Airbase vs Procurify for Multi-Provider Behavioral Health Groups
A behavioral health group's biggest procurement headache usually isn't a big-ticket purchase, it's the slow accumulation of telehealth platform seats, assessment tool licenses, and supervision software tied to individual clinicians whose roster changes faster than anyone updates the vendor list. Here's how that plays out against Airbase and Procurify, answered the way most practice owners actually ask it.
Vendors Covered in this Article
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Which tool is easier for tracking spend per clinician, not just per office?
Neither platform was built specifically around a per-clinician licensing model, but both can get you there with the right setup. Airbase lets you assign a card or a spend category to an individual, which works well if most of your recurring tools are billed per seat and you want to see cost per clinician at a glance. Procurify's requisition model is stronger when a purchase needs review before it's committed, useful if you want a practice manager to approve a new tool license before a clinician starts expensing it, rather than catching it after the fact.
What happens when a clinician leaves and their software licenses don't get canceled?
This is the single most common leak in behavioral health group finances: a departing clinician's telehealth seat, assessment tool license, or continuing education subscription keeps renewing because offboarding a person from the clinical roster and offboarding their software aren't the same checklist. Neither Airbase nor Procurify automatically ties a person's employment status to their software spend. Build a simple offboarding step into your HR process, whoever handles departures should also flag their name against a list of active recurring licenses, and confirm each one is canceled or reassigned within the same pay cycle.
Add these steps to your standard offboarding process:
- Include software license cancellation on the same checklist that removes the departing clinician from the clinical roster.
- Have whoever processes the departure review that person's active recurring subscriptions, such as telehealth seats, assessment tools and continuing education.
- Confirm each subscription is canceled or reassigned within the same pay cycle as the departure.
- Tag recurring tools to the individual clinician so every leftover license is easy to spot in spend reports.
Should independent contractors and W-2 clinicians be treated differently for purchasing?
Yes. A W-2 clinician's tools are usually the practice's responsibility to provide and pay for directly. An independent contractor may be expected to cover some of their own tools and simply bill the practice, or may use a stipend model instead. Set up separate spend categories for each so your reporting doesn't conflate practice-provided infrastructure with contractor reimbursements, which matters for both your own budgeting and for keeping 1099 documentation clean.
How should supervision and consultation fees be handled?
Clinical supervision fees for associate-level clinicians working toward licensure are a recurring, predictable cost that's easy to lose track of if it's paid ad hoc rather than set up as a recurring bill tied to each supervisee. Set these up as scheduled recurring payments in whichever platform you choose, linked to the specific clinician being supervised, so the cost is visible per person rather than buried in a general professional services line.
What's the honest answer on which tool to pick?
If your group is under a dozen clinicians and most of your recurring spend is a handful of platform licenses, Airbase's simpler card-based model is probably enough, and the lighter setup burden matters more than the reporting depth you'd get from Procurify. Once you're managing licensing and supervision costs across a larger and more variable roster, Procurify's requisition and approval structure earns its extra setup time by catching new commitments before they're made, not just reporting on them after.
What about group liability insurance and credentialing costs?
Malpractice coverage and credentialing fees for each clinician are another recurring cost that tends to get tracked separately from the rest of practice spend, often in a spreadsheet the office manager maintains by hand. Bring these into the same platform you use for software and supervision, tagged per clinician, so a full picture of per-clinician cost, licenses, supervision, insurance, credentialing, sits in one place instead of three. This also makes it much easier to price a new clinician's true cost to the practice before an offer goes out, rather than discovering the full number months later.
How does insurance panel credentialing affect purchasing timing?
A newly hired clinician often can't bill insurance until panel credentialing clears, which can take a couple of months and shapes when it actually makes sense to activate their software licenses and supervision arrangement. Activating everything on day one for a clinician who can't yet generate billable sessions ties up cash earlier than necessary. Stagger the activation: core access on day one, but hold optional or higher-cost tool licenses until credentialing clears and the clinician is actually seeing a full caseload.
What about group practices that also run a training or internship track?
Practices that host graduate trainees or postgraduate fellows have a category of people using practice tools and receiving supervision without being on the regular payroll at all. Tag this group distinctly from both W-2 clinicians and contractors, since their software access and supervision costs typically end on a fixed academic or training calendar rather than an open-ended employment date, and an offboarding process built only around employment departures will miss them.
What Good Looks Like
Good procurement for a behavioral health group means software and supervision costs are visible per clinician, and departing clinicians' licenses get canceled in the same cycle as their offboarding, not months later.
Building The Capability (5-Stage Skill Ladder)
How to Get Started
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With recurring software and supervision payments across a variable roster, BILL can automate the payment scheduling so nothing slips when a clinician's status changes.
For a group relying on independent contractor clinicians, Tax1099 can handle W-9 collection and 1099 filing without practice staff tracking it manually.
A behavioral health group managing cash across supervision fees and recurring licenses can use Mercury for a clear operating account view.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do we stop paying for software licenses after a clinician leaves?
Build license cancellation into your standard offboarding checklist, not as an afterthought. Whoever processes an employment departure should also review that person's active recurring subscriptions and confirm each is canceled or reassigned within the same pay cycle, since neither Airbase nor Procurify ties software spend to employment status automatically.
Should contractor clinicians and W-2 clinicians be tracked the same way?
No. Set up separate spend categories: practice-provided tools for W-2 clinicians, and contractor reimbursements or stipends for independent contractors. This keeps your reporting clean and makes year-end 1099 documentation easier to pull together.
Is there a way to see spend by individual clinician rather than just by office?
Yes, both tools support this with the right setup, assigning cards or categories to individuals rather than only to locations. It takes some upfront configuration, but it's worth doing if licensing and supervision costs make up a meaningful share of your practice expenses.
About the numbers
This guide doesn't quote a sourced benchmark. Figures in it are estimates or general guidance, so check them against your own numbers.
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