What is Decoda Health building?

An AI-native operating system built for the next generation of clinical care. We're empowering medical practices with the tools they need to thrive in an AI-native world. From autonomous front desks to intelligent charting, we've got you covered.

How much did Decoda Health raise and who led the round?

Decoda Health Raises $4.5M to Build the Operating System for Modern Care, led by Y Combinator.

What are the new med spa laws in 2026?

State legislatures are regulating med spas directly for the first time. Indiana's SB 282, Texas's Jenifer's Law, California's SB 351, and New Jersey's S2996 — each has specific requirements, deadlines, and a 2026 compliance checklist.

How can med spas reduce no-shows?

Cut your med spa no-show rate below 5%. See which reminders, deposits, and card-on-file rules to use for each appointment — with research, a copy-paste cancellation policy, and a plan for backfilling empty slots.

How much does it cost to open a med spa in 2026?

Med spa startup costs in 2026 run $150K–$500K. See the full cost breakdown, medical director requirements, and how long until a new med spa is profitable.

How can med spas set up VIP memberships and patient wallets?

Modern med spas can set up custom membership tiers, auto-convert recurring charges to patient credit, and split payments across wallets, gift cards, and physical cards at checkout.

What's the best way to manage recurring memberships for a med spa without a separate CRM?

A purpose-built med spa EMR like Decoda handles multi-tier memberships natively — including per-item rollover, tiered discounts, configurable billing cycles, and automatic credit conversion — so you never need a separate CRM or spreadsheet to track member benefits. Membership configuration that most general-purpose tools fail to deliver is built directly into the checkout and patient profile.

How do I set up and conduct telehealth or virtual follow-up visits inside my practice management software without letting patients self-book them?

You can configure virtual locations within your scheduling settings and restrict them to staff-initiated booking only, keeping telehealth appointments — like post-operative follow-up calls — fully internal. The virtual visit lives inside the same scheduling and clinical documentation environment as your in-person care, so notes and records stay in one place.

AI-native EMR vs. legacy EMR with AI added on — what's the real difference for a med spa?

A legacy system that bolts AI on top can only apply intelligence to what its rigid architecture allows — typically scheduling or chat. An AI-native system is built so that AI understands context across the full patient journey, from the first phone call through clinical notes, inventory, and follow-up campaigns. For a med spa, that difference shows up in charting speed, front desk automation, and inventory tracking — not just appointment reminders.

What are the biggest software switching triggers for elective-care clinics in 2026?

The most common reasons independent practices switch software are poor customer support, fragmented tools that don't talk to each other, missing or broken membership features, and compliance gaps in clinical documentation. Multi-location growth and new state licensing requirements in 2026 are also pushing owners to find a single system that works across locations.

Can I manage high-risk payment processing — like peptides, semaglutide, or ketamine — through my med spa software?

Yes — Decoda supports high-risk payment processing through its Rainforest integration, which covers services and products like peptides, semaglutide, GLP-1, ketamine, and TRT/HRT. If you currently have a merchant relationship with Stripe or Square, it's worth verifying compatibility before assuming your existing setup covers high-risk categories, since those processors routinely freeze funds for these service types.

How do I reduce the time my front desk spends on phone calls without losing the personal feel patients expect?

An AI front desk answers missed calls, texts patients back immediately, and handles routine booking and follow-up questions 24/7 — so your staff focuses on the patients already in the room. Clinic partners using this approach see a 70% reduction in inbound call volume on average, which gives the front desk time to deliver the attentive experience that keeps patients coming back.

What should I look for in a med spa EMR if I'm running GLP-1 or weight loss programs?

Look for billing cycles that match your program cadence — 6-week, 10-week, and 12-week options are standard for structured weight loss and GLP-1 protocols — along with automated patient follow-ups and high-risk payment processing for compounding medications. Clinical note templates and care plan timelines purpose-built for weight loss workflows prevent the documentation gaps that create compliance risk.

Will patients see my personal or work email address when they join a telehealth video call?

No — telehealth video calls initiated through Decoda are conducted within the platform's virtual visit environment, so your personal or work email address is not exposed to patients. The invite and join flow is handled through the scheduling and communications layer, keeping your contact information private.

How long does it actually take to migrate from an existing EMR to a new practice management system?

A well-managed migration from an existing EMR takes three to four weeks when the new vendor handles the heavy lifting — data transfer, appointment history, and team training. The practices that report painful migrations are almost always ones where the vendor handed them a checklist and disappeared; white-glove migration support, where the team configures the system to match how your practice actually runs, is the difference between chaos and a clean cutover.

What does a system of record actually mean for an independent med spa, and why does it matter?

A system of record means every patient interaction — calls, bookings, clinical notes, payments, inventory usage, and follow-ups — lives in one place and feeds the same patient profile. For an independent med spa, this matters because fragmented tools create data silos where rebooking reminders don't fire, membership credits get miscounted, and providers walk into appointments without full patient history. One connected record is how a small team operates like a much larger one.

PatientNow Alternative for Med Spas

Looking for a PatientNow alternative? See why practices leave, how four options compare on inventory, contracts and labs, and what to check first.

What Is PatientNow?

PatientNow is a practice management and EMR platform for aesthetic practices. Its own site says more than 5,000 active locations run on it and that it is built exclusively for aesthetic practices. The product list covers charting with an AI scribe, RxPhoto for before-and-after photos, scheduling and online booking, payments with memberships and text-to-pay, inventory tracking, marketing campaigns, a reporting hub and a communications hub with calling. AI lead response comes from Recura AI.

For an established aesthetic or plastic surgery practice where photo documentation drives the day, that is a coherent product, and plenty of injectors are happy on it. The friction shows when the practice stops being only an aesthetic practice, or when the business terms stop matching the product.

Why Practices Look for a PatientNow Alternative

Inventory that drifts from the online store

The sharpest complaint we heard came from an owner who sells retail products online. She told us that when the count changes in one system it does not always carry to the other, and sometimes the number overcorrects. That morning the store had shown two of a product when there was one, and the practice had sold an item it could not restock until December. A customer service problem like that costs more than the software line item. If you sell retail through an online store, ask every vendor to show you a stock change moving in both directions, on the demo call, with a real product.

A plan that gives and then takes away

The same owner is on a legacy plan. When the practice upgraded, it lost features it had on the lower tier, including the app, and the vendor then charged to bring similar capability back. The contract lets them upgrade at any time but not downgrade until February. Plans change, and that is not unique to PatientNow. The lesson is to get a written list of what each tier includes and what moves behind a paywall at renewal.

Contract terms that set the calendar

Review sites show a pattern here. Reviewers on G2 and Capterra describe missed cancellation windows and annual auto-renewals, and the vendor has responded publicly about contract-term concerns. These are individual reports, and some reviewers praise support, so treat them as a reason to read your own agreement, not as a verdict. Many owners we speak with have a switch date decided by a renewal or by a medical director who requires every provider to use the same EMR. Work that date out first, then count backward.

A stack built for aesthetics, a practice that no longer is

A longevity and telehealth clinic told us its current system is "built more for a med spa" than for what it is trying to do. In practice that meant one system for scheduling, another for prescribing, a third for the AI scribe, a lab portal for each lab, and a supplement dispensary on the side. Imaging orders were on paper and faxed. The clinic wanted one place to scribe a visit, order labs, prescribe and take payment, and it wanted multiple locations to sit under one login. Our guide to the best EMR for longevity clinics lays out the criteria that matter once the practice looks like that.

How We Ranked These PatientNow Alternatives

We scored each option on the problems above instead of a generic feature count:

Inventory: does stock fall when a provider charts and when a patient pays, and can a photo of a packing slip update it?
Fit beyond aesthetics: does charting hold up for hormones, weight loss, IV and longevity care?
Labs and prescribing: can you order and trend labs from the chart?
Exit and cost clarity: are plan contents and contract terms easy to get in writing?
Switching effort: who migrates the data, and how long does it take?

Vendor facts come from each company's own site and from our earlier comparisons of Aesthetic Record alternatives and Boulevard alternatives. Where a vendor does not publish something, the table says "Not published".

Best Overall PatientNow Alternative: Decoda Health

Decoda Health is the pick for a practice whose business has outgrown aesthetics. It is a single platform for scheduling, charting, checkout, memberships, stock and labs, so the situations above (oversold stock, scattered tools, a faxed imaging order) have one place to be fixed.

Stock that follows the treatment. Decoda's inventory takes units off the shelf when the provider charts the treatment and again at checkout. Staff can photograph a packing slip or product box and AI Photo Upload fills in the stock record. The walkthrough in injectable inventory tracking goes down to the individual unit. Decoda Health does not claim a live two-way sync with an outside online store, so if you sell retail online, ask for the exact flow you need to be demonstrated.

Clinical depth. The AI scribe comes with the platform and drafts the note during the visit. Lab ordering reaches Quest and LabCorp from the chart and trends results, which hormone and longevity programs rely on. Good faith exams go through Spakinect and Qualiphy, and payment processing covers peptides, semaglutide and TRT.

Recurring revenue. Memberships allow per-item rollover and billing cycles of 6, 10 or 12 weeks for GLP-1 programs; membership pricing and retention explains how to set them up.

The move itself. Decoda Health does the data migration and finishes in 3-4 weeks, guaranteed. Use what transfers in a med spa EMR migration as your checklist.

Best for: independent practices with one to 20 locations adding wellness, labs, hormones, weight loss or telehealth.

Where the Other Shortlisted Options Fit

Operators leaving PatientNow usually compare Decoda Health with a few other names, and each one answers a different version of the question.

If the complaint is about the contract and not the product, a lateral move to another aesthetics-first EMR such as Aesthetic Record may be enough. If the practice is a multi-location chain with an operations team, Zenoti is built for that scale. Booking-only tools such as Mangomint have no EMR, so choosing one means adding a charting system and keeping two.

Review sites also list AestheticsPro near the top of PatientNow alternative lists. One prospect told us they run it for billing beside a separate charting tool, which recreates the two-system problem they were trying to leave.

Three Questions That Sort the Shortlist

Most shortlists collapse on three questions. Does the practice sell retail that must stay in sync, does it run telehealth or lab-heavy programs, and when does the current term end? A practice that answers yes, yes and "next spring" should rule out booking-only tools and chains-first platforms immediately. A purely aesthetic practice with a calm renewal date can reasonably stay put. Write your three answers down before the first demo and hold every vendor to them.

PatientNow and Decoda Health Compared on the Switching Questions

Question	PatientNow	Decoda Health
Who it is built for	Aesthetic practices, per its site	Elective care: aesthetics, wellness, weight loss, longevity
AI scribe	Listed on its site	Included
Labs	Lab orders within the EMR workflow	Quest and LabCorp ordering with trended results
Inventory	Tracked as services, products and invoices move	Deducted at charting and checkout; photo upload for stock-in
Before-and-after photos	RxPhoto	Photo comparison in the chart
Public pricing	Not published	Quoted by practice
Record ownership	States records are yours and exportable	Patient data belongs to the practice
Migration	Up and running "within weeks", per its site	3-4 weeks, guaranteed

What a Realistic Switch Timeline Looks Like

A typical move from PatientNow to a new platform runs in four stages: a data review, a trial migration, staff training and a final sync the night before go-live. With Decoda Health the whole sequence takes 3-4 weeks, guaranteed, and the final import runs just before launch so appointments and balances are current. The usual delay is on the practice side, not the vendor side: cleaning up service menus, converting imported packages into the new package structure and deciding which inactive patients to bring over. Do that cleanup early and go-live is boring, which is what you want from a go-live. Our guide to the minimum viable telehealth clinic setup is useful if you are adding virtual visits at the same time.

What to Check Before You Leave PatientNow

Whichever platform you shortlist, the demo will look good. These checks tell you more than the demo does:

Find your notice date. Pull the agreement, note the renewal date and the cancellation window, and put both on a calendar. Ask for the terms in writing.
Export a sample first. PatientNow states that patient records are yours and can be exported. Ask for a sample export and see what is in it.
List what must survive the move. Charts and photos are the easy part. Prepaid packages, membership balances, gift cards and loyalty points are where migrations lose money, and one practice we spoke with still runs its old point of sale because packages never made it across.
Test your odd workflow live. If you sell retail online, make the vendor change a stock count in front of you. If you do telehealth, ask them to run a visit from scheduling to prescription to payment.
Ask for the full bill. Request a quote with the AI scribe, e-prescribing, texting and integrations you need. Our clinic software cost breakdown shows how to compare quotes built differently.
Plan the overlap. Running two systems for a few weeks is normal. Running them for six months is a cost you can avoid by starting early.

If your agreement runs into next spring, that is not a reason to wait on the evaluation. Several practices we talk to sign now and schedule go-live for the month their current term ends, so the new system is trained and loaded before the old one stops.

Final Thoughts on Choosing a PatientNow Alternative

If your practice is mostly aesthetics, shoots a lot of before-and-after photos and has no friction with the contract, PatientNow may still be the right tool, and switching for its own sake costs weeks of disruption. The practices that should move are the ones whose business has changed shape: adding labs, hormones, weight loss or telehealth, selling retail that has to stay in sync, or counting down to a renewal they do not want. For those practices, Decoda Health puts charting, labs, inventory, payments and memberships in one place and migrates your data in 3-4 weeks. Book a demo and bring your current inventory sheet and your agreement so we can walk through both.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best PatientNow alternative for a med spa that is adding wellness services?

Look for a system that charts hormones, weight loss, IV and longevity care as well as it charts injectables, and that orders labs from the chart. Decoda Health combines aesthetics charting, lab ordering, an included AI scribe, inventory and payments in one platform, which is why it leads this list for practices changing shape.

Why do practices leave PatientNow?

The reasons we hear from operators are inventory counts that drift out of sync with an online store, plan changes that remove features they used to have, and a software stack built for aesthetics that no longer fits a wellness or telehealth practice. Contract timing also sets the switch date for many of them.

Can I cancel PatientNow before my contract ends?

That depends on your agreement, so read the renewal and termination clauses and ask for the cancellation terms in writing. Reviewers on G2 and Capterra describe cancellation windows and auto-renewals as a recurring frustration, so find your notice date before you start a demo schedule.

Will I lose my charts, photos and packages if I switch from PatientNow?

You should not, but you need to ask each new vendor exactly what transfers and who does the work. PatientNow states that patient records belong to the practice and can be exported. Prepaid packages and membership balances are the items most often lost, so check those line by line. Decoda Health runs the migration itself in 3-4 weeks, guaranteed.

Is PatientNow only for aesthetic practices?

PatientNow describes itself as built exclusively for aesthetic practices, though it lists weight loss, wellness and IV therapy among the specialties it serves. Practices that add telehealth, hormone programs or lab-heavy longevity care often find the product centers on aesthetics, so test those workflows in a demo before you commit.

How long does it take to switch from PatientNow to a new platform?

Plan for several weeks, because data cleanup, staff training and a parallel run all take time. Decoda Health completes migrations in 3-4 weeks, guaranteed, and our team handles the data transfer. Start the process before your current term ends so you are not paying for two systems longer than you need to.

Best PatientNow Alternative for Growing Practices (October 2026)

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