Help center

You must be an Organization Admin. Blink Session accepts card payments through Stripe; payments go directly to your Stripe account.

1. Go to Organization › Invoicing.
2. Under Stripe payments, click Connect with Stripe.
3. Sign in to an existing Stripe account, or complete the form to create one (you'll need your bank and identity details).

Blink Session takes no fee on these payments (standard Stripe processing fees apply). You can end the connection any time with Disconnect.

Staff can take card payments from a contact or they can pay within their portal or a link from their invoice email (a Portal Login is not required to receive invoice emails or pay).

There is also an option to save the card on file for future charges with a consent statement. If a contact has a saved card, Staff can charge it when they create the invoice. All card data and saved cards are stored on Stripe servers.

1. Go to the client (search or go to All clients) and click Invoices
2. Click Add Invoice. Due date and currency will be auto-set by your organizations default invoices settings but can be changed per invoice.
3. Add Item(s)
   Custom Item can be anything.
   If the client has any appointments which are NOT already on an invoice, you can select them from the dropdown. If the appointment's type has a default price, that will auto-set, else you can enter the price.
4. Footer will be auto-set your organization's default, if setup.
5. When done, click Save & Finalize
6. Click Send to send a notification to the client's contact(s) or a custom email. Invoices are NOT auto-sent.
7. If your organization has Stripe payments setup, clients will be able to pay by card and save their card. You can also take their card by clicking, Take card payment, or record a different payment method.
8. See, "Saved cards" question for more information on charging saved cards

If your organization has Stripe setup, you can save a contact's card for future invoices. all card data is stored on Stripe and never touches Blink Session servers. Saved cards are sent to and pulled directly from Stripe to the Blink Session interface from Stripe's servers.

Cards can by saved to a contact's account by a staff user, or the contact in their portal. A contact does not need a, "Portal Login" to have a saved card - only to save/edit the cards themselves.

Add a contact's card as a staff user.

1. Open the contact by going to the Reports page or finding them in one of their linked clients.
2. Enter the card (or other payment method), agree to the authorization and save.
3. Cards can also be stored for future payments when payment is entered for an invoice.

Contact - add/edit their own saved cards.

1. Login and click, "Invoices" from the side menu. Note: if the organization has the invoice feature toggled off, this will be absent.
2. The contact should then click, "Save card on file" and follow the steps.
3. They can also store a card they are payment with for an open invoice for future payments.

Charging Saved Cards

After an invoice is finalized a, "Take card payment" button will appear, if your organization has Stripe setup. If any contact linked to the invoice's client have a saved card, it will appear for you to select and charge. You will also see, "Enter a new card".

After an invoice is paid, you will see a receipt email you can print or email.

Client notes in Blink Session are designed to comply with clinical/medical charting standards, but can be used in any capacity. Notes are designed to be tied to a service or appointment that occurred for the client on a specific day. To add general or office notes about a client, open the client profile and click "Details" at the top.

How to Add a Client Note

1. From the client record: Open a client by searching from the sidebar or going to "All". Click "Notes" and then "Add Note". You will choose an appointment or date of service the note pertains to.
2. From your schedule: Hover over or click an appointment with the client and click "Add Note". If done via the schedule, the appointment will automatically be linked to the note.
3. In a session: During a session, if you have linked the session member with their client record, a note icon will appear in the bottom menu bar. Click to start or continue a note for that client.

Note Templates

Blink Session has several note templates which can be removed, edited, or added to by your organization's admin (see related help article). Choose the template that matches the type of note you need to write.

Copy Previous

The "Copy Previous" button allows you to select a previous note you wrote for the client. This provides a quick way to write by simply updating what you wrote last time.

Revision History

Blink Session keeps track of changes to the note, so you can always review the history and see records of saving, finalization, and retractions.

Add to To-Do

Click the "Add to..." button to add the note to your To-Do List. This is handy for keeping track of notes you need to complete.

See other help articles for more specific information on notes.

The note finalization feature in Blink Session follows attestation (signing/authenticating the record) standards. Finalizing a note represents the clinician’s legal verification that the documented services were rendered, accurate, and complete. This is required by most medical insurers and other payers, but it can also be useful in other contexts.

Finalizing: When you click finalize, both the note and the linked appointment (if one is linked) will be locked. Linked appointments are considered part of the legal record.

Retracting: Finalized notes can be retracted. When retracted, an entry will be recorded in the note's revision history.

Deleting: Notes that were never finalized can always be deleted. Open the note and click the "Delete" button at the bottom. In order to comply with attestation standards, notes that were previously finalized can only be deleted by Blink Session support. If you need to delete a previously finalized note, contact Blink Session support with the date, time, and reason for deletion.

Blink Session has several built-in note templates, but we recommend customizing which ones you use. You must have organization admin permissions to customize note templates.

Click "Organization" from the side menu and go to "Notes".

Note templates include "system" notes, which cannot be edited. Click "Add" to create your own custom note template. Add the sections you need and mark "Required" if a section must be completed to finalize the note.

Notes enabled per discipline allow you to assign note templates by staff discipline. We strongly recommend only enabling the templates that a specific discipline needs. If a discipline has only one template enabled, it will be automatically selected when they add a new note.

In Blink Session a client is the person receiving services. On certain plans, a client can be linked to "Contacts" (a parent, guardian, or an adult client themselves), and a contact can have an optional "Portal Login".

Clients can be added two ways

1. In a session: When someone joins a session, the system will try to determine if they might already be a client. It will ask you to pick from possible matches of your existing clients, or "Add Client". Even if the Blink Session plan you are on does not include scheduling or notes, adding them as a Client helps you and the system track what you have or can do within sessions (recommended resources, what we did last time, etc.).
2. Outside a Session: Click All next to the clients search box on the left sidebar. Then, click "Add Client" from the top left. On plans with practice management features, you will have options like "Contacts" and "Linked Staff".

Open the client from the left search bar

Edit: change any section/field and click Save.

Discharge: click Details at the top and tick the Discharged checkbox and click Save. Discharged clients cannot be edited or scheduled, but all of their data is kept.

Delete: click Details and find the red Delete Client button. If it does not appear at the bottom, you do not have permission to delete the client. User-admins can delete any client; other staff can only delete a client they just created. Deleting is permanent and removes the client's notes, appointments, and related data. Deleting a client does not automatically delete their linked contacts.

Client ↔ Staff. All staff seeing a client for services should be linked to them. If you are a User-Admin, when adding Staff or Clients you will be asked which Staff/Client to link them to. If not, the client you create will automatically be linked to you.

Client ↔ Contact. A contact (parent, guardian, or the client themselves) can be linked to several clients, and a client can have several contacts. Note that in Blink Session (version 2) a "Contact" can only log in if you mark that they should have a "Portal Account". Learn more about this in the Contacts section. Click the Contacts tab on any client or go to Reports -> Contacts to manage them.

A contact is a person associated with a client — usually a parent, guardian, or the adult client themselves. A contact record stores their name, email, phone, address, and notification preferences.

A contact can optionally be given a Portal Login: an account that lets them sign in to Blink Session to view appointments, self-schedule, see shared notes/recordings, pay invoices, and manage notifications. (In Blink Session One this was called a "Client Login".)

A contact without a portal login is simply stored information — they can't sign in until you enable the login.

1. Open the client and go to the Contacts tab.
2. Click Add Contact (or Link Existing to attach a contact that already exists in your organization).
3. Enter the contact's details. To let them sign in, tick Portal Login — this requires an email address and sends them an email to set a password.
4. Click Save.

One contact can be linked to several clients — use the Linked to section of the contact to add or remove clients. To give an existing client another contact (for example a second parent), open that client's Contacts tab and add or link the contact there.

For a contact, go to Reports -> Contacts, or open the client's Contacts tab and click the contact; for a staff member, go to Organization › Staff and click their row.

1. A contact awaiting setup shows an Awaiting password badge; a staff member shows a Pending badge.
2. Check the email address for typos. If it's wrong, correct it and save — a fresh invite is sent to the corrected address.
3. If the address is correct, click Resend invite.
4. Delivery can take a few minutes; have them check their spam/junk folder.
5. If it still doesn't arrive, their email provider is likely blocking it — see "Not receiving email".

When a contact signs in with their portal login they see a streamlined version of Blink Session:

• Appointments — upcoming appointments across every linked client, with add-to-calendar links and a Join button to enter an online session. If your organization allows it, a Schedule Appointment button lets them book new appointments.
• Linked Clients — the clients they're linked to; opening one shows shared notes, recordings, and uploads.
• Invoices — view and pay invoices and manage a saved payment card (when invoicing is enabled).

They can update their own email, password, and notification preferences from the menu under their name at the top right.

You must be an Organization Admin. Click Organization › Subscription. Then, click Change Plan. Pick a plan and confirm. Upgrades take effect immediately and prorated upgrades are charged to your saved payment method immediately; downgrades take effect at the start of your next billing cycle. Billing is per staff user (admin users are free).

You must be an Organization Admin. Go to Organization › Subscription and click Cancel subscription, then confirm.

• On a paid plan you keep access until the end of your current billing period — you won't be charged again, and the page shows the date access ends.
• If you're still on a free trial, canceling ends access immediately.

Cancellation always follows your Stripe billing period.

You must be an Organization Admin. Open Organization from the bottom of the sidebar and choose Features Toggle. Switch a feature on or off, confirm, and click Save. When a feature is off it's hidden everywhere in the app.

Features your current plan doesn't include are shown locked, with a link to change your plan.

Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Reports include data about appointment status, sessions, attendance, and for staff/admin users: invoices and contacts. The "Reports" page does not contain notes or client specific reports. For those, go to the specific client and check under Notes.

Click Reports in the sidebar. Tabs across the top switch between report types — Appointments, Sessions, Attendance, Invoices (staff accounts only), and Contacts (staff accounts only) (some depend on which features your organization uses).

Each report can be filtered by date range, staff, location, and status. You can also view report data as a summary with totals or export to CSV.

You can save a filtered report to return to it quickly.

Resources are the materials you use in sessions. Everything you add is saved in the cloud, so it's ready on any computer — no screen sharing or hunting for files.

Click Resources in the sidebar from the dashboard, or the Share menu in a session. Search and filter to find an item, click the edit icon to change one (including items you added from the catalog), and in a session click a resource to load it for everyone.

Use Search Catalog to find ready-made resources and resources shared within your organization; adding one copies it into your own list.

Open Resources and click Add Resource, then choose a type:

• List — a set of images or words (flashcards). Lists power in-session card and matching activities, and can even be generated for you with Generate with AI (e.g. "farm animals").
• Website — a web page or video link to display or co-browse.
• PDF — upload a PDF to present and annotate.
• Video / Audio — upload media that plays in sync for everyone.

You can also save a Whiteboard from inside a session. It will save in your resources.

Open a resource's sharing options (Edit Sharing) to share it with My Organization (visible to your colleagues in Search Catalog) or with Everyone. Public shares are reviewed by our team before they appear in the catalog for other organizations.

Blink Session displays all appointment times to staff and clients in their time zone.

When you create or edit an appointment, the time you pick is interpreted in your own time zone. A client in another time zone sees the same appointment converted to theirs — on the calendar, in reminder emails, and in the portal. Self-scheduling shows your available slots in the contact's current time zone as they pick.

Contact Notification Preferences

If a Contact has a Portal Login, they can control what they receive and how (email, text), from their Settings › Notifications page. Staff can also set a contact's preferences on the contact record.

Phone Number Text Approval

Blink Session is required by law to receive approval from the phone number owner before sending sms text messages to them (except for two-factor authentication texts). When a new number is added, a verification text is sent. It can be re-sent by the contact on their profile page or by staff on the contact's record.

Appointment reminders

Staff users with the schedule admin permission can tweak organization-wide reminder settings under Organization › Appointments. There you choose the channels (Email and/or SMS) and up to two send times — a first reminder 24–76 hours before and an optional second reminder 1–23 hours before — plus optional custom text.

Reminders go only to contacts who have that notification enabled, and only for appointments marked Scheduled. If a contact has several appointments within the window, they're combined into a single reminder.

Each appointment carries a status you can set per client in the appointment:

• Scheduled — the default, upcoming appointment.
• Completed — shown in green.
• Canceled — shown in red with a line through it; a cancellation reason can be recorded (customize cancellation reasons under Organization › Appointments).
• No Show — shown in a darker red for a client who didn't attend.

A few permissions govern who can manage whose calendar:

• Managing appointments for other staff requires the Schedule for all Staff Users permission.
• Viewing or assigning clients you aren't linked to requires the User/Client Admin permission.

Covering for an absent staff member:

1. Because all Sessions are started via the staff user's Join Link, you can simply provide the link of the substitute to clients.
2. If you want to move appointments from one staff to another:
   1) Link the clients to the substitute staff user in Organization › Staff. Open the substitute and link them to the clients they'll see.
   2) Bulk move the appointments: Go to the "Schedule" page and click, "Bulk" (Edit) at the top. Choose the date(s) of the appointments you need to move and change the staff user.
   If you complete this before reminders are sent out, they will contain the substitute's Join Link, else you will need to contact the clients manually.

Self-scheduling lets a contact request or book appointments from their portal. Contacts must have a Portal Login to self-schedule.

1. An admin configures appointment types and scheduling rules under Organization › Appointments.
2. Each staff member sets the hours they're bookable under Settings › Self-Schedule & Sync.
3. Contacts then see a Schedule Appointment button in the portal, pick an available slot (shown in their time zone), and book.

Depending on your settings, a booking is either confirmed automatically or sent to the staff member to Approve or Decline.

Blink Session is built for confidential, HIPAA-conscious care:

• All traffic is encrypted in transit, and sessions run in your browser with no software to install. Thus, Blink Session does not store any data on your device, besides login Cookies while you are logged in, unless you explicitly download it.
• Two-factor authentication or passkey is required for Staff or Admin users, and is available for contact Portal Logins.
• All sessions are auto-locked after 15 minutes of inactivity.
• Access to client information is limited to linked staff and administrators
• All views of any client data of any kind is logged.
• We sign Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) with organizations that require one — go here to sign your BAA.

When anyone requests to join a session with you (via your join link), you will receive an in-app notification. Otherwise, you can always enter a session by clicking Open Session in the left sidebar.

A Blink Session session can hold as many participants as you need — there's no separate "group" mode. Everyone in the room appears under Session Members, where the moderator can manage each person's microphone, camera, permissions, and related Client record.

When the session reaches more than 3 participants, the session will briefly reload to switch to a group-optimized experience. Video quality always depends on internet connection and device. If a session gets choppy, have participants who aren't speaking turn their camera off — see "Video is freezing or unstable".

In a session, open the share menu to choose how you share:

• Co-browse websites (preferred) — open a shared cloud browser that everyone sees and can interact with in real time, without sharing your own screen. You can allow a participant remote control.
• Traditional Share Screen — share your whole screen, a window, or a browser tab. Screen share is not supported on mobile or tablet browsers.

Open the Whiteboard from the session's share menu. You can draw, add text, insert shapes, and upload images or a PDF to annotate. The moderator controls whether participants can draw and type under the "Session Members" menu. Save the whiteboard to keep your work, or close it when you're done.

Yes. In a session, click the Settings icon at the bottom, then click Virtual Background to blur your background (with an adjustable Blur Strength), pick one of the default backgrounds, or upload your own image. The moderator can allow or turn off virtual backgrounds for participants.

Because background processing uses extra CPU, turn it off if your video becomes choppy on an older device.

Recording is available when your organization has enabled it and you have the Record Sessions permission. In a session, open Record and choose a mode:

• Session — records all participants' video to watch later (cost is $0.05/minute with free lifetime storage).
• Participant — records a single participant to view now or later (5-minute limit).

Finished recordings appear under the client's Recordings tab, and can be shared to a contact's portal.

Every staff member has a personal Join Link (find My Join Link from the sidebar). Anyone using the link simply enters their name, and requests to join your session. You Approve or Deny each request. Within Portal Logins, there is a Join Session button with a dropdown to each linked staff member's linked login.

Blink Session utilizes the Co-Browsing feature to play videos.

1. One-off: Simply open "Co-browser" from the Share menu, then paste the video link in the address bar. Blink Session will even keep track of the sites you visit (history) so you can always go back.
2. Add as a Resource: Open your Resources from the side menu, click Add Resource, and choose Website. Paste in your video link and save. In a session, open the resource and it will auto-open Co-browsing to play the video.

There are a few ways to bring outside material into a session:

• Websites: use Co-browse websites so everyone can view and interact with the site together in real time.
• Documents: for Google Drive, Office 365, or other web-based files, you can also use Co-browse. You can also add a PDF as a resource or directly to the whiteboard.

At Blink Session, we serve many Speech Pathologists, Occupational and ABA Therapists, and Mental Health Professionals who need to conduct assessments on-line. Assessments are typically tightly controlled by the companies which own them,but thankfully, some have online options.

Below are a few assessment publishers that offer digital versions of assessment which can be conducted via teletherapy. With the this new version of Blink Session, it is super easy to use these online with our virtual co-browsing feature.

Pearson

Pearson offers many assessments through it's "Q-Global" system which can be administered over a video conference, including:

Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation – Third Edition (GFTA-3)
Khan-Lewis Phonological Analysis – Third Edition (KLPA-3)
Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool, 2nd Edition (CELF-P2)
Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Screener (CELF-5 Screener)
CELF 4-Spanish
Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-5)
CELF-5 Reading and Writing Supplement
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-4)
Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT-2)
And many more.

Visit Pearson's Telepractice Page

WPS

WPS offers many "Digital Easels" which can be used in telepractice including:

Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL-2)
Arizona Articulation Proficiency Scale-3 (Arizona-3)
(OWLS™-II) Oral and Written Language Scales, Second Edition
(PPA Scale) Phonological and Print Awareness Scale
(OPUS) Oral Passage Understanding Scale
(ABAS™-3) Adaptive Behavior Assessment System™, Third Edition
And many more.

Proed

Proed offers digital versions many of it's assessment which can be used in telepractice.

Find Out More at Proed

MHS

MHS offers an, "Online Assessment Center" with digital versions many of it's assessment which can be used in telepractice.

Find Out More at MHS

You need the User Admin permission to manage staff.

1. Go to Organization › Staff.
2. Click Add Staff.
3. Enter the staff member's details and set their permissions (see "Staff permissions explained"). Grant admin permissions only to those who need them.
4. Link the clients they'll be seeing.
5. Save. They'll be emailed an invitation to set a password and activate their account.

Adding will update your subscription, since billing is per staff user.

Each staff user has a set of permission toggles:

• Organization Admin — manage organization settings, features, subscription, and invoicing.
• User/Client Admin — manage all staff and all clients, and link staff to clients.
• Schedule for all Staff Users — create and edit appointments for other staff.
• View Staff Schedule/Details — see other staff members and their schedules.
• Record Sessions — record sessions.
• Observe Sessions — silently observe another staff member's session.

Grant the admin permissions sparingly — only to people who need to manage the whole organization or all clients.

You need the Observe Sessions permission.

• To observe: Log in to Blink Session and then go to the staff user's Join Link, which you can find on the Organization › Staff page. If you are logged in while you visit their Join Link, you will see an option to observe or join.
• When you request to observe, the staff user must approve before you enter the session.
• Your camera and microphone stay off — you only see and hear the staff member and their client(s).

Deleting a staff user removes their personal resources and their future appointments for which they are the only staff member. All historical data — past sessions, notes, and completed appointments — is retained.

Chrome: click the camera icon at the right of the address bar, allow the camera and microphone, and reload. (No icon? Settings › Privacy and security › Site settings › Camera/Microphone, then allow this site.)

Firefox: click the camera/mic icon in the address bar and clear any "Blocked" permission, then reload. (Or Settings › Privacy & Security › Permissions.)

Safari (Mac): Safari menu › Settings for This Website › set Camera and Microphone to Allow, then reload.

Safari (iPad/iPhone): Settings app › Safari › Camera & Microphone Access on, then reload the page.

This usually happens when headphones, a monitor, or a projector was connected earlier and your computer is still routing audio to it — most common on Windows.

Wrong microphone: Click the settings icon to the right of the mic and camera buttons. Switch to a mic that's actually connected (accept any new permission prompt).

Windows output: right-click the speaker icon in the taskbar › Sound settings, and pick the correct playback and input devices. Restart your browser if needed.

Mac output: System Settings › Sound › Output, and select the device you want.

An echo happens when someone's microphone picks up sound from their own speakers and sends it back. If you hear the echo, it's coming from someone else in the session.

1. Headphones are the foolproof fix — when the echo-causer wears headphones their mic can't pick up their speakers.
2. Otherwise, have them lower their speaker volume, especially in a room that echoes.
3. External laptop speakers are a common culprit — disconnect them if possible, unless you have a specific conference room microphone designed for this.
4. A good external webcam/mic also helps reduce echo.

Most video problems are due to your internet connection or Wi-Fi interference — and would occur on any video platform. Remember the other person's connection matters just as much as yours.

What affects quality

Bandwidth is shared by every device on your network, and upload speed (sending your camera video) is often much lower than download — so a connection that streams Netflix fine can still struggle with a live call. Latency and jitter (delay and its fluctuation) hurt live video because it can't be buffered. Wi-Fi interference (distance from the router, walls, microwaves, other electronics) is a frequent cause.

Practical tips

1. Make sure no one nearby is streaming video or uploading large files.
2. Move closer to the Wi-Fi router, or use a wired connection.
3. Close other apps that use a lot of CPU; try a different device if you can.
4. Turn off your video, screen share, or document camera to lighten the load.
5. Run a speed test to check your upload speed and latency.

If you or a contact aren't receiving email from Blink Session even after checking spam/junk, the email provider is blocking it. Add our sending domain to the provider's safe-senders (allowlist) so it stops being blocked. If your organization uses a custom (white-label) email domain, allowlist that domain too.

Personal email: Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail/Outlook.

Company email admins: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365.

If a content filter or firewall is on your network or computer, allow (whitelist) the following so Blink Session and its video calls work:

• The domain of this site (and your organization's Blink Session domain if it's custom).
• The video service domains: *.opentok.com, *.tokbox.com, and *.vonage.com.
• Secure real-time (WebSocket) connections over wss:// on port 443.

Often this due to a content filter (for example a router's parental controls) blocking the site and showing a security-style message instead of a clear "blocked" notice. Check that first — see "What if I have an internet content filter or firewall?".

If it isn't a filter and you're on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad, the device may be caching bad security-certificate data:

1. Clear your browser cache and reload.
2. Make sure the device's date, time, and time zone are set to update automatically — certificate checks require an accurate clock.
3. Restart the browser (and the device) and try again.

This is a device setting rather than a Blink Session issue; Apple's support site has detailed steps for iPhone and iPad if it persists.

Open the menu under your name in the bottom left menu.

• Profile — your name and email (an email change is confirmed by a link we send to the new address).
• Password — change your password.
• Notifications — choose which notifications you receive and whether by email or SMS.
• Two-Factor Auth — add an extra layer of sign-in security.
• Self-Schedule & Sync (staff) — set bookable hours and connect your Google or Microsoft calendar.