Optifema × Pabau
Three gynaecologists. Two nurses.
One patient record.
Optifema runs on Medserv — a billing bureau with practice management bolted on, at £800 to £1,200 a month. This document maps every requirement Darren raised on the demo with Danny Green on 14 August 2026 to a specific Pabau capability, states plainly the two things Pabau does not do the way Optifema asked, sets it against Medserv and the other system on the table, and shows what the clinic pays to bring billing, booking, charting and lab results onto one record.
I don’t think there’s any boxes you haven’t ticked.
Optifema
What the practice runs on right now.
Medserv was built to bill, not to run a practice
Medserv started as a billing bureau — the clinic tells them what to charge, they invoice and chase it. There is a practice-management side, but on Darren’s read it does not go far enough for note storage and the clinical end.
£800 to £1,200 a month, for less than you need
That is the current outlay. Darren’s test is explicit: a move has to be a saving on that number, or the features have to be compelling enough to justify paying more.
Screening answers the booking flow can’t act on
Some clinics need a long set of screening questions before anyone is booked. A patient on GLP-1 medication should be stopped and called back with a different pathway — not left free to book.
A clinic open 8am to 5pm with two patients in it
One booking at 08:00 and the next at 17:00 burns a consultant’s day. Optifema fills clinics consecutively and manages that by hand today.
Deposit online, balance in clinic — nothing has done both
Consultations are a fixed price and should be paid on the website. Anything added during the appointment — a scan, a blood test — is billed at clinic or invoiced afterwards. Darren has not found a system that handles the split.
Two bills, one patient, manual reconciling
Because the deposit and the clinic charge sit apart from the patient record, every appointment ends in a reconciliation step. Darren’s requirement: one patient account, deposit shown against the invoice, remainder settled in clinic.
The decision is a saving, not a leap of faith.
A move only makes sense if it pays for itself
At £630 a month, Pabau lands below the bottom of the current Medserv range and well below the top of it — while adding the charting, booking and portal that Medserv does not cover. The business case is the saving; the platform is the upside.
One patient account removes the reconciling
Deposit taken online, balance settled in clinic, extras invoiced after — all against the same client record and the same outstanding balance. The reconciliation step Darren dislikes stops existing rather than getting easier.
Results reach patients only when a clinician releases them
The medics’ concern was patients seeing lab results before a doctor had checked them. In Pabau a result lands on the patient profile, not the portal; a clinician shares it deliberately. Governance is the default, not a setting to remember.
Shipping today beats a roadmap promise
Darren has already discounted two systems whose answers were “later in the year”. Everything mapped below is in the product now — and where it is not, this document says so rather than dating it.
One record. Booking, billing, charting and labs.
Pabau replaces Medserv and the manual steps around it. Online booking with deposits, the patient portal, customisable intake and screening forms, clinical notes with AI documentation, lab requests and results, invoicing against the client account, secure email and SMS, video consultations and reporting all sit on one patient record. Two requirements are not met the way Optifema asked for them — both are stated below, in the same table, rather than left to be discovered later.
| What you raised on the demo | How delivers it |
|---|---|
| Consultation paid online, balance taken in clinic | Deposits on online bookings: the deposit sits on the client’s account, the invoice shows it as paid and the remainder as owed, and that remainder is settled at clinic on the card machine. |
| Everything under the same patient account — no separate bill | One client record carries appointments, deposits, invoices, outstanding balance, packages and communications. Nothing to reconcile between systems afterwards. |
| Extras added during the consultation — scan, bloods, procedure | Added to the same invoice and taken in clinic, or invoiced to the patient after the appointment. Your call, per patient. |
| The existing card machine and Stripe | Pabau integrates with Stripe for online payments, and a Pabau Pay terminal is available for in-clinic card payments so takings land in one place. If you keep your own terminal, takings are recorded under a named payment type for reporting. |
| New patients booking through the website, creating their own account | Self-registration with the patient’s own password and portal login, and the initial request form is yours to format — add as many fields as you need. |
| Screening questions before a patient is treated | Capture forms collect the screening answers into the patient record for the team to review, and forms can be completed at home or in clinic. What Pabau does not do today: gate the booking link on the answers — forms are issued after the appointment is booked, so eligibility is reviewed by your team rather than enforced automatically. Darren already manages this step manually and it stays manual. |
| Filling clinics consecutively rather than leaving gaps | Not automated. Pabau will not automatically pack an open clinic day back-to-back. Availability is controlled by the services and slots you publish for online booking, but the judgement call on where a patient is placed stays with the front desk. |
| Lab results — Randox | No direct Randox integration. Results downloaded from your Randox account are imported to the patient record with Import past results. Pabau has a direct integration with TDL (The Doctors Laboratory), where you already hold an account — requests sent and results returned inside the record. |
| Doctors check results before patients see them | A returned result lands on the lab inbox and then the patient profile — not the portal. A clinician reviews it and shares it to the portal manually. |
| Note storage and clinical documentation Medserv doesn’t cover | Full clinical records: customisable medical forms, treatment notes, photos and documents on the patient record, with unlimited AI-generated notes, summaries and service descriptions included in Care Plus. |
| Secure patient communication | Email and SMS sent from Pabau are stored against the patient record. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and Pabau is registered with the ICO (Ref. ZA478121); compliance reports and policy documents are available on request. |
| Video consultations | Scheduled video consults launched from the calendar, charted in the same screen. Care Plus includes free video minutes. |
| Reporting for the commercial side | A library of customisable report templates plus reports built from scratch, covering financials, appointments and clinical activity. |
| Prescribing for HRT and ongoing menopause care | Prescriptions written on the patient record, with clinical safety alerts for drug interactions and allergies, controlled-drug (FP10) support and submission straight to a pharmacy. Knowledge Base. |
| Insurer-billed work, if any of it is | UK insurance billing built in — claims submitted and tracked through Healthcode, with insurer price lists on the same invoice flow as self-pay. Knowledge Base. |
| Getting Medserv data across | You send the export, the Pabau team imports it: typically 7 to 15 working days from the day the data lands, run under Full Project Management alongside forms, services, pricing and website booking set-up. |
Against Medserv, and against the other system on the table.
Medserv keeps doing one thing Pabau does not
Medserv codes, submits and chases your insurer invoices, and a named secretary does the follow-up. Pabau gives the clinic the tools to bill; it does not do the billing for you. You said Optifema is big enough now to take that in-house — this is the part you would be taking on, and it is worth naming rather than discovering in month two.
What Medserv does not cover on the clinic side
On their own published material there is no patient self-booking, no deposit taken at the moment of booking, no lab ordering or results on the record, no patient-completed screening or medical forms, and nothing on recalls or marketing. Their patient-facing surface is a payment portal and claim forms (medserv.ie, checked 14 August 2026). That is the gap this document is about.
Semble is a real clinical EHR — that much is true
It does structured notes, prescribing with allergy checks, video consults with a virtual waiting room and insurer billing, and it is UK-built. The question is not which is the better piece of software in the abstract. It is which one is built around Optifema’s actual day: fixed-price self-pay consultations, booked and deposited online, with the bloods, the scan and the note landing on the same record.
Where a self-pay clinic feels the difference
A deposit taken at booking with the balance settled in clinic, one client account carrying both, and recalls and campaigns built into the same system rather than bolted on. On Semble’s own published material it is patient communications rather than clinic marketing, and deposit handling is not stated (semble.io, checked 14 August 2026).
You are not trading prescribing away to get it
Prescriptions sit on the patient record with clinical safety alerts for interactions and allergies, FP10 controlled drugs and direct submission to a pharmacy — the day-to-day of HRT and ongoing menopause care. UK insurer billing runs through Healthcode on the same invoice flow if any of the work is insured.
An itemised quote against a number you cannot see
Neither Medserv nor Semble publishes pricing — there is no pricing page on either site, only a demo request (both checked 14 August 2026). Optifema’s figure is itemised line by line: £630 a month, £1,545 once, ex VAT. Whatever you compare it against, ask for the same user count and the same add-ons, and treat every quoted rate as a moving number until it is in writing.
£630 a month. Everything above included.
Monthly £630: Medium plan, 4–5 users and unlimited clients (£216) ·
Care Plus (£172) · Dedicated Account Manager (£242).
One-off £1,545: Full Project Management (£995) · Platinum Customer Success Package (£550).
Account setup starts once the one-time fees are paid. During setup there is a £1 placeholder charge on the
subscription mandate, set to the agreed monthly sum when the account goes live. All prices exclude VAT.
Quote 20260814-144128912, valid until 13 September 2026 and governed by Pabau’s
Terms of Use.
Live within weeks, not quarters.
Account build, users, services and pricing
Five licences provisioned for the three gynaecologists, the two nurses and the commercial side. Services, consultation prices and permissions configured — the Platinum Customer Success Package covers unlimited one-to-one setup hours, evenings and weekends included.
Medserv data imported — 7 to 15 working days
You send the export; the Pabau team imports patients, history and stock. The clock starts when the data lands, and the range depends on the volume and the state of the export.
Screening forms, website booking, deposits, TDL labs
Screening and medical forms rebuilt, online booking and the lead form wired into the Optifema website, deposits enabled, the TDL lab integration connected, invoicing and reminders switched on. Includes a photo comparison slider on the website on request.
Training, account manager, first three months covered
Training for all five users, a dedicated account manager as your single point of contact, a private Slack channel, and unlimited video and SMS for the first three months. Two weeks of transition support after go-live.
One link. One decision.
Your quote sets out the £630 monthly subscription, the £1,545 one-off setup and migration, and exactly what each line includes. It is valid until 13 September 2026. Danny is on the follow-up call at 10:00 UK on Tuesday 18 August for anything the team wants to press on.