Why your VA can't see some clients in Practice Better (and how to fix it)

You brought on a VA or a front desk person. You set up their access. And now some clients are missing from their view, or they can see things you didn't intend.

Practice Better's team permissions are genuinely powerful. They let you give each person precisely the access their role needs, which matters a lot when clinical information is involved. They're also a little counterintuitive in a few specific places.

Here's where people usually get caught.

1. Permission tags are combined with AND, not OR

This is the big one.

If you restrict a team member's access by client tags, and those restrictions exist at both the role level and the member level, Practice Better combines them with AND.

So a client has to carry every required tag to appear for that person. If a client is missing even one, they won't show up in that team member's view.

If your VA says "I can't find this client," check the client's tags against every tag restriction on both the role and the individual.

2. Check that access didn't default to all team members

Team Member Access has three options: All team members, Specific or Advanced.

Certain permissions can set this to All team members by default. Easy to miss, and the result is someone having broader access than you intended. After setting up any new team member, confirm this setting deliberately.

Advanced is often the right choice for a VA, because it lets you give access to precisely the things their role involves.

3. Some actions need two permissions

A few actions need a pair of permissions to work. Granting one looks like it should be enough, and it isn't.

Documented examples:

• Payment plan automations need both Automations and Invoice creation
• Recurring sessions need both Automations and Client bookings
• Reports need the reports permission granted explicitly

If a team member can see something but can't use it, look for a missing partner permission.

4. Group sessions show attendee details

Worth knowing if you run groups: team members with booking view access can see the name and email of all attendees in a group session, even if tag restrictions would otherwise hide some of those clients.

That's not a problem for most practices, but it matters if you're relying on tag restrictions for privacy.

A setup routine that avoids all of this

When you add someone new:

• 1. Write down what their role actually needs to see and do.
• 2. Create a role for it rather than configuring the individual from scratch.
• 3. Set Team Member Access deliberately, often to Advanced.
• 4. Add any permission pairs their tasks require.
• 5. If you use tag restrictions, check them at both role and member level.
• 6. Log in as them, or have them check, and confirm the view matches what you intended.

That last step catches almost everything.

Would rather hand this to someone?

Our Practice Better setup is $997 for one practitioner, one location and up to three programs, whether you're building from scratch or fixing what you have. Form mappings, automations, permissions, all of it, tested end to end.