Custom software for physiotherapists and osteopaths: session series, unpaid bills and fee sharing

Practitioners do not complain about electronic claims; they complain about prices rising without warning and second logins charged at undisclosed rates. What custom software handles, and what it leaves to approved software.

Custom physiotherapy software does not replace electronic claims: it handles what surrounds them. The Ordre des masseurs-kinésithérapeutes records 109,000 professionals on January 1, 2024, of whom 85% work independently or in mixed practice. VEGA lists ‘from €45 per month’, Topaze Air Kiné €35 monthly and Osteo2ls €288 including VAT annually (pricing pages consulted September 2, 2026).

Two professions, two very different constraints

An osteopath does not submit treatment claims electronically to Assurance Maladie. The SESAM-Vitale chain does not concern them, and a custom-built tool can cover almost the whole practice: appointments, consultation tracking, fee notes and bookkeeping. A contracted physiotherapist keeps software approved by the Centre national de dépôt et d'agrément to read the Vitale card, create electronic treatment claims, receive NOEMIE responses and send documents through SCOR. This approval is not obtained at an individual practice's scale, and losing it would cost the contractual subsidies linked to electronic claims.

What practitioners criticise about their vendors

The software comparison on Nelly Darbois's professional blog kinedarbois.fr collects colleagues' comments, consulted September 2, 2026. The first complaint concerns unannounced price increases: ‘monthly payment increases that weren't announced’ (November 19, 2024). JP Fortin quantifies the drift on November 25, 2024: ‘The annual base amount (without TLA) for a single-practitioner K+4000 is €550.80 since 2022 / €356 in 2014’. Caro describes the same maintenance mechanism on December 5, 2022: ‘it's maintenance that rises by €100/€120 each year. Which costs me €770 this year’.

Second complaint: support that needs chasing or costs extra. Mardochée, June 27, 2023: ‘This year the update is €300, and what we pay for also includes telephone technical support; otherwise they refuse to help’. An anonymous comment on November 19, 2024 describes ‘annoying software errors that are never corrected’ and the need to ‘chase them constantly’.

The third complaint arrives when the practice grows. A November 27, 2024 comment: ‘Vega becomes very expensive from 2–3 users (...) opening access for 1 user used to be 150, now 200’. Another, June 3, 2025: ‘I haven't managed to find out how much Vega costs, which everyone praises’. The pricing pages confirm the observation: VEGA and Topaze announce an entry price and a reduced rate for a second practitioner, but no amount per additional user. Doctolib publishes no physiotherapy rate and directs visitors to an adviser. Group practices therefore negotiate blindly, as other independent professions describe.

Where health data lives: a clarification

One point must be established before any promise. Article L.1111-8 of the French Public Health Code requires identifiable health data to be hosted by an HDS-certified provider, excluding both a break-room server and improvised online backup. A custom tool can handle schedules, fee sharing, unpaid bills and the practice's financial management without storing identifiable clinical records, which remain in components designed for them. The CNIL also classifies these data among the most sensitive, with stronger requirements for retention periods and patient information. The exact division between what stays with you and what must go to a certified host is decided with your adviser and the actual file, not in an article. The subject deserves attention: we covered it for care professionals.

Five functions missing from specialist software

Series scheduling that places the prescription's N sessions in one action, moves them together when a patient cancels and flags a series expiring before the prescription ends. Following up on lost slots, with a list of patients who have not rebooked and the released slot offered to the waiting list. Two-tier unpaid-bill tracking, patient balance and supplementary insurer share, with debt age. Fee sharing and locums, calculated per treatment and period, with an issued statement. A pre-accounting dashboard showing receipts per practitioner and the real cost of an empty slot.

Requirements you correct before approving

The first document you read is the requirements agent Victor writes in French. This is where professional errors appear. Victor wrote that a cancelled session releases the slot; you correct it, because a patient cancelling within a series keeps their place in the prescription and shifts the whole remainder. Once the rule is rewritten, you say ‘Looks good to me’, and only then does Amélie build, using tests Félix wrote before code. Documents and code stay on your Mac, and your data passes through no server on our side. Allow an assistant subscription of around €20 monthly plus a few euros in tokens and your evenings of reading.

Where to start

Review your last twelve vendor payments and add maintenance, paid updates and the cost of the second login. Then note the three things you maintain manually: ongoing session series, fee-sharing tracking and insurers that have not paid. If these three lines have existed for years, describe them to an agent team and read the proposed requirements before committing to anything.