Setting up your clinical will in TherapyLock

At a Glance

A clinical will names a colleague, your clinical executor, who can step in and wind down your practice if you become unable to continue. You nominate them under My Account, they accept an invitation by email, and they set up two-step verification before they can do anything. They get no access to your records unless they formally request it.

What happens when it is used, start to finish

Most questions about clinical wills are really questions about the order things happen in, so here is the whole sequence in one place. None of it begins until your executor believes you can no longer manage your practice.

1. They request access, and then wait

Your executor signs in to their own account, never yours, and clicks Request access. They type a declaration explaining why they believe you cannot continue. Only then does the waiting period begin: 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, which is the default, or 7 days, whichever you chose when you set the clinical will up.

They can see nothing at all during the wait. You are emailed when the request is made, halfway through, 24 hours before access opens, an hour before, and again on activation, and a banner appears on every page of your app. You can stop it with Cancel this request, or open it early with Approve now.

2. Access opens, and winding down is the first thing they do

Not the last. Winding down cancels the subscription at the end of the current billing period, and it takes nothing away from your executor. They keep their access and carry on with everything you have asked of them.

Delaying the wind-down to protect their access achieves the opposite of what it intends. It leaves your estate paying for a subscription it does not need. Access has never depended on the subscription, and an account that has been unpaid for months is still open to its executor.

3. The account becomes read-only, and they export what is needed

These are not alternatives. Both happen. At the end of the period you had already paid for, the account moves into read-only mode, and your executor can export records throughout, at no cost.

The 90-day window that follows an ordinary cancellation does not apply to an account with a nominated executor. There is no clock running while your estate is dealt with, nothing expires, and no payment is needed to keep your records available.

4. Nothing is deleted

Not after 90 days, not after seven years, not by time passing, and not by your executor. The section When records reach their deletion date, further down this article, explains what this means for your retention obligations.

Before you start

You will need your colleague's name and the email address they use for work. Ask them first. Being a clinical executor is a real responsibility, and they should say yes before an invitation arrives in their inbox.

Your executor does not need to be a TherapyLock customer. They are invited by email and set up what they need as part of accepting.

Step-by-Step: nominate your executor

1. Open My Account.
2. Choose Clinical Will.
3. Enter your colleague's details and send the invitation.
4. Tell your colleague to look out for the email, and to check their spam folder if it does not arrive.

The invitation can be used once and runs out after 14 days. If it expires before they accept, send a fresh one from the same page.

What your executor does

Your colleague opens the invitation, accepts it, and sets up two-step verification with an authenticator app. This step is required for every clinical executor, and they cannot skip it. The app can be on their phone, or on their computer if they use Authy or 1Password.

There are no backup codes. If they lose or replace the device holding the authenticator, they will need to contact support to get back in. Two-step verification: setting it up, and changing phones safely covers the setup step by step, including the two things people most often get stuck on.

The account they get is not a customer account

This is the part people most often misread, so it is worth being plain about.

Your executor is not signing up to TherapyLock. They do not start a trial, they never see a price, and public sign-up is closed to them. The account is created by your invitation, it exists only to wind down someone else's practice, and it cannot buy anything. There is nothing for them to cancel later and nothing for them to pay, ever.

If the colleague you have in mind already uses TherapyLock, it is simpler still. The nomination attaches to the account they already have, and they get a switcher between their own practice and yours.

If you remove the nomination later, or they decline it, an executor-only account with no nominations is cleaned up on its own after twelve months.

Why you cannot just leave them your login instead

A tempting shortcut, and it fails in three separate ways.

• The activity log would name you. Everything your executor does is recorded, and that log is how anyone later checks your clients were handled properly. Signed in as you, it says you did it, months after your death
• Two-step verification is tied to your phone. If you are not there to read the code, your login does not work however carefully you wrote it down
• Passwords change. Alter yours at any point in the years in between and the note you left is quietly worthless, with nobody finding out until the worst possible moment

What this costs your estate

Nothing. Your executor does not need a paid subscription to do any of this.

Winding the practice down is the first thing they should do, not the last. No further payments are taken from that point, and it takes nothing away from them. They keep their access and carry on with everything you have asked of them.

The period you have already paid for simply runs to its end. On an annual plan that may be some months away, and nothing changes in the meantime.

That is worth saying plainly, because the natural instinct is the opposite. An executor who delays winding down in order to protect their access has it backwards, and would be leaving your estate paying for a subscription it does not need.

Access does not depend on the subscription at all. An account that has been unpaid and inactive for months is still open to its executor.

What your executor can see, and when

Nominating someone does not give them access to your clients.

• No access until they ask — your executor has to make a formal request before they can see anything
• A waiting period you control — you set a period during which you can stop the request. When and how your clinical executor gets access covers the request, the countdown and how to cancel it
• A record of what they do — everything they do is logged, and you can see that log under Clinical Will

What your executor can and cannot do

Their access is deliberately narrow, and the limits are built into the database rather than

just hidden in the screens. Nobody can widen them by changing the app.

They can:

• Read everything — your notes, documents, appointments and payment history
• Add a dated note to a record, for example to record that a client has been told. It appears as an amendment, alongside your original
• Cancel future appointments
• Download a copy of a client's records, which is what you need if a client asks for theirs

They cannot:

• Change or delete anything you wrote. Your record stays exactly as you left it
• Delete a client record, or the account

Writing your wishes down

TherapyLock holds the arrangement. Your clinical will document says what you want done. The templates are in Practice Documents, in the templates panel. Open it with Show templates.

You will find:

• How to set up your clinical will — a guide to completing it
• A paper version — to print, sign and keep with your other important papers
• Guidance notes — to help you decide what to include

Store your finished clinical will in Practice Documents too, under the clinical will category, so your executor and you both know where it is. Your practice documents explains how.

When records reach their deletion date

This is the part people most often ask about, because it is the end of the whole arrangement.

TherapyLock works out a deletion date for each client record from the retention period you set on

it, anything from three to eight years, running from the date that client's therapy ended. Records

therefore reach their dates at different times rather than all together.

It then does nothing with them. No record is ever deleted automatically. The date is a record

of what you intended, not an instruction the system acts on.

So a wound-down account stays readable for as long as it is needed, at no cost, with the records

intact. For most practitioners that is the whole point of the arrangement.

If your professional body expects records to be destroyed at a particular age, do not assume it

will happen on its own. Write it into your clinical will document so your intention is on record,

and agree the arrangement with us in writing while you are able to, which is the route our Terms

provide for.

Think about how your executor reaches clients

TherapyLock holds client codes rather than names. Your executor can read a record, but cannot contact the person unless you have planned for it.

Decide now whether contact details sit in the app, or whether your key list is kept elsewhere with your clinical will saying where it is and who can release it. What that means for your clinical executor sets out both routes.

Related Articles

• How access actually opens — When and how your clinical executor gets access

• Where your paperwork lives — Your practice documents
• Planning for client contact — No name or date of birth fields
• Your first week — TherapyLock quick start guide

Still Need Help?

If you have any other questions about TherapyLock, our support team is here to help.

Email us at support@counsellingtutor.com and we will be happy to assist.