Comparison
LatchDesk vs Jane
Jane is clinic practice management built around a treatment room, a booking page and a shared calendar, while LatchDesk is built around the twenty minute drive and the feeding plan you leave behind.
Comparison
LatchDesk vs SimplePractice: which one fits a home visit lactation practice
SimplePractice is a broad practice management platform for independent clinicians of many kinds, while LatchDesk is a narrow tool for the lactation home visit and the plan the parent receives before you leave.
The short answer
If your caseload is mostly seen in a room or by video, and you want one system holding intake, scheduling, notes and claims for several service lines, a general clinician platform is the sensible home for it. LatchDesk does not try to be that. It is built for the drive, the couch and the ninety minutes in between: a feeding assessment template, weight checks that keep their own history per infant, and a written plan texted to the parent before you walk back to the car. Plenty of consultants run both, and that is a reasonable answer.
LatchDesk and SimplePractice side by side
| What you are deciding | LatchDesk | SimplePractice |
|---|---|---|
| Who the product is designed around | A board certified lactation consultant driving to homes alone or with one colleague | Independent clinicians across several health and wellness fields, mostly seeing clients in a room or by video |
| Shape of the visit record | A lactation template: history, oral assessment, positioning, weighted feed, plan | General clinical documentation you adapt to lactation work yourself |
| Infant weight tracking | Pre feed and post feed weights held as one running record per infant across visits | Handled however you choose to record measurements inside a general chart |
| Getting the plan to the parent | The written plan goes out by text before you leave the driveway | Left to your own workflow once the appointment has ended |
| Billing route | Clean visit data to hand to a superbill or a claim, whichever route you use | Scope reaches across the wider revenue cycle a multi service practice runs |
| Setup before it matches your trade | One template set, learned across a visit or two | A wider system with more to configure before it reads like lactation work |
| Practice size it assumes | One consultant, or a small practice sharing a newborn caseload | Solo practitioners through to group practices with administrative staff |
The right hand side describes where SimplePractice sits as a category and whose workflow it assumes. Software shifts month to month, so read their own pages before you commit. LatchDesk is published by MLJ, SASU and this page is written by Jimenez Julien.
Choose LatchDesk when
- If most of your work happens on someone else living room floor, LatchDesk matches that day rather than a clinic day.
- When you want the feeding plan in the parent phone before you reach the car, the template is already shaped for that handoff.
- If you are a solo IBCLC and have no interest in building oral assessment forms from scratch, this is the shorter road.
- When two week weight trends drive your follow up, keeping every pre and post feed number in one curve beats retyping them into notes.
Choose SimplePractice when
- If you also carry a counseling or therapy caseload, one broad platform for every client is simpler than running two systems.
- If you want scheduling, documentation and claims under a single login and you have the evenings to configure it, a general platform earns that.
- If your practice has grown administrative help who live in the software all day, a wider tool gives them more to work with.
What a home visit actually asks of software
A lactation home visit has a fixed spine. You take the birth history and the last twenty four hours, you watch a full feed, you assess the infant mouth and the maternal tissue, you do a weighted feed on a scale you carried in yourself, and you leave with a plan the parents can follow at three in the morning. The software either knows that spine or it does not.
When it does not, you end up doing what most consultants do in general systems: building your own form, then quietly abandoning it and typing free text at eleven at night. LatchDesk exists because that gap is where documentation quality slips, and documentation quality is what payers, pediatricians and your own liability position all rest on.
Where a general clinician platform is the better home
Some IBCLCs are not only IBCLCs. You may hold a counseling license, run a childbirth education series, or see prenatal clients on video across a whole state. Once a practice carries several service lines, the argument for one broad system gets strong, because a single client record and a single claim pipeline is worth more than a perfect fit on one visit type.
The trade is configuration time and a record that stays generic. If you are willing to spend the evenings shaping templates, a broad platform will hold a lactation caseload. The question is whether that evening work is a fair price for the consolidation you get in return.
Running both without doing the work twice
A common arrangement is a broad platform for scheduling, intake and the claim, with LatchDesk carrying the visit itself and the parent facing plan. The consultant charts at the curb, the family gets the text, and the summary that matters goes into the wider record when the day ends.
That works as long as one system is the source of truth for the clinical record and you never split weight history across both. Decide which one holds the numbers, keep it there, and let the other system hold money and calendar.
Questions people ask before they choose
Can LatchDesk handle insurance claims for lactation visits?
LatchDesk is built to produce the visit record and the plan, then hand clean data to whatever billing route you already use. Some consultants pair it with a superbill they give the family at the door. Others export the visit detail into the system their biller works in.
Is a general practice platform enough on its own for an IBCLC?
It can be, if you are willing to build lactation specific forms and keep them updated. The consultants who are happiest with that setup tend to have other service lines that justify the configuration. If lactation home visits are your whole practice, a purpose built visit tool is usually less work.
What happens to my existing notes if I move?
You keep them. LatchDesk does not require you to abandon prior records, and most consultants start fresh from a chosen date rather than backloading old visits. Keep your historical charts wherever they legally live and start the new weight curves at the first LatchDesk visit.
Other comparisons on latchdeskapp.com
Comparison
LatchDesk vs Practice Better
Practice Better is built for practitioners who carry clients through structured programs over weeks and months, while LatchDesk is built for an urgent visit that has to end with a plan the parent can follow tonight.
Settle this one with your own consult
A table of rows can only take an IBCLC so far, because the deciding factor is your own assessment habit and the length of the drive between families. Bring one recent home visit to a demo, the oral findings, the pre and post feed weights and the plan you sent the parent, then time the same visit in LatchDesk. Fifteen minutes of that is worth more than any row above.