Why a Medical Massage Therapist Came Back to Noterro

I've been in this industry for 19 years. I've seen software come and go, watched platforms promise everything and deliver frustration, and learned the hard way that the most expensive option isn't always the right one.

I was with Noterro almost from the beginning. And then I left. And then I came back. And I'm not going anywhere.

Let me tell you the whole story.

What I Do Is Different

Before I get into the software side of things, you need to understand how my practice works, because it matters.

I'm a medical massage therapist. I specialize in sports and medical massage, but the thing that makes Sublime Therapy different is the mind-body connection. My very first interaction with a new client isn't just an appointment booking. It's an interview. I'm listening to how they talk about their body, whether they say things like "I'm sick" or "I'm hurt" over and over, what kind of mental space they're bringing into the session. Because if your mind isn't right, your body can't fully release.

I always tell people: if your mind is feeling good and practicing the right thoughts, you're going to feel relieved. Your tension goes away. You loosen your jaw. You drop your shoulders. You breathe. The physical and mental are not separate. They never were.

I offer three types of sessions: coaching massage, quiet massage, and music massage. I run book clubs as part of my wellness programming. I speak. I podcast. My practice is not a one-size-fits-all operation.

And that's exactly why my software needed to work a certain way.

Why I Originally Chose Noterro

When I was searching for the right program for my practice, Noterro came up and the setup immediately felt right. It was easy and simple, and I could actually understand it. I'm not a tech person by nature. I need a system that makes sense to me the first time I sit down with it, not one that requires two hours of training videos just to find where to log a client note.

Noterro was intuitive. It was affordable. It felt like it was built for people like me.

But early on, there were some gaps. Response times when I needed support could stretch to a week and a half. And when I started taking insurance clients, I ran into a real problem: no CPT codes, no insurance billing. For a growing medical massage practice, that was a wall I couldn't work around.

The Mindbody Detour (And What It Cost Me)

So I did what a lot of practitioners do. I went looking for something bigger.

I landed on Mindbody. Three hundred dollars a month. And for a business my size, at the time, it was a painful amount to commit to. What made it worse was that I was barely using a quarter of what I was paying for. Mindbody is genuinely built for multi-location operations with multiple service types, physical therapy, occupational therapy, all of that running under one roof. For a solo medical massage therapist, it was overkill in the worst way.

And the support? I'll be honest with you. It was not a good experience. I reached out for help and the response I got was impatient, dismissive. I was made to feel like I should already know what I was doing. Nobody explained anything. I was jumping from screen to screen, trying to figure out a system that wasn't designed with someone like me in mind.

I was wasting money and time on something I didn't even know how to play with.

The whole time, I kept my Noterro account active for certain clients. I never fully let go.

Coming Back

After about a year and a half, I went back and looked at Noterro again. Not out of desperation. Out of curiosity.

The CPT codes were there. Insurance billing was integrated. The financial reports made it easier to track what I needed for payroll. Even the phone numbers had changed. Early on, calls went out with Canadian area codes, and my clients wouldn't pick up because they didn't recognize the number. That had been fixed too. Local numbers clients actually answer.

But the biggest change was support. Nick and Lucy knew me. When I called, I wasn't starting over from scratch with someone who had no context. If something needed escalating, the founders stepped in. Everyone was patient. Everyone was understanding. The culture of the company had matured in the best way.

I remember thinking: all I had to do was give you guys a year. Now I can stay here.

How I Use It Now

These days, I'm what you'd call a power user. I'm running invoices constantly, managing a high volume of patients and SOAP notes, handling insurance billing with CPT codes, creating packages that bundle my coaching and massage sessions together, and managing my online booking portal.

One of the features I've really embraced lately is the voice SOAP notes. Instead of typing everything out after a session, I can just speak and it captures my notes. That's a game-changer when you're seeing multiple clients in a day and your hands are tired. I also use the financial reporting to stay on top of where the business is, which has made payroll tracking so much simpler.

I'm working on getting the waitlist feature set up, and I'm planning to launch the clinic-branded app. There's always something new being added that makes the work easier.

And word of mouth has become my biggest source of new clients. When people experience what I do, they tell other people. Having an online booking portal through Noterro means that when someone gets a recommendation and goes to my website, they can book right then. Most of my clients book online now. That seamlessness matters.

What I'd Tell Other Practitioners

If you're a solo practitioner or running a smaller operation and you're considering Mindbody because you think you need all those features, I'd ask you to think carefully about what you're actually going to use. Mindbody makes sense for companies with multiple locations and multiple service types under one roof. But for a focused medical massage practice? The features in Noterro are better suited, and they're easier to actually work with.

My honest advice: shop around, find your best fit. But start with Noterro. If it doesn't have everything you need right now, try a higher tier and work your way down. And give the platform time. The team is always building.

Once you get to know the system, you're not going to want to go anywhere else. It's a good place. It's easy to understand. And they've never stopped making it better.

I was an early adopter, I left to try something else, and then came back. Nineteen years into this work, I know exactly what’s best for my practice and my patients. Noterro is the best for mine, and everything else is a very distant second..

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