# NextStep Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra

> With the help of Capterra, learn about NextStep Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Mental Health products and more.

Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/88788/NextStep

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# 

 NextStep Software Review 2026: Features, Integrations, Pros & Cons

Last updated on March 13, 2026

Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team.

[Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews)

NextStep

## What is NextStep?

NextStep is a cloud-based electronic health records (EHR) system designed for behavioral health and substance abuse staff at inpatient, outpatient and residential care facilities. The ONC certified solution includes patient scheduling, charting, assessments, automated form routing, reminders, customized reporting and dashboards, integrated telehealth, a smart billing engine, billing management, eligibility checking, census management, medication management and an extensive library of forms.

## What is NextStep used for?

[Mental Health](https://www.capterra.com/mental-health-software/)[Substance Abuse EMR](https://www.capterra.com/substance-abuse-emr-software/)[Mental Health EHR](https://www.capterra.com/mental-health-ehr-software/)

Overall rating

Based on 11 user reviews

Reviews sentiment

Positive

\-

Neutral

\-

Negative

\-

Starting price

$85

Per User, Per Month

Free trial  
available

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Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings...

Do you work for NextStep?[Manage this product listing](https://digitalmarkets.gartner.com/get-listed/claim-bx?url=http://www.officepracticum.com/&name=NextStep)

## Compare with a popular alternative

Capterra selects software alternatives based on relevant features, verified user reviews and user interactions. Placement may be influenced by client status.

### NextStep

4.5 (11)

VS.

[4.6 (77)](https://www.capterra.com/p/180647/Remedly/reviews/)

Starting Price

$85

per user, per month

Starting Price

$89

Per Month

Free Trial

Free Version

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

Ease Of Use

4.5 (11)

Ease Of Use

4.5 (77)

Value For Money

4.4 (8)

Value For Money

4.5 (71)

Customer Service

4.3 (11)

Customer Service

4.6 (75)

## NextStep alternatives

[4.3 (495)](https://www.capterra.com/p/110018/rxnt/reviews/)

Starting price

$319.00

Per User, Per Month

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

86%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

[3.8 (34)](https://www.capterra.com/p/86870/CarePaths-EHR/reviews/)

Starting price

$10.00

Per User, Per Month

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

71%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

[4.0 (1,278)](https://www.capterra.com/p/31268/NextGen-Ambulatory-EHR/reviews/)

Starting price

$300.00

Per User, Per Month

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

79%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

[4.1 (333)](https://www.capterra.com/p/81298/Valant-Behavioral-Health-EHR/reviews/)

Starting price

Contact vendor for pricing

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

79%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

## Features

Features with the highest number of reviews are displayed first. Those that have no reviews appear next, sorted alphabetically.

Appointment Scheduling

Schedule appointments via a calendar

Charting

Manage patient documentation describing all clinical interactions, diagnoses, procedures, medications, etc.

Claims Management

Process of submitting and following up on claims with insurance companies

Compliance Tracking

Track and report regulatory data to either internal management or external stakeholders

Confirmations/Reminders

Automated reminders and confirmations for booked appointments and events via text or email

Employee Management

Track employee schedules, availability, and performance across projects and tasks

NextStep 17 features

Schedule appointments via a calendar

Manage patient documentation describing all clinical interactions, diagnoses, procedures, medications, etc.

Process of submitting and following up on claims with insurance companies

Track and report regulatory data to either internal management or external stakeholders

Automated reminders and confirmations for booked appointments and events via text or email

Transmit prescriptions to pharmacies electronically

Track employee schedules, availability, and performance across projects and tasks

Create and securely store digital patient records

For mental/behavioral health specialties such as psychiatry, therapy/counseling, substance abuse, etc.

Conduct intake assessments to determine patient health status, medical history, conditions, etc.

Manage billing and payments for a healthcare provider

Administer and track medication inventory, schedules, dosage, and side-effects

For practices with multiple providers

Managing day-to-day operations of a medical practice such as scheduling appointments, generating reports and more

Timed notification for any upcoming task, deadline, appointment, or activity

Tools to help therapists document, record, and recall patient encounters

Create treatment plans that document interventions and outcomes to track patient progress

Get Advice

We can help you find the software with the features you need.

Features

4.3 (11)

4.3

Based on 11 reviews

## Pricing

Value for money

4.4 (8)

Free Trial

Basic

$85.00

Value for money

4.4 (8)

4.4

Based on 8 reviews

Connect with a Capterra advisor for a free 15-minute consultation

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## Support, customer service and training options

Customer Service

4.3 (11)

Support

-   Email/Help Desk
-   FAQs/Forum
-   Knowledge Base
-   Phone Support
-   24/7 (Live rep)
-   Chat

Training

-   In Person
-   Live Online
-   Webinars
-   Documentation
-   Videos

Deployment

-   Web
-   Android
-   iPhone/iPad

Typical users

-   Freelancers
-   Small businesses
-   Mid size businesses
-   Enterprises

Customer Service

4.3 (11)

4.3

Based on 11 reviews

## User reviews

Overall rating

4.5

Based on 11 reviews

Filter by rating

5(7)

4(3)

3(0)

2(1)

1(0)

Mentioned topic

Sorted by most recent

Zura G.

VIP technical support

Telecommunications

### "An easy way to access the problem yourself"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

9/10

September 7, 2021

Overall with it flexibility I think that its very ease of use and customized to the customer

Pros

Most of all l like reporting capabilities , self service portal ,price , treatment planing and price overall it’s a good one

Cons

Sometimes it makes mistakes and but technical support always helps me

Switched from

[Kipu](https://www.capterra.com/p/156391/Kipu-EMR/)

Dashboard, self service portal, planning, price

Review source

Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

AU

Anonymous User

Clinical Director

Mental Health Care

### "NextStep"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

8/10

April 28, 2020

Pros

Easy customization and customer support.

Cons

Updates not communicated regularly and the testing must not be fully done with some updates because sometimes it doesn't do what is intended.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

KR

Kenny R.

President

Health, Wellness and Fitness

### "The Best software"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

March 11, 2020

The best software we have ever used and looked at.

Pros

The ability to customize the software for our needs.

Cons

At first very little support. That has changed.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

TS

Thomas S.

Senior Vice President, Operations

Hospital & Health Care

### "NS Review"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

3.0

3.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

3.0

3.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

March 9, 2020

Love working with \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\], some minor setbacks

Pros

Dashboards, Notes Section, Interface Ability

Cons

Medical Component, eMAR, eScribe interface, treatment planning a little cumbersome

Switched from

[Kipu](https://www.capterra.com/p/156391/Kipu-EMR/)

lack of reports, dashboards, excessively expensive, lack or ability to interface

Alternatives considered

[Sigmund Software](https://www.capterra.com/p/69928/Sigmund/)

Reasons for choosing NextStep

Dashboards, reporting, and API abilities

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

JL

Josh L.

Director of Information Technology

Health, Wellness and Fitness

### "Next Step Solutions has opportunity "

2.0

Overall Rating

2.0

2.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

1.0

1.0

Customer Service

1.0

1.0

Likelihood to Recommend

2/10

March 5, 2020

NSS has potential but overall our experience has been disappointing, to say the least. We were sold a piece of software that was supposed to help our agency but it has been such a struggle because all the pieces (Scheduler, Clinical, Billing) don't talk to each other like we were told.

Pros

NSS is easy for users to use but it offers a ton of room for mistakes to take place. Some items are straight forward while others are a bit too tedious for the average user to get the hang of.

Cons

Customer support, reporting, dashboards, backend billing, Digital RX and the emar are all terrible pieces of this software. This has caused issues across the entire agency that I work with. NSS Support does not communicate very well and is not super tactful. We have never been where we should have been with Billing as the NSS billing implementation person is unhelpful and does not completely work when they state it will be complete.

Reasons for choosing NextStep

We were promised features that don't exist or were described incorrectly...

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

NF

Nicolas F.

Clinical Director

Mental Health Care

### "Not Your Average EHR"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

March 4, 2020

Very good. NextStep is a team. I get regular communications from \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\], sometimes one of the supervisors over the programmers \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\] - it is incredible because these are all leaders in the organization and they are very approachable and very easy to work with. If I have an urgent issue, which is very rare such as a shut down, I can just call and NS is right there for me in a few minuts. Incredible turnaround time if I really need them right now. I do not normally need to do that because of the way NextStep is designed - if you let them train you on how to use it thoroughly and learn all of the features, you can fix most problems yourself unless it is a coding issue or something with programming. NextStep works with you to identify the best work flows and to solve problems so you can work smarter not harder which I absolutely love. I do not want to have to ask for help to fix little issues that are day to day types of things that have to keep running - I can generally handle that kind of thing.

Pros

Flexibility - I have the power to totally modify almost any parts of the EHR to meet any regulatory needs that I have. This EHR makes my job easier and makes it easy to get the data I need to oversee various different sites with different programs.

Cons

Customer service with NextStep is very effective, they just take a long time with certain types of issues. With some of the features I would like to see (not needs, but I have some preferences) I cannot get them just because of some of the coding on how the Tx plan wizard works and other areas. These are minor issues in my opinion and do not impact the overall functioning of the EHR (example, I would like a search function in the Tx plan Wizard to make it faster to find objectives you want, etc., not a huge game changer).

Reasons for choosing NextStep

n/a - we only had one other interview as a behavioral health network and I cannot remember their name, it was not fully operational and especially their billing module was not ready to go.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

AS

Amanda S.

Project Coordinator

Mental Health Care

### "DRP"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

3.0

3.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

March 2, 2020

Over all we have really found this product useful. It has increased our ability to promptly review practitioner documents and charting. It also eases the process of reviewing a clients entire chart. We have had to audits using Next Step and our auditors also found it easy and useful for them. It would be nice if there was an auditor 'how to' since any behavioral health provider likely experiences audits. We also need to slowly roll out the use of the EHR. We have not yet pulled outcomes or set up our dashboards, because of our staff needs. The flexibility and willingness of \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\] and the Next Step Team in that process has been very helpful.

Pros

The software is intuitive and user friendly. For people with basic computer skills it is very easy to pick up. It is also very easy to create forms.

Cons

As a behavioral health software it did not address specific needs common for behavioral health, such as groups notes, obtaining multiple signatures for multiple clients at one time.

Reasons for choosing NextStep

I cannot remember the names of who else we reviewed at this time. But the reasons we selected Next Step are: 1) Cost 2) Next Steps familiarity with our needs locally and our working with the Wayne Health Authority 3) It is local so we were able to access in person training and slow implementation 4) We could obtain client signatures 5) We could easily provide communication between practitioner and supervisor 5) It was flexible software, and since we provide Peer Recovery Services many other EHR's did not know or have the flexibility to work for a non-clinical service like this 6) Familiarity with the state 7) the option to access and add billing later for private insurances 8) the ability to directly bill Medicare and Medicaid 8) HIPPA approval I did review 10 other EHR's, none had the capacity to be as flexible, individualized, user friendly and mobile as Next Step, very few had the same level of affordability and even fewer had the HIPPA approval. All together I did not find one EHR that had everything Next Step did. For the the EHR's that had most of it, you had to pay extra for everything you added on. Next Step does charge for the different systems (billing/mobile contacting/EHR) however they are straightforward and it not an extra fee for every small item. Also we have been able to continuously access help at no cost, which is wonderful since we had a staff that really struggled integrating to non-paper charting.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

LM

Lynn M.

CEO

Health, Wellness and Fitness

### "Outcomes / Reporting Capabilities"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

9/10

March 2, 2020

We have been able to create our own reports and move toward value based reporting. It has also allowed up to link with other platforms to increase workflow efficiencies such as lab work.

Pros

From an administrative perspective the reporting capabilities to track outcomes and create data reports for our process improvement initiatives. The staff of NextStep has been amazing to work with in tailoring the system to meet the unique needs of our organization.

Cons

Fulling integrating the billing, scheduling and medication module within the clinical so all client information only needs to be entered once and controls for user access to limit what is view-able in the client record.

Alternatives considered

[NextGen Office](https://www.capterra.com/p/31268/NextGen-Ambulatory-EHR/)

Reasons for choosing NextStep

Customer service, cost and reporting capabilities

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

MM

Michael M.

Informatics Director

Mental Health Care

### "Incredible performance at an affordable price point"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

February 25, 2020

Next Step has been our fifth EMR in the past fifteen years for our company. Since we started with them four years ago, we have truly enjoyed our relationship with them. Their support is timely and they are very responsive to their customer's needs. Like with any software, things will go wrong at times, but the Next Step team is always there to try to trouble shoot. I truly appreciate the commitment they show to their customers.

Pros

We absolutely love the flexibility Next Step gives us to customize the software to our different business lines. The reporting abilities of this software are phenomenal as well.

Cons

We are not that fond of the web scheduler module associated with this software. To be fair, the web version has been in development over the past year and a half, and it has been slowly improved over time with each additional upgrade they have rolled out.

Switched from

[MacPractice MD](https://www.capterra.com/p/77177/MacPractice-MD/)

For years, we could never find a product that allowed us to integrate our outpatient services with our other lines of business. So we had two EMRs, one for our crisis and other emergent services and one for outpatient. Next Step allowed us to move into one software with all of our lines of business.

Alternatives considered

[Epic](https://www.capterra.com/p/122278/EpicCare-EMR/)

[DrCloudEHR](https://www.capterra.com/p/142327/Dr-Cloud-EMR/)

[Valant EHR Suite](https://www.capterra.com/p/81298/Valant-Behavioral-Health-EHR/)

[CyberArk Privileged Access Management Solutions](https://www.capterra.com/p/119742/Privileged-Account-Security-Solution/)

[Oracle Health Ambulatory Suite](https://www.capterra.com/p/2341/Cerner-Ambulatory-EHR/)

Reasons for choosing NextStep

We could not find a better alternative in terms of flexibility and value.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

EP

Ella P.

Executive Director Clinical Services

Mental Health Care

### "Review feb 2020"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

3.0

3.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

8/10

February 25, 2020

Very responsive for requests for changes and updates; CS / Tech support is on top of things

Pros

Accessible on multiple devices; houses documents for complete record of individuals

Cons

PCP wizard can be difficult to navigate for new users

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

[View all Reviews](https://www.capterra.com/p/88788/NextStep/reviews/)

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