For arts therapists
Practice software for South African arts therapists
Arts therapy produces narrative, image and process rather than numbers, and it still needs a record a funder and a regulator can accept.
Or talk to us first- POPIA & HPCSA aligned
- We take medical aids
- Built by practising clinicians
HPCSA board
Occupational Therapy, Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics and Arts Therapy
In short
iScript.live gives arts therapists in drama, music, art and movement a confidential session record with role-based access and an audit trail on every read, plus telehealth, patient messaging, card payment collection and real-time claim submission through MediKredit. Arts therapists are registered under the Professional Board for Occupational Therapy, Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics and Arts Therapy.
iScript.live is a multi-tenant, AI-native healthcare practice platform built in South Africa by Lighthouse iScript (Pty) Ltd. This page is about what iScript.live does for arts therapists practising in South Africa. Arts therapists in South Africa are regulated by the Health Professions Council of South Africa under the Health Professions Act 56 of 1974, through its Professional Board for Occupational Therapy, Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics and Arts Therapy.
An arts therapist uses drama, music, art or movement as the medium of a psychotherapeutic process, within the scope of that registration category. The work is usually a course of sessions with a client or a group, in clinical, educational and community settings.
This page covers what iScript.live does for arts therapy practice: session records that stay confidential, group as well as individual work, and getting paid in a discipline that is mostly not scheme-funded.
At a glance
- Platform
- iScript.live, built by Lighthouse iScript (Pty) Ltd
- Profession this page is about
- Arts therapists
- Regulating council
- Health Professions Council of South Africa
- Governing statute
- Health Professions Act 56 of 1974
- Professional board
- Occupational Therapy, Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics and Arts Therapy
- Country of practice
- South Africa
No registration-number prefix is published here. It could not be verified against an authoritative source, and a wrong one would be worse than none.
What actually gets in the way
Where the day goes in arts therapists' practice
None of this is a software problem in the abstract. Each of these is an hour, a rejected claim or a clinical decision made with less information than it deserved.
Process notes that must stay private
Session process and client artwork are highly sensitive, and generic practice software treats them as ordinary attachments visible to whoever is logged in.
A profession most software has never heard of
Systems built for medical billing have no role, no template and no coding path for arts therapy, so practitioners work in spreadsheets.
Working alone with all the administration
Scheduling, invoicing, claim submission and payment follow-up are absorbed by the practitioner between sessions.
A day in the practice
What a working day looks like on iScript.live
Arts therapy is process work over a course of sessions, frequently in groups, frequently contracted to an organisation.
Before the session
The plan and the course position are in front of you
Structured session records hold the formulation, the plan and where in the course the client or group is, rather than a running narrative.
LiveIn the session
Risk and plan structured, process in prose
Risk and plan are fields because a later reader has to find them. The process content stays prose, because reducing it to a category would be a worse record.
Group work
A group session, and an individual record
Where the work is with a group, each participant keeps their own clinical record while the session is recorded once. Confidentiality between participants is a row-level property rather than a filing convention.
LiveReporting
Reports to a commissioning organisation, from the record
Where a school, clinic or non-profit commissioned the work, reporting is drawn from the structured record rather than assembled at the end of a term.
What you get, and what is still being built
The platform, read from your side of the desk
Every capability on this list is in production and in daily use. We keep the roadmap and the reality on separate lists on purpose.
Confidentiality enforced by role and audit
Row-level tenant isolation and role-based access with scope enforcement, logged on every read, write and export with actor, timestamp and reason.
Multi-tenant clinical core
Session records with narrative where narrative belongs
Structured templates hold referral, formulation, plan and review, with free narrative and attached process material where that is the clinical instrument.
Structured consultation workflow
Remote sessions, reminders and payment
Video consultation with the record in frame, WhatsApp Business API messaging and card payment collection, so a session, its note and its payment are one workflow.
Telehealth, e-prescribing and messaging
Built today, or being built
What is live, and what is not, in one table
The same list as the cards above, in the form a sceptical reader wants it. Every status in the right-hand column is resolved from the platform roadmap at the moment this page renders. None of it is typed by hand.
| Capability | Platform capability it comes from | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Confidentiality enforced by role and audit | Multi-tenant clinical core | Live |
| Session records with narrative where narrative belongs | Structured consultation workflow | Live |
| Remote sessions, reminders and payment | Telehealth, e-prescribing and messaging | Live |
3 of these 3 capabilities are in production today. Anything in development is not available to buy, is not in a beta programme, and should not be counted on when you make a decision.
Why this is different
A small profession should not have to work in a spreadsheet
Practice software rarely models professions with few registrants, which is why arts therapists end up outside any clinical system at all. Because roles, templates and permissions here are configuration rather than hard-coded assumptions, a small profession gets a real clinical record with real access control.
- Roles and templates configured rather than hard-coded to medical billing.
- Every read of session material logged with actor, timestamp and reason.
- Telehealth, messaging and payment in one workflow for a solo practitioner.
What it replaces
What actually comes out of the practice
Arts therapists are among the practitioners most likely to be working entirely in general-purpose tools.
| What happens today | What it becomes |
|---|---|
| Session notes in documents on a personal device | Structured records, encrypted, isolated at row level, with every access loggedLive |
| Group work recorded once, with no per-participant file | A session recorded once, with an individual clinical record per participant |
| Invoices to organisations typed by hand each term | An account with the organisation as debtor, against the client's record |
Group work with individual records is the specific requirement here, and it is the one most general-purpose tools cannot represent at all.
Billing and medical schemes
How arts therapists actually get paid
Arts therapy in South Africa is predominantly funded privately or by an organisation rather than by medical schemes, and the page is written on that basis.
Scheme claiming is available through the live MediKredit integration where it applies. Whether an arts therapist's service is a benefit on a given plan depends on the registration category, the practice code number and the scheme's rules, and no answer to that is asserted here.
Organisational and private payment are the primary cases. A school, clinic or non-profit can be the debtor while the clinical record remains the client's, the client can be their own debtor, and card payment collection is live.
If none of your income comes from schemes, the per-claim commercial model means you are not paying for the claims rail.
The billing mechanics, and their status
- Organisation as debtor
- Live.
- Client as their own debtor
- Live.
- Card payment collection
- Live.
- Scheme eligibility and claim submission
- Live, through MediKredit.
Who else touches it
Who else in the practice uses this, and what they can see
A practice is not one person, and a clinical record that only the clinician can reach is a record somebody else will keep a second copy of. Roles are configured by the practice, not assumed by the platform, and every role is scoped at row level.
| Role | What they do, and what they can see |
|---|---|
| The practitioner | Consults, records, prescribes where the registration allows it, and submits. Sees the full clinical record for patients within the practice. |
| Reception and front desk | Books, checks members in, confirms eligibility before the appointment and takes payment. Sees the demographic, appointment and account layers, not the clinical note. |
| Billing and accounts | Works claims, item-level rejections, reversals and remittance advice, and reconciles what was paid against what was submitted. Sees coded lines, not free-text clinical content. |
| Practice manager or owner | Configures the practice, the sites, the fees, the templates and who may do what. Sees activity and financial reporting across every site in the group. |
| A supervisor, where the registration requires one | Countersigns and reviews the work of a practitioner practising under supervision, against the same record rather than a printed copy of it. |
| An assistant, associate or locum | Joins the practice as a provider rather than as a shared login, so their activity is attributable to them and ends when their association does. |
Every read, write and export carries the actor, the timestamp and the reason, so who saw what is answerable rather than reconstructed.
Getting started
From registration to a working practice, and what moving across involves
Onboarding is measured in days rather than in an implementation project. Nothing here requires a server, a site visit or a consultant. Migrating history is the separate question, and it is answered below rather than skipped.
Standing the practice up
01
Register your practice
Online registration produces a tenant with your branding and subdomain, whether you practise alone or inside a multidisciplinary team.
02
Configure your role and access
Your role and what administrative staff may open are configured before the first client, and enforced at row level.
03
Work, record, claim
Sessions are recorded in the room or over video, and the validated claim is submitted in real time.
Moving off your current system
Moving practice software is the part everybody underestimates, so it is worth being exact about what is quick and what is not. Standing the practice up, as set out above, is quick. Bringing a decade of history across is not, and is scoped as its own piece of work.
Step 1
Run in parallel for a short period
Most practices keep the outgoing system readable while they work live in the new one, rather than attempting a hard cut-over on a Monday morning. Nothing about the platform requires the old system to be switched off first.
Step 2
Bring patients across
Patient demographics, medical-aid details and balances import first, because those are what reception needs on day one. Clinical history follows, and how much of it comes across as structured data rather than as attached documents depends entirely on what the outgoing system will export.
Step 3
Move the money last
Open claims and outstanding debtors are the last thing to move, and usually the cleanest approach is to finish the claim cycle already in flight on the old system while new work starts on the new one.
Historic-data migration is quoted separately from the platform, because its length is a property of the outgoing system rather than of this one. A practice that exports well is a short piece of work. A practice whose history exists only as scanned paper is a decision about how much of it is worth carrying.
Regulation, record-keeping and compliance
What the record has to survive
Clinical software carries the most sensitive data a person has, and a regulator will eventually read what it produced. Compliance is designed into the platform rather than certified around it afterwards.
Registration authority
Professional Board for Occupational Therapy, Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics and Arts Therapy
Health Professions Council of South Africa, under the Health Professions Act 56 of 1974.
Registration and scope
Arts therapists in drama, music, art and movement are registered under this professional board. The platform models the role and enforces the permissions the practice configures; scope of practice remains the practitioner's professional responsibility.
Confidentiality and POPIA
Session material is held under role-based access with an immutable audit trail on every read, alongside consent records, data residency and subject-access handling.
The record has to be attributable
Every clinical entry carries who made it, when, and against which consent, on an immutable audit trail. An entry that is later corrected shows as a correction rather than replacing what was there, because a record that can be silently rewritten is not evidence of anything.
The record has to be retrievable years later
Clinical records outlive software, staff and sometimes practices. Records are held as structured data with their coding intact and are exportable, so the practice is not dependent on this platform continuing to exist in order to read its own history. Statutory retention periods are set by the regulator and the relevant legislation, not by us, and are not restated on this page.
Consent is part of the record, not a filing cabinet
Consent to treat, consent to a remote consultation and consent to share are captured in the consultation and stored against it, so the consent that applied at the time is retrievable with the entry it applied to.
Confidentiality inside a group
Group work creates a specific obligation: what one participant disclosed must not become part of another participant's record. Individual records with row-level scoping are how that is enforced rather than promised.
What it costs
How this is priced, and what the quote depends on
The clinical platform is free, on every seat, permanently. You pay only for the medical claims you submit — at a rate that falls as you add modules — and optionally for the two business modules themselves. Every figure is published below rather than quoted on request.
01
CORE — the clinical platform, R0
The record, the diary, the billing, the claims workflow and the AI documentation, on every seat, at no cost and with no expiry. Not a trial and not a cut-down edition. Claims are R9.95 each on CORE, and that is the only charge.
02
R9.95, R8.95 or R7.95 per claim submitted
You pay for claims you actually send, from prepaid credits that never expire. The rate falls as you move up: R9.95 on CORE, R8.95 on STRIDE with one module, R7.95 on SUMMIT with both. Never a percentage of what the claim is worth, and never a percentage of what you earn.
03
STRIDE R699 a module, SUMMIT R1 199 for both
Website and Finance are optional business modules. They do not make you a better practitioner; they make you a better business, and they lower your per-claim rate while they are on. Neither is required to practise on the platform.
What the quote turns on
- How many medical-scheme claims you actually submit in a month — that is the only usage-based charge there is.
- Whether you want the Website module, the Finance module, both, or neither — which also sets your per-claim rate: R9.95 on CORE, R8.95 on STRIDE, R7.95 on SUMMIT.
- Nothing else. Seats are free, sites are free, storage is free, and support is not a tier.
- Migrating historic patient data from an outgoing system is scoped separately and quoted before any work starts.
- Nothing here is indexed to your turnover, your collections or the value of your claims.
For arts therapists specifically
Arts therapy practices with organisational or private income almost always fit the per-claim model rather than per-clinician pricing.
Every price on this site is published, not quoted. We never charge a percentage of what you earn. Registering a practice does not commit you to a contract.
Ask for a quote for your practiceObjections
The reasons not to do this, answered
Every one of these has been said to us by a practitioner in this profession or one adjacent to it. Where the answer is no, it says no.
My work does not fit a clinical template. Will this flatten it?
Risk and plan are structured because a later reader needs them. Everything else stays prose. If a discipline's record is mostly narrative, that is what the record should be, and forcing it into fields would be the wrong design rather than a more advanced one.
I run groups in schools. Does the software understand a group?
A session can be recorded once while each participant keeps their own clinical record, with confidentiality between participants enforced at row level. Sites are configured within one tenant, so several schools are one practice.
I do not claim from schemes at all.
Then do not configure it. The organisational and private payment routes are first-class, and the per-claim model means the commercial arrangement does not price a claims rail you never use.
Questions practitioners actually ask
Arts therapists and iScript.live
Short, direct answers, each written to make sense on its own if it is read without the question above it or the page around it.
Is there practice software suitable for arts therapists in South Africa?
iScript.live models arts therapy as a configured role with its own templates and permissions rather than assuming a medical billing workflow. It provides confidential session records, telehealth, patient messaging, card payment collection and real-time claim submission through MediKredit. Roles, templates and permissions are configured rather than assumed.
How is sensitive arts therapy session material protected?
Each practice is a cryptographically isolated tenant, access inside it is role-based with scope enforcement, and every read, write and export is logged with actor, timestamp and reason, so administrative staff can be prevented from opening session material. A disclosure can therefore be proven or disproven rather than argued about.
Which board registers arts therapists in South Africa?
Arts therapists in drama, music, art and movement are registered with the HPCSA under the Professional Board for Occupational Therapy, Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics and Arts Therapy. iScript.live models that registration as a distinct role in the practice. Registration, scope and continuing-education obligations are set by that board.
Can arts therapists run sessions online through iScript.live?
Yes. Low-latency video consultation with the record in frame is live, together with patient messaging and card payment collection, and the platform is aligned to HPCSA guidance on telemedicine. Suitability of a remote session remains a clinical judgement. Session material, payment and consent all stay inside the platform.
Can an arts therapist run group sessions on iScript.live?
Yes. A group session is recorded once while each participant keeps their own individual clinical record, and confidentiality between participants is enforced at row level rather than by filing convention. Several sites, such as different schools, are configured inside one tenant.
Can a school or non-profit be billed instead of the client on iScript.live?
Yes. The debtor and the patient are separate records in the data model, so a school, clinic or non-profit can be the debtor while the clinical record remains the client's. Card payment collection is also live where the client pays directly.
Will iScript.live force arts therapy notes into clinical checkboxes?
No. Risk and plan are held as structured fields because a later reader has to find them quickly, and the process content of a session remains prose. Reducing a therapeutic process to categories would produce a worse record rather than a better one.
The setting
What arts therapists and their practices look like on this platform
Editorial images, chosen to show the setting the software is used in rather than a stock photograph of a laptop.
These are AI-generated editorial images. They depict no real practitioner, patient or premises, and are not photographs of anyone on this platform or of any of the practices named elsewhere on this site.
The same HPCSA board
Other professions registered with the Occupational Therapy, Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics and Arts Therapy board
Occupational therapists, orthotists and prosthetists, and arts therapists in drama, music, art and movement. If you have landed on the wrong page for your own registration, the right one is probably below.
All 28 professions, grouped by boardBring your practice onto the platform
Register your practice and set your own access boundary
Configure who may open session material, then check the audit log records exactly what you expect it to.