Verifying therapists
Every therapist’s registration is checked before their profile goes live. Applications that don’t clear aren’t published.
Roughly half sit outside Ahpra, so “registered” doesn’t mean the same thing across the directory: some registrations are held by a national board with a public register, others by a professional association.
Support workers, support coordinators and developmental educators have no board and no registration number. They are verified on a worker screening check instead, and their profile carries “Worker screening checked by Open Therapy” where a registered practitioner’s says “Registration checked by Open Therapy”. A profile also shows the registering body, registration status, listed qualifications, and whether someone is engaged as rostered hours rather than as appointments.
Verification confirms that someone is registered, or screened, to practise. It is not an endorsement
of their clinical judgement.
Your clinical record
Clinical notes, assessments and treatment records belong to your therapist and their practice, not to Open Therapy. Open Therapy stores them, does not read them, and never uses them for marketing, advertising or training models.- A therapist can see the records of clients they treat, and only those clients.
- Australian law requires practitioners to retain clinical notes for seven years. Closing your account removes your profile, but it cannot delete notes a therapist is legally obliged to keep.
- Booking and payment records are held for seven years too.
- A request for a copy of your clinical notes goes to your therapist.
What you can take with you
Yours to download at any time, without asking anyone.A record a therapist keeps for you before you have an account
A therapist who already sees you can keep their file for you on Open Therapy — and book you in — before you have ever signed up. They cannot create an account in your name. A record made for you has no password and no way to sign in until you turn it into an account yourself and confirm the email address it was filed under. Until then, anything with two ends is switched off: nobody can message you, send you a form, suggest a prompt or share a safety plan. Notes, goals, documents and appointments work normally. Every appointment email to that address carries a link that says this isn’t me, which stops Open Therapy writing to it and tells the therapist they have the wrong address.Payments and card data
Open Therapy never stores your card number. Payments run through Stripe, and the therapist is the merchant of record — their practice name appears on your statement, not ours. See Paying for sessions.Messaging and video
Information on Open Therapy is encrypted in transit and at rest. Messages are stored with the rest of the client’s file, and are visible to the two of you. Online sessions run on an encrypted video link that opens in your browser. Sessions are never recorded — not by you, not by your therapist, and not by Open Therapy. Phone numbers, email addresses and links can’t be exchanged in messages until a first session with that therapist has been paid for.Reviews and Australian advertising law
Section 133 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law prohibits using testimonials to advertise a regulated health service. A review published on a therapist’s profile is our advertising, so it has to comply. A review may describe the service, but not the treatment.Allowed
Booking, waiting times, availability, punctuality and cancellations. Admin — invoices, fees,
rebates, Medicare, NDIS, paperwork. Premises, parking, accessibility and video quality. Manner and
communication. Languages, appointment times, location.
Not allowed
Any symptom, condition, diagnosis or reason for attending, named or implied. Any treatment,
technique, medication or test result. Any statement about outcome, progress or whether it helped —
positive or negative. Any clinical recommendation or claim about clinical skill.
Raising a concern
Every concern goes through the support form at opentherapy.app/support.
You can also email support@opentherapy.app. See Getting help for all topics and the phone line.
Two places independent of Open Therapy:
- Ahpra — conduct or clinical care of a registered health practitioner.
- The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner — privacy complaints, if you aren’t satisfied with how Open Therapy handled yours.