the figure is not published in crawlable page content and the help center states the rate appears at checkout. A $10 Day Pass granting 24 hours of Premium is the only official public dollar figure. Important: the $29 to $50 Professional and Clinic prices still quoted by price-comparison sites are legacy tiers, not the current lineup. Doxy.me's own legacy help center is literally titled "Help Center for Legacy Clinic Plans."
Top Features
- Browser-based video visits with no patient download
- Virtual waiting room with live patient queue
- Group calls up to 25 participants with gallery view
- Screen share of full screen, tab, or application
- Custom-branded waiting room and check-in experience
- Photo capture, file transfer, and in-session chat
Pros
- BAA included free, unusual at zero cost
- Zero patient-side friction, no download or account
- Unlimited one-to-one visits on the free tier
Cons
- No native EHR connectors to Epic, Cerner, or others
- Premium price is not published anywhere on the site
AI/MCP Integration: None. No official or community server exists. The only search result is a generic explainer that confirms nothing.
API Integration: Partial, with no self-serve developer portal. A Meeting History API, webhooks for check-in and call events, and a patient-identifier URL parameter exist, but access runs through an email request rather than public documentation.
Cloud Based: Yes. No on-premise option.
Platforms: Browser only, on desktop and mobile. No native app for provider or patient.
Compliance: HIPAA compliant with a BAA included on the free tier, and a Custom BAA on Premium. Specific third-party certifications such as SOC 2 or HITRUST were not confirmed on official pages.
Best For: Solo clinicians and small practices who need compliant video with the least possible patient friction.
Editor score: 4.4/5. Including a BAA on a free tier is a genuinely unusual decision and the no-download model solves a real clinical problem. It is a video tool rather than a practice platform, though: no native EHR connectors, no built-in scheduling depth, and an unpublished Premium price that makes budgeting require a checkout.
Compare related tooling in our healthcare software category.
2. SimplePractice
SimplePractice bundles telehealth, client portal, documentation, and insurance claim filing into one behavioral-health-native subscription with no telehealth surcharge at any tier. For a solo therapist or small group practice that is the whole argument, and it is a strong one.
Pricing: Starter $49 a month, Essential $79, Plus $99, all in USD with telehealth included on every plan. Group telehealth is the exception: unavailable on Starter, a paid add-on of roughly $20 a month on Essential per support-article snippets we could not verify directly, and included on Plus. Add-ons displayed on the pricing page include Care Aide, Note Taker, and ePrescribe. Per-additional-clinician pricing on Plus is genuinely not published.
Top Features
- Built-in HIPAA-compliant telehealth video on every plan
- Client portal with online booking and intake paperwork
- Electronic insurance claim filing with ERA payment reports
- Behavioral-health note templates and treatment planning
- Integrated card processing, invoicing, and superbills
- Automated reminders across email, text, and voice
Pros
- Telehealth included at every tier with no surcharge
- BAA offered on all paid plans, signed electronically in-app
- HITRUST certified and PCI DSS compliant
Cons
- No public API or webhooks for any individual practice
- Real cost drifts upward through several paid add-ons
AI/MCP Integration: None. No official server, and third-party SimplePractice API adapters are reverse-engineered rather than sanctioned.
API Integration: No self-serve API. A partner-gated Enterprise API exists for employee assistance programs and managed-care organizations, but ordinary practices cannot obtain credentials.
Cloud Based: Yes. No on-premise option and no offline mode.
Platforms: Web across major browsers, clinician apps for iOS and Android, and a separate client portal app. No iPad client app.
Compliance: HIPAA compliant, BAA offered on all paid plans and signed in-app, covering the native telehealth video. HITRUST certified and PCI DSS compliant. Free-trial accounts are not eligible to store PHI.
Best For: Solo therapists and small behavioral-health group practices wanting one subscription for clinical and administrative work.
Editor score: 4.3/5. Including telehealth on every tier without a surcharge is exactly right for this segment, and in-app BAA signing removes a common onboarding delay. The complete absence of a public API is the real ceiling: any custom integration or data automation is impossible outside SimplePractice's own partner list.
3. Healthie
Healthie is the API-first option. One GraphQL API covers EHR, scheduling, telehealth, engagement, and insurance billing, so a digital health startup can run fully headless or mix Healthie's own UI components with its own front end. That is a fundamentally different product from a traditional practice-management EHR.
Pricing: Core $19 a month per provider, or $18 annually, telehealth included. Essentials $49 or $45. Plus $129 or $115, adding group telehealth and webinars. Group $149 and up, plus $50 a month per additional clinician. Healthie Plus and Enterprise pricing is not published. USD. The important caveat: API access is a paid add-on with no published price, so the tiers above describe the traditional practice-management product rather than the headless one.
Top Features
- GraphQL API and headless EHR infrastructure
- Built-in HIPAA-compliant telehealth video and messaging
- Scheduling, intake forms, and e-signature
- Charting, care plans, and online programs
- Insurance billing, claims, and payment processing
- White-label client mobile app and portal
Pros
- Genuine API-first architecture, rare in this category
- Official open-source MCP server for AI-assisted development
- Lowest published entry price here at $19 per provider
Cons
- API access is an add-on with no published price
- MCP server is staging-only and must not touch production PHI
AI/MCP Integration: Official. Healthie Dev Assist is an open-source MCP server exposing the GraphQL schema and live documentation to Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor, rebuilt in version 2.0 on a code-execution model. Healthie states plainly that it is staging-only and must not be pointed at production PHI, since most AI platforms lack a BAA. That warning is worth heeding rather than working around.
API Integration: Yes, GraphQL rather than REST, documented at docs.gethealthie.com with an API Explorer and a weekly schema changelog. Healthie's own support docs describe it as a closed API, meaning access is gated and paid.
Cloud Based: Yes. No on-premise option.
Platforms: Web app, provider apps for iOS and Android, and a white-label client app as an Enterprise add-on. SDK support for iOS and Android development.
Compliance: HIPAA with a signed BAA, SOC 2 Type I and Type II, PCI, GDPR, and PIPEDA.
Best For: Digital health startups building a virtual care product, and nutrition and dietetics practices, its original vertical. See also our app development category.
Editor score: 4.2/5. The headless GraphQL architecture and an official MCP server put it ahead of everything else here on developer experience. The pricing page describes the wrong product for its best buyer: an API-first company cannot budget from tiers that exclude the API, and the unpriced add-on is the gap.
4. Zoom for Healthcare
Worth clarifying what this actually is, because the naming misleads. Zoom for Healthcare is an umbrella industry solution, not a purchasable SKU: it is a compliance configuration and bundle layered on standard Zoom Workplace plans, activated by executing a BAA. The one genuinely distinct product is Zoom Workplace for Clinicians, an ambient AI clinical-documentation add-on.
Pricing: No healthcare pricing is published, and both the healthcare bundle and Workplace for Clinicians are custom-quoted. Underlying general Zoom Workplace list prices are Pro around $13.32 per user a month billed annually, Pro Plus around $18.32, and Business Plus around $269.90 per user a year, with Enterprise quote-only. Treat those as general-platform prices, not a healthcare rate card. A BAA requires at least one paid Pro license, is US-only, and small US practices can self-serve accept it online for up to nine Pro licenses.
Top Features
- HIPAA-configured Zoom Meetings for telehealth visits
- Ambient AI clinical notes via Workplace for Clinicians
- Epic Haiku and Hyperspace native in-workflow launch
- Zoom Contact Center with a healthcare virtual agent
- Zoom Scheduler for patient appointment booking
- Zoom Phone and Team Chat for care-team coordination
Pros
- Epic-native ambient documentation inside existing workflows
- SOC 2 Type 2 plus HITRUST across a broad service scope
- Full REST APIs with Meeting and Video SDKs
Cons
- The BAA is US-only, so HIPAA does not extend abroad
- Named native EHR depth is effectively Epic only
AI/MCP Integration: Official, though not healthcare-scoped. Zoom hosts a first-party server exposing meeting summaries, transcripts, recordings, notes, and action items.
API Integration: Yes. REST APIs, webhooks, Meeting SDK, and Video SDK across eight-plus platforms, with a published web telehealth starter kit.
Cloud Based: Yes. No on-premise for the commercial healthcare offering. Zoom for Government is a separate FedRAMP offering.
Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, browser, and Zoom Rooms hardware.
Compliance: HIPAA supported via BAA, with Zoom explicit that no regulatory HIPAA certification exists. SOC 2 Type 2 and SOC 2 plus HITRUST covering Meetings, Phone, Chat, Contact Center, Scheduler, AI Companion, and APIs.
Best For: Health systems already standardized on Zoom and Epic that want ambient documentation without a separate telehealth tool.
Editor score: 4.0/5. Epic-native ambient notes on a platform staff already use daily is a real advantage, and the HITRUST scope is broad. The US-only BAA is a hard geographic limit, and non-Epic EHR connectivity routes through third-party middleware rather than anything Zoom built.
5. AdvancedMD
AdvancedMD embeds telehealth inside the same record as scheduling, charting, and billing, so a video encounter flows straight into the claim rather than needing reconciliation across two systems. It is a full practice-management and EHR suite where telehealth is one module, not a video tool with extras bolted on.
Ownership worth knowing: Francisco Partners acquired it from Global Payments for $1.125 billion, announced October 2024 and closed December 2024. It now operates standalone. The prior chain ran Marlin Equity to Global Payments in 2018 to Francisco Partners.
Pricing: Published, contrary to the common assumption that it is quote-only, and billed per provider per month in USD. Specialty tiers include $130 for AdvancedMD NOW aimed at small mental-health practices, $279 for MedSpa, and $399 for larger mental health and addiction medicine, with broader medical specialties running roughly $429 to $1,070 depending on bundle. AI tools add $100 per provider a month or $0.99 per encounter, and revenue cycle management services run 4 to 8 percent of collections. These figures came via search snippets of official AdvancedMD pages and PDFs rather than a direct fetch, since advancedmd.com returned 404 to automated requests.
Top Features
- Integrated EHR charting with specialty templates
- Practice management scheduling with eligibility verification
- HIPAA-compliant telehealth tied to scheduler and chart
- Medical billing and claims management suite
- Patient portal, kiosk check-in, and engagement tools
- Reporting dashboards for financial and clinical metrics
Pros
- ONC certified to 2015 Edition Cures Update, qualifying as CEHRT
- Telehealth runs inside the same record as billing
- Connect APIs plus FHIR R4 under its certification
Cons
- Cost scales steeply and unpredictably by specialty and bundle
- BAA availability is not documented on public pages
AI/MCP Integration: None found. No official or credible community server exists.
API Integration: Yes, partner-gated. Proprietary Connect APIs offering full create, read, update, and delete across practice management and EHR in XML-RPC and REST, plus FHIR R4 APIs. An agreement is required before full documentation and sandbox access.
Cloud Based: Yes, hosted on AWS. No on-premise deployment.
Platforms: Browser primarily, plus native iOS apps for iPhone and iPad and Android tablets for the patient kiosk, with separate role-based apps for charting, front office, telemedicine, and check-in.
Compliance: HIPAA-compliant architecture with encryption. ONC certified by Drummond Group to 2015 Edition Cures Update, qualifying for MIPS and Promoting Interoperability. BAA availability is not explicitly documented publicly, so confirm it during procurement.
Best For: Established medical practices wanting telehealth inside a full billing and charting suite rather than alongside it. Related tooling sits in our hospital management category.
Editor score: 3.9/5. The CEHRT certification and the billing integration are both genuine, and publishing per-provider prices at all puts it ahead of the enterprise vendors here. The range is the problem: the same platform runs $130 or $1,070 per provider depending on specialty, with AI and RCM on top, so the entry price is a poor guide to real cost.
6. Amwell
Amwell sells to health systems, health plans, and government, not to practices. Its Converge platform embeds natively in Epic and Oracle Cerner with FHIR APIs and single sign-on, and it can supply clinician capacity through the Amwell Medical Group rather than requiring the health system to staff virtual care alone.
Pricing: No enterprise pricing published, custom-quoted. The homepage carries only a demo request with no tiers and no pricing page. Its consumer-facing service publishes per-visit retail fees, but those are patient charges rather than platform cost.
Company status a buyer should weigh: public on NYSE as AMWL, having executed a 1-for-20 reverse stock split in July 2024 to regain compliance with the exchange's minimum price rule. It is targeting positive operating cash flow in 2026 and has signaled it is evaluating divestitures of non-core assets. Offsetting that, the Defense Health Agency issued an intent to award a sole-source contract. Restructuring detail comes from trade press reporting rather than Amwell statements; the reverse split is confirmed by its own release.
Top Features
- Converge unified virtual care platform on one code base
- Native Epic and Oracle Cerner EHR integration
- FHIR-based APIs with single sign-on
- Automated care programs and digital behavioral health
- Amwell Medical Group clinician network as backfill capacity
- Third-party device and app ecosystem integration
Pros
- Deepest verified enterprise EHR embedding here
- Clinician network supplies capacity, not just software
- Serves the Defense Health Agency, implying federal review
Cons
- No published pricing and no self-serve path at all
- Ongoing restructuring adds roadmap uncertainty
AI/MCP Integration: None found, official or community.
API Integration: Partner and enterprise only. Converge exposes FHIR-based APIs and single sign-on, and Amwell is listed in Epic's App Orchard, but no public self-serve developer portal exists.
Cloud Based: Yes, multi-tenant SaaS on a single code base. No on-premise option.
Platforms: Browser for patient and clinician, native iOS and Android apps, telehealth carts and exam devices, and embedded workflows inside Epic and Cerner.
Compliance: Operates as a HIPAA business associate and executes a BAA. HITRUST, SOC 2 Type II, and FedRAMP could not be verified from official Amwell sources, so confirm during procurement rather than assuming.
Best For: Health systems and payers launching virtual care inside existing Epic or Cerner workflows.
Editor score: 3.8/5. The EHR embedding and clinician network are a genuine combination that smaller vendors cannot match. The score reflects buyer reality rather than product weakness: no published pricing, no self-serve path, an implementation-heavy deployment, and a corporate restructuring with divestitures under review during what would be a multi-year commitment.
7. eVisit
eVisit covers an unusually broad enterprise scope from one system: emergency department tele-triage, urgent care, virtual nursing, behavioral health, scheduled visits, and inpatient tele-consults. Its explicit pitch is replacing several point solutions with one platform, and it has been acquiring to widen that footprint rather than being acquired.
Status check, since this matters for a buyer's guide: eVisit is actively sold and operating independently as of August 2026, with no sign of acquisition or wind-down. It is the acquirer here, having bought Bluestream Health and UPMC's inpatient teleconsult technology, with strategic investment from UPMC Enterprises and MedStar Health.
Pricing: Custom-quoted with no public pricing. No pricing page, no tiers, no per-provider rate. Every path is a discovery meeting or demo request. It is an enterprise contract sold to health systems rather than self-serve.
Top Features
- Emergency department tele-triage with virtual provider in triage
- Virtual nursing and inpatient tele-consult workflows
- Digital front door with patient self-scheduling
- EHR-integrated visit and chart data exchange
- Digital command center with advanced reporting
- No-code workflow, form, and queue builder
Pros
- Broadest single-platform enterprise scope in this comparison
- No-code workflow builder reduces implementation dependency
- Named health-system customers including MedStar and Banner
Cons
- No published pricing, API docs, trial, or self-serve tier
- No public SOC 2 or HITRUST attestation was found
AI/MCP Integration: None. No official or community server, and no mention of Model Context Protocol in eVisit materials or public registries.
API Integration: No public developer documentation. eVisit markets itself as API and EHR integrated and cites SMART on FHIR where applicable, but integration is partner-gated with no open portal, reference, or sandbox.
Cloud Based: Yes, vendor-hosted. No on-premise option.
Platforms: Browser for provider console and patient visits, plus mobile web on iOS Safari and Android Chrome, deliberately download-free for patients.
Compliance: HIPAA compliance stated on its official site. No publicly published SOC 2 Type II or HITRUST attestation, security whitepaper, or trust center was found, so buyers must request evidence under NDA.
Best For: Health systems consolidating emergency, inpatient, and ambulatory virtual care onto one platform.
Editor score: 3.7/5. The breadth is real and the acquisition activity suggests genuine momentum rather than drift. Evaluation is the difficulty: no published pricing, no public API documentation, no trial, and no published security attestation means a buyer cannot assess it at all without entering a sales process.
Comparison Table
| Tool | Best For | Starting Price | Standout Feature | AI-MCP Support | API Integration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Doxy.me | Solo clinicians | Free, Premium at checkout | BAA included on the free tier | None | Partial, email-gated |
| SimplePractice | Behavioral health practices | $49/mo | Telehealth included at every tier | None | None self-serve |
| Healthie | Digital health startups | $19/provider/mo | Headless GraphQL API | Official, staging-only | GraphQL, paid add-on |
| Zoom for Healthcare | Epic-standardized systems | Custom-quoted | Epic-native ambient notes | Official, not health-scoped | REST plus Meeting and Video SDKs |
| AdvancedMD | Established medical practices | $130/provider/mo | Telehealth inside the billing suite | None | Connect APIs plus FHIR R4 |
| Amwell | Health systems and payers | Custom-quoted | Native Epic and Cerner embedding | None | FHIR, partner-gated |
| eVisit | Multi-service enterprise care | Custom-quoted | ED triage through inpatient in one platform | None | Partner-gated |
How to Choose Telehealth Software
- Confirm the BAA before anything else. Doxy.me includes one free, SimplePractice signs in-app on any paid plan, and Zoom requires a paid Pro license and is US-only.
- Check whether telehealth is included or an add-on. SimplePractice and Healthie include it at every tier. Others sell it inside a larger suite you may not need.
- Separate one-to-one from group video. SimplePractice gates group telehealth entirely on Starter and charges for it on Essential.
- Match the vendor to your size honestly. Amwell and eVisit have no SMB path at all, so a small practice evaluating either is wasting a sales cycle.
- Decide how much EHR depth you need. Doxy.me deliberately has no native connectors, which is fine alongside an EHR and useless if you wanted integration.
- Ask what the API costs. Healthie's is a paid add-on with no published price, and SimplePractice has none for ordinary practices.
- Treat MCP claims carefully in clinical settings. Healthie's own server is staging-only and explicitly must not touch production PHI, which is the correct posture.
What This Actually Costs
Take a five-clinician behavioral-health practice running mostly one-to-one video with some group sessions.
SimplePractice Plus at $99 a month covers telehealth and group telehealth for one clinician, though per-additional-clinician pricing is not published, so a five-person practice cannot self-calculate. Healthie Group starts at $149 plus $50 per additional clinician, working out near $349 a month for five, with telehealth and group video included. Doxy.me Free covers unlimited one-to-one visits for all five at zero, though group calls and branding sit behind an unpublished Premium rate.
AdvancedMD NOW at $130 per provider for small mental-health practices reaches $650 a month for five, but that buys a full billing and charting suite rather than telehealth alone. Zoom Pro at roughly $13.32 per user is about $67 a month before any healthcare configuration or clinician add-on, both unpriced.
Amwell and eVisit cannot be modeled at this size because neither sells to a practice this small. That is the finding rather than a gap in the research.
Final Thoughts
The most useful split in this category is not feature depth. It is who the vendor will actually sell to. Three of these seven publish prices a practice can act on today, two publish prices that describe a different product than their best buyer wants, and two will not sell to a small practice at any price.
The second thing worth noting is how thin agent tooling is here compared with the document and signature categories. Only Healthie and Zoom ship MCP servers, and Healthie's carries an explicit warning against production PHI. That caution is appropriate rather than a shortcoming, and it is a useful signal about how carefully clinical vendors are approaching AI access.
Choose Doxy.me if patient friction is your problem and a free BAA matters. Choose SimplePractice if you want clinical and administrative work in one behavioral-health-native subscription. Choose Healthie if you are building a product rather than running a clinic. Choose AdvancedMD if telehealth needs to land in a claim without reconciliation.
Zoom makes sense inside an existing Epic and Zoom estate. Amwell and eVisit are health-system platforms, and both are worth a sales conversation only if you are one. More options sit in our healthcare archive and the clinic management software category.
