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Practice Efficiency

Practice Better Alternative: HANS vs Practice Better (2026)

Compare Practice Better and HANS on published pricing, AI charting, labs, and protocols, and see when to switch platforms or add HANS beside it.

By Andrew Le, MDReviewed by Andrew Le, MDOctober 7, 202611 min read

If you are searching for a Practice Better alternative because complex cases still take hours to prepare and chart, HANS is a desktop clinical assistant you add beside the platform you already run (How HANS works). If you need a new system for billing, prescribing, or a client portal, HANS is the wrong swap, because it cannot prescribe, fax, or bill today and its patient portal is still on the roadmap (How HANS works).

Practice Better describes itself as the EHR and practice management platform that health and wellness practices run on (Practice Better integrations). HANS works on the case itself, building the chart from your documents, extracting lab values, and drafting SOAP notes and patient handouts (How HANS works).

The HANS team wrote this comparison. Every Practice Better fact below links to the Practice Better page it comes from. Practice Better and HANS can both change their prices, so check current rates with each of them before you decide.

Quick comparison

Practice Better HANS
What it is EHR and practice management platform for health and wellness practices (Practice Better integrations) Desktop clinical assistant for functional medicine (How HANS works)
Record of care Yes, session notes live on the client record (Practice Better AI charting) Runs beside your current system and is not yet a full record system (How HANS works)
Pricing model Plans by client count and seats. Starter $35/month billed monthly (Practice Better pricing page) Per practitioner license. Solo $297/mo billed annually
Free option Free Sprout plan for students and recent grads, up to 3 clients. 14-day trial on paid plans, 30 days on Team (Practice Better pricing page) No trial. 30-day money-back guarantee
AI documentation AI Charting Assistant add-on from $10 per practitioner per month (Practice Better pricing page) SOAP notes, action plans, handouts, and referral letters drafted from your documents and the chart (How HANS works, HANS home page)
Research support Its pricing and feature pages list no cited research assistant Cited answers from a curated clinical library, with each source one click away (How HANS works)
Labs Fullscript Labs and Rupa Health integrations for ordering and results, plus an Evexia Diagnostics integration (Practice Better integrations) Pulls lab values out of uploaded reports. No lab ordering or lab exchange today (How HANS works)
Protocols and dispensary Protocol templates with Fullscript, WholeScripts, and The Natural Dispensary (Practice Better protocols, Practice Better integrations) No product catalog, vendor list, or dispensary
Client portal and programs Client portal and mobile app, group scheduling, and programs (Practice Better pricing page) Practitioner tool today. A patient portal is on the roadmap (How HANS works)
Billing Payments through Stripe, superbills, CMS-1500 export, Claim.MD claims integration (Practice Better integrations, Practice Better billing and insurance) None
e-Prescribing ePrescribe add-on, $49/month plus $99 onboarding per prescriber (Practice Better pricing page) None
Platform Web portal and mobile app (Practice Better pricing page) Desktop app for macOS 14+ or 64-bit Windows (HANS pricing)

What Practice Better is

Practice Better's functional medicine page is titled "The #1 functional medicine EHR" (Practice Better for functional medicine practitioners). Its charting page says it is built for allied health professionals, naming dietitians, nutritionists, naturopathic doctors, and health coaches (Practice Better AI charting). Practice Better's pricing page cites a 4.7 rating from more than 250 reviews on G2 (Practice Better pricing page).

Practice Better's pricing page lists scheduling, telehealth video chat, integrated billing and payments, secure messaging, a client portal, a web portal and mobile app, group scheduling, and programs (Practice Better pricing page). Its integrations page adds wearable and food-tracking sync into client journals (Practice Better integrations). Practice Better's charting page lists note formats of SOAP, ADIME, DAP, BIRP, or a custom format (Practice Better AI charting).

Protocols are a core feature. Practice Better's protocols page says you can save food, supplement, and lifestyle recommendations, build reusable protocol templates, and connect online dispensaries so clients can fill supplement recommendations (Practice Better protocols). Its integrations page says Practice Better integrates with 36+ tools, including Fullscript, Fullscript Labs, Rupa Health, Evexia Diagnostics, DrFirst for e-prescribing, and Claim.MD and Office Ally for insurance claims (Practice Better integrations).

Practice Better also sells an AI Charting Assistant (Practice Better pricing page). Per its charting page, AI Summary records, transcribes, and summarizes sessions into your note format, and AI Dictation turns speech into text (Practice Better AI charting). Its pricing page says the practitioner reviews and signs off before anything is filed to the client record (Practice Better pricing page).

What HANS is

HANS runs on Windows and macOS as a desktop clinical assistant built for functional medicine practitioners (How HANS works). Attach an intake form, a lab panel, or a stack of outside records, and HANS turns them into a patient chart with the lab values pulled out (How HANS works). It answers case questions from a curated clinical library and drafts SOAP notes, patient handouts, and referral letters, and each draft waits for your review and signature (How HANS works, HANS home page). A separate reviewing model also checks every note section by section against the patient's chart data, and it flags a dose such as "twice daily" that was written as "daily" (How HANS works).

Three points shape how it compares with Practice Better:

  1. It sits beside Practice Better. HANS does not yet work as a full record system, and it has no integration with Practice Better or any EHR, so a finished note reaches Practice Better as a PDF or Word export or by copy and paste (How HANS works).
  2. Its answers carry citations. Clinical answers come from a curated library of 109 Clinical Intelligence Guides, backed by more than 5,000 citations (HANS home page). Each claim gets a numbered marker that opens the source passage, and HANS cannot browse the internet, so a forum post cannot slip into an answer (How HANS works).
  3. Check the gaps before you buy. HANS has no drug and supplement interaction database (How HANS works). It cannot order labs, prescribe, fax, or bill today, and it ships without a trial, with a 30-day money-back guarantee on every purchase (How HANS works).

Pricing side by side

Practice Better (billed monthly, from the Practice Better pricing page):

HANS (per practitioner license, from HANS pricing):

  • Solo: $297/mo billed annually ($3,564/yr)
  • Growing: $549/mo billed annually, 2x the Solo usage allowance, links licenses into one practice
  • Established: $799/mo billed annually, 3x the Solo usage allowance, newest features first
  • Clinic: volume licenses with SSO and one invoice, priced on request
  • Admin accounts: $49/mo each, with at least one Growing or Established license in the practice

Practice Better's plans cost less per month. It prices its platform by client count and its AI add-on by recorded minutes (Practice Better pricing page). HANS prices each practitioner license by usage allowance (HANS pricing). If you add HANS, it is an addition to your platform cost, so judge it by the hours of case prep and writing it takes off your week.

When to stay, switch, or add HANS

Stay on Practice Better if your practice runs on programs, group sessions, client journals, and dispensary-linked protocols. Those are platform jobs, and HANS is a practitioner tool today (How HANS works).

Switch platforms if the system itself limits you, for example insurance billing depth, prescribing needs, or team workflow. Our EMR software reviews and functional medicine EMR comparison cover other platforms on those points.

Add HANS beside Practice Better if the business side works but case prep still runs into the evening: outside records to read, years of labs to line up, evidence to check, and a note and plan to write. HANS writes that draft from the encounter together with the records, lab panels, and cited library sources behind the case (How HANS works).

Running HANS alongside Practice Better

In a shared setup, each tool keeps its own work:

  • Practice Better: booking, the client record, messaging, programs, protocols with dispensary links, payments, and claims (Practice Better pricing page, Practice Better integrations)
  • HANS: reading the case file before the visit, evidence questions with citations, a first draft of the note, and handouts for the client

Each signed note crosses over by hand, because HANS has no integration with Practice Better and means double entry for practices that stay on their current system (How HANS works). If your team will not take on that double entry, Practice Better's own AI Charting Assistant keeps the note inside the client record (Practice Better AI charting).

What to measure in the first 30 days

  1. Time one complex new-client note from first look to signature. How long does it take now?
  2. What share of that time goes to reading records and lab reports?
  3. Is a note drafted from the session transcript, as Practice Better's add-on produces, enough for your cases?
  4. Would cited evidence answers change how you prepare a case?
  5. Will your team carry each signed note from HANS into Practice Better by hand?

If most of your time sits in questions 2 and 4, run HANS on real patients inside the 30-day money-back window (How HANS works). If question 3 is a yes, Practice Better's add-on may cover you.

Frequently asked questions

Is HANS a replacement for Practice Better?

No. Practice Better describes itself as the EHR and practice management platform that health and wellness practices run on (Practice Better integrations). According to the HANS How it works page, HANS is a practitioner tool today with no patient portal yet, it is not a full record system, and it cannot order labs, prescribe, fax, or bill today (How HANS works). Practitioners usually keep their current system and use HANS next to it for case questions, charts built from documents, note drafts, and patient handouts (How HANS works).

How much does Practice Better cost compared with HANS?

Practice Better's pricing page lists plans billed monthly at $35 (Starter, 10 clients), $69 (Professional, 300 clients), $99 (Plus, unlimited clients), and $155 (Team, two practitioner licenses), with up to 10 percent off for annual billing (Practice Better pricing page). The same page prices its AI Charting Assistant from $10 per practitioner per month (Practice Better pricing page). On the HANS pricing page, Solo costs $297 per month billed annually, Growing costs $549 per month billed annually, and Established costs $799 per month billed annually, and every plan is one practitioner license (HANS pricing page).

Does Practice Better have AI charting?

Yes. Practice Better's charting page says its AI Charting Assistant is made up of AI Summary and AI Dictation, and that AI Summary records, transcribes, and summarizes sessions into Outline, Narrative, SOAP, or custom note formats (Practice Better AI charting). Its pricing page sells the add-on in tiers of 1,200, 3,600, or 7,200 minutes a month and says the practitioner reviews and signs off before anything is filed to the client record (Practice Better pricing page).

Does HANS integrate with Practice Better?

No. According to the HANS How it works page, HANS has no integration with Practice Better or any EHR (How HANS works). Finished notes leave HANS as PDF or Word exports or through the clipboard, so include the copy step in any time-savings estimate (How HANS works).

When should I leave Practice Better instead of adding HANS?

Leave the platform when the system itself is the problem, such as insurance billing, prescribing needs, or team workflow. Add HANS when Practice Better runs the business well but case preparation, evidence questions, and note drafting still run late.

Sources

Author and medical review

Written by Andrew Le, MD. Andrew Le, MD is the founder and CEO of HANS and the founder of Buoy Health and Renew Health.

Medically reviewed by Andrew Le, MD.

Related comparisons

Next step

See the plans on HANS pricing, then run HANS beside Practice Better on your own complex patients for 30 days.