Private Pay 4: Money Conversations: Setting Boundaries and Fees in Your Private Pay Practice with Dr. Julie Hanks
“Go towards the top end,” Julie says, as we’re discussing how a clinician should set fees.
“Why?
“The value of perceived value,” she replied, without skipping a beat.
So true.
This is Episode 4 of The Therapist Experience Mini-Series on becoming a cash based practice. Each episode is an interview with an industry leader and chock-full of advice and guidance on how to transition to a cash-based private practice.
You can access all other episodes in the Private Pay Mini-Series here.
Dr. Julie Hanks has built a thriving, multi-practitioner, cash-based private practice. And in Episode 4, Julie shares how she set her fees, the fees of other therapists in her practice, and shares her wisdom and expertise in pricing.
Whether you’re just dipping your toes in cash-pay or you’re already in the deep end, Julie’s guidance will help you understand how to set a fee that will attract and retain clients in a cash-based private practice.
About Julie
Julie de Azevedo Hanks, PhD, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist specializing in women’s emotional health and relationships. Dr. Hanks is the founder and director of Wasatch Family Therapy, author of The Burnout Cure and The Assertiveness Guide for Women, a blogger, a local and national media contributor, an online influencer, a consultant, and an award-winning performing songwriter.
Dr. Hanks is the founder of Private Practice Toolbox and provides consultation to therapists in private practice.
She enjoys spending time with family and friends, watching movies, taking naps, reading, writing, eating a lot of chocolate. For additional resources visit DrJulieHanks.com or connect with @drjuliehanks on social media.
You can find out more about Julie and what she’s up to at the sites below:
Thanks to Julie for joining me this week. Until next time!
You can access all other episodes in the Private Pay Mini-Series here.
Transcript
Click here to read the TranscriptJulie: I’m doing really well, thanks Perry.
Perry: It is so great to have you on the show here. You have so much great advice and experience and knowledge to share with the world so thank you so much for coming on today.
Julie: Oh my pleasure, and this is one of my favorite topics to help therapists with so I’m looking forward to it.
Perry: Fantastic. Let me tell our audience a little bit more about you in case they’re not familiar with you and your work and then we’ll hop into the show.
Julie: Sounds good.
Perry: Dr. Julie de Azevedo Hanks, PhD, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist specializing in women’s emotional health and relationships. Dr. Hanks is the founder and director of Wasatch Family Therapy, author of The Burnout Cure and The Assertiveness Guide for Women, a blogger, a local and national media contributor, an online influencer, a consultant, and an award-winning performing songwriter. Dr. Hanks is the founder of Private Practice Toolbox and provides consultation to therapists in private practice. She enjoys spending time with family and friends, watching movies, taking naps, reading, writing, eating a lot of chocolate. For additional resources visit DrJulieHanks.com or connect with @drjuliehanks on social media. Julie awesome, that’s one of my favorite intros that I’ve ever gotten to read.
Julie: What is it about that you like so I can keep that part in?
Perry: I think, you know is getting that personal touch. It’s telling us who you are , not only are you immensely talented and all have these amazing credentials but we get to know what you like…. eating a lot of chocolate, exactly
Julie: Chocolate, right. Movies. Wonderful!
Perry: Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about you and your private practice, what you focus on and a little bit more about your business as well?
Julie: Yeah, sure so Wasatch Family Therapy is the name of my practice and I started as a solo practitioner fifteen years ago and I named my practice Wasatch Family Therapy which is the name of a mountain range here for people who don’t know and are like, what, what is that? I named it that because I had vision, not very clear vision but I knew I wanted to grow it bigger than just me and so I named it something big , hoping if I named it kinda would help it come to fruition so that was fifteen years ago. Over that time, I’ve had open up three different locations and had up to twenty clinicians working for Wasatch Family Therapy and it’s been one of the best experiences of my life and the best learning experience too, to go from being a solo practitioner to managing people and training and learning how run a business, I’ve grown a lot personally and professionally from that.
Perry: It’s such an amazing transition, going from and being that solo business owner, that solopreneur to growing a real business. It’s amazing, I know exactly what you’re talking about. You know when I started off before Brighter Vision was Brighter Vision, it was just me and I was doing some SEO consulting and website building and now we have a team of eight people here and it’s just the skills you learn and the way you grow is just so unique to being and being an entrepreneur. So were you always a private pay practice?
Julie: No. When I talk with colleagues and friends about starting a private practice after I finished my clinical licensure, the way that people did it was that you get on every insurance panel and that’s how you do private practice so that’s what I did, filled out the applications, it was it was streamlined and my first couple of years in private practice, I did an insurance based practice and what I realized is that I was spending as much time on the paperwork as I was doing the therapy and it was really discouraging and I’m not a little detailed-oriented person and so those hoops were really stressful for me , to try and jump through and trying to get authorized and all those kind of things so I read that really perspective on my practice and it is ‘Building your ideal private practice’ by Lynn Grodzki and she put into my mind through this book that idea that you can build a private pay practice and I was like, that’s what I wanna do. I don’t wanna deal with this extra stuff and I also realized to be in a panel, I had to do a lot but the insurance companies weren’t doing anything for me and I was writing off to 50-60% percent of my fee so I thought, this is stupid business. This is really bad business, I’m working more and getting paid less and having to work harder for it like who does that?
Perry: Yeah, that’s not business. That’s not why you go into business, right?
Julie: Right, Right and so I made a plan to taper off my manage care panels and transition to a private pay practice. I think I did that over 3 months , 3-6 months.
Perry: Oh wow.
Julie: Yeah.
Perry: How long ago was that? Give us a time-frame here so you’ve been in business for 15 years, did you say, is that right?
Julie: Yeah, so it’s probably thirteen years ago….
Perry: Oh wow….
Julie: About that…maybe twelve.
Perry: And so when you transitioned off, were you still just a solo practitioner?
Julie: Yes.
Perry: And what was the experience like once you transitioned off those insurance panel?
Julie: So I gotta tell you a funny story so I’m married to an accountant, he’s a CPA, accountant, business man and he was like you’re gonna kill your business like you can’t do that; like you can’t have a medically business that doesn’t take insurance and you know, he was panic and I’m like it’s gonna be fine and I’m an early adopter with technology so I had a website. I was one of the first therapist in Utah to have a website, it was a page but still and I knew that technology internet, social media was going to be where I found my ideal clients so I had already kinda setting that up so what happen was I continued to grow. Nothing happened, except growth.
Perry: Growth and you were not working as hard…..
Julie: I was working less and making more which was my goal. I wanted to work part-time and make a full-time income. I had small children at the time and so I don’t wanna overwork. I just wanna do my hours and be done.
Perry: Right.
Julie: Do other stuff. Do music, be with my family.
Perry: Explore the great outdoors cause you live in Utah.
Julie: Exactly.
Perry: So when you transitioned off, do you remember how long it was until you brought on an additional clinician, once you became off insurance panel and fully cash-based?
Julie: Let’s see, it wasn’t too long after that. You know, I’m gonna guess within a year.
Perry: So do you feel like transitioning and becoming a fully cash-based private practice , this might sound like a ridiculous question considering your history, was the best the move for business?
Julie: Oh definitely and here, the most important thing I learned Perry was the value of perceived value. People thought “Oh my goodness, you don’t take insurance, you must be really good, I wanna see the best. I wanna see you.” That blew me away. Blew me away.
Perry: It makes sense, it’s one of those things that you can’t grasp until you actually experience it and by saying that you don’t take insurance and you’re fully cash-based and depending on what you set your fee at. It does give the perception of being the best and you know, there’s a certain….you’re going to attract a certain clientele that way.
Julie: Right, highly motivated.
Perry: Why do you think that is? That they’re highly motivated.
Julie: Because they’re investing a lot of money in their own therapy and so they invest a lot of themselves, their emotion, their time and their effort into the therapy process. They do their homework.
Perry: As a therapist, that makes it more enjoyable because you’re engaging with clients that truly care about investing in themselves.
Julie: Right, right and as I grew…..As a social worker, I have a commitment to helping people who do not have the resources to pay my full fee and so, how I have addressed that is that we, anyone who calls, we get them help and it may or may not be with our practice but we get them a sliding fee scale, a place where they do free therapy. We make sure everybody gets help and then we also train graduate students and they offer a very reduced fee and so that way we can work with other motivated members of the community who may be able to afford the highest pay, they get virtually a sliding fee scale because we offer those services too so that’s been a really great addition to the practice, training interns.
Perry: I love that. I’ve never heard someone express that. I mean, obviously you train interns , you’re going be, I’ll offer a reduced fee but I’ve never heard it express as really being you know, being able to give back to the community that way and offer that sliding scale in that kind of fashion.
Julie: It’s a win-win-win for everybody. Right. The therapist get the work, gets great training, gets to work with highly motivated clients. The client gets reduced fee. I get the satisfaction of growing therapist, growing excellent clinicians.
Perry: So, let’s chat about fees.
Julie: Okay.
Perry: Do you remember what your fee was when you switched to a fully-cash based practiced?
Julie: I believe it was 90$ per session.
Perry: And what is your fee today?
Julie: Well actually, I’m retired from clinical practice so…..
Perry: I didn’t realize that, congratulations.
Julie: Yeah, thanks. I mean, I’m going to pick it back up so I do coaching and I do… so I do like life coaching individual kind of problem- solving stuff and then I also so consultations so my fees for that are $300 and $400 per session.
Perry: Is it Wasatch Family Therapy? What are the fees there?
Julie: 175$ was my fee when I left.
Perry: You still run Wasatch Family Therapy? Correct?
Julie: Yeah, I mean when I left clinical practice, I’m still there. I’m the owner.
Perry: Gotcha. So what are the fees there? You said it was there on a sliding scale. It’s all cash-based, correct? All of your clinicians are cash-based?
Julie: Correct. No insurance and no contracts. We don’t have a sliding fee officially. We offer different levels of fee based on the clinician’s experience. So what we do is we have students , graduate students, they charge 50$ dollars per session and then we therapist under supervision, they charge 100$ and then we have experienced therapists who charge 125$ and then we have very experience who charge 150$ and above.
Perry: And just knowing and laying that out is so clear and it shows why you’ve been able to be so successful at growing such a large private practice here. Regarding fees, imagine I’m a therapist who’s starting to dip my toes in getting all these insurance panels and you know , that’s scary stuff, how do you recommend someone goes about figuring out, how to set their fee?
Julie: Yeah, what I think is really helpful is just go online and search out websites or psychology today and look at people’s fee who have it stated and you’ll usually have a sense of the colleagues around and what they charge and I always say, “Go toward the top end.”
Perry: Why is that?
Julie: The value of perceived value.
Perry: So in other words, if someone is listening to this and they say, everyone in my area seems to be charging 120$ go ahead and charge, $135 or 120$. Okay, got it. You’re not saying charge more than what everyone else is charging but to see what the tiers are and charge at the top tier.
Julie: Yeah, and one thing that I do is I set the fee with the clinician, so we work together. Sometimes, when they’re just starting out they wanna have a lower fee because it’s little bit easier to get clients. For example, if I hire a licensed clinicians and they wanna fill up quickly and build up the clientele, instead of charging 125$, they may start out at 100$ and we work that out together and then in 6 months, they move up to 125$. So there’s some flexibility in there between me and the clinician and what would work best for everybody
Perry: And so those are the clinicians that start at Wasatch Family Therapy, correct?
Julie: Correct.
Perry: What about the clinicians that you work with when you’re coaching? If someone approaches you and say Julie, I want to….I’ve hired you as my coach Julie and you’re going to help me switch to be a private pay practice. What if they approached to you with the same thought process of I’m concerned about charging a higher rate, I want to be able to get enough clients and retain my existing clients? What would you respond to that concern with?
Julie: So the concern is just how do I do that?
Perry: Let’s say I’m a therapist and I’ve hired you for some consulting and I say , Hey Julia, I wanna switch and the top tier in my area is 150$, I’m concerned about that I don’t feel comfortable charging that. I’m concerned I’m gonna lose clients. I’m concerned I’m not gonna attract enough clients.”
Julie: So I would say we need to come up with a plan, I always recommend that people do waves of changing fees so if you’re on managed care pick the hardest, the most difficult ones to work with that reimburse the least and write your resignation letter and then 3 months later write the next batch of resignation letters and raise your stated. What’s the stated fees? 150$? Or is that just the general….
Perry: That’s the top tier. Let’s say the top tier is 150$.
Julie: And I would say, move, if you’re at 100$, okay move up 125$ and then first of the year next year, we’ll move you up to 150$. That’s probably what I would recommend.
Perry: Do you ever hear from therapist that they don’t feel comfortable with that even with that strategy? How would you approach that? Because I know there’s a lot fear out there.
Julie: All the time, everybody said, “I can’t charge that.” I’m like I know, I know and when my therapist and they’re like I can’t charge that much. I can’t even say that. I can’t say it I’m worth 100$ dollars per session or 125$. I say you’re not, what they’re getting is the experience of coming here. They’re getting the expertise of this whole team. They’re getting my twenty plus years as a clinician. They’re getting, you know, paying for your supervision for your… they are paying off your debt for grad school so they’re not just paying for you, so get over it and charge…….
Perry: Go ahead and charge it and feel confident about it.
Julie: They’re paying more. Exactly, exactly. It is really, really hard, I don’t know, if I’ve ever met a therapist or worked with a therapist who didn’t have anxiety around money, fees, talking about fees, raising your fees. It brings up alot of anxiety because it’s really tied to worth, self-worth and most of us struggle with at some point.
Perry: It’s so unfortunate to see, that can be a whole other topic there but so much of it I feel like is with our culture. So, question for you with LCWs particularly we see you have that commitment to give back to the community to be able to provide help to those who need. Most of people who are transitioning to a cash-based private practice don’t have the ability to have grad students in their private practice and offer a very reduced fee from that. How do you as a therapist figure out how to provide help to those that need it but might be able to afford your 150$ dollar cash session?
Julie: Great Question. There are multiple ways to serve your community. One way is speaking, we go and speak all over the counties where we serve. We do media interview. We do read interviews so we volunteer at mental health events so we serve our community in multiple ways, doing therapy is just one way. We have a blog that we rotate writing articles that’s just free advice that anybody in the world can get so I think changing that mindset that actual therapy is only way to serve you community is one piece of it. Another thing is to and I’ve always had this commitment but help everyone who calls that doesn’t mean they become a client. It may not be a good fit but you can like I said, give them a list or a referral at a place that has funding to do a sliding fee scale, right, they have United Way funding or they have Government funding , when you’re running a private practice , you don’t have extra funding. If you reduce your fee, you’re taking it from your family and yourself. Right, so it’s okay to refer and that’s a big important message. Its okay to not see everybody in your community and you can still help them by connecting them with services that fit better for their situation.
Perry: Fantastic response. I could not agree more particularly with the giving back to your community through speaking and through blog post and through things of that nature which is something I think a lot of people overlook when considering their fees and considering their private practice. So, question for you, alot of therapist have a hard talking to their clients about their transition to a private pay practice, what is some advice that you have for these therapist?
Julie: This is probably the toughest conversation that therapist have to have with clients because you know that you’re making you clinical work harder for a time because it’s going to bring up abandonment. It’s going to bring up feelings of rejection in your client. It’s going to bring up a lot clinical issues that’s you’re gonna have to deal with and help them work through and so just be prepared for that. That’s okay. Let me just share with you my experience and how I did it….
Perry: Please do….
Julie: And I think that will kind of illustrate…..
Perry: There’s nothing better than a story right?
Julie: Right, if I can remember it, it been a long time. So what I did was , I think it’s really important to present confidently even if you’re not, you’re going to model have different conversations which we ask or clients to do all the time you’re gonna model that , it’s a boundary and it’s about self-care. If you wanna frame like that, hey, so I said, “I have decided to make some changes in my practice in order to spend more time with my family and have less unpaid work time. I’m transitioning away from managed care for insurance to a private pay practice. I know that’s probably a scary thing for you hear and we have 3 months to come up with a plan for how we’re gonna make that work. In the next 3 months, you may choose to wrap up therapy with me. You may choose to continue with another therapist and I’m committed to finding someone that I trust who’s on your panel so you can continue getting the care you need. There’s also option of a single case agreement with your insurance company which means I’m no longer a provider but I can arrange to be a provider to see you specifically and I’m open to that too because I know that this transition is going to be harder.”
Perry: That’s phenomenal.
Julie: Thank you.
Perry: You mentioned boundaries there? Do you feel that if you’re in a private pay practice that the imperative of setting boundaries is higher?
Julie: I don’t know that it’s higher. I think being in practice of any kind you have to have good boundaries. I did a blog post. This was a few years ago, a private practice to box blog post where I figured out that if you gave away ten extra minutes to ten clients a weeks, that’s 13 grand a year, you’re giving away.
Perry: That’s a lot.
Julie: So that’s like a really really nice vacation. That’s like a new car or a used nice car so boundaries are apart of self -care and one thing therapist forget is that if you’re doing well, you’re thriving in your life and in your practice, you will have more to give your clients and that’s the same in private practice, if your private practice is financially healthy, you have more time to donate. You can see pro-bono clients at that point because you don’t need the money, you’re fine. I’m at the point right now where most of the things I do I don’t get paid directly for. I just get to do things that serve my community like this interview and it allows for freedom so charging underneath what the market value is not actually helping your client.
Perry: And breaking down the boundaries is also not helping your client then?
Julie: Right.
Perry: How do handle payment in private pay because you’re not billing an insurance company any more. Someone might come to you in an insurance company and you have a co-pay and that’s a little easier at times but you know if you’re charging 130$-150$, 200$ dollars a session, how do handle payment. I guess how does Wasatch…..
Julie: How do you talk about it? You mean on the initial call or…
Perry: Let’s start with how do talk about it on the initial call and then we’ll dive into how so we actually handle the processing of it?
Julie: Okay, gotcha, let’s do role play. Why don’t you be the client calling in for therapy?
Perry: Alright. Sounds great, putting me on the spot there.
Julie: Hi Perry.
Perry: Hi Julie.
Julie: So tell me what you’re looking for, what do you need help with?
Perry: I’m having trouble in my relationship and my wife and I are seeking therapy right now.
Julie: Okay great. We have two couples therapy specialist and I would recommend either Rachel or Mike. I think either of those would be great.
Perry: And which insurance do they take?
Julie: So we are not providers on insurance. However, we can give you a form to submit for reimbursement and it’s really slick how we do it. You will login to our electronic health record and you can print it out and then you work that out with your insurance company?
Perry: So how much does it cost then?
Julie: So for the initial session, it 150$ , that’s for the assessment and a little bit longer session and then are our regular sessions are 45-50 minutes and both of those therapists, Mike and Rachel charge 125$ per session
Perry: And my insurance company will reimburse me?
Julie: That is between you and your insurance company. A lot of them will not reimburse for couples therapy even if we were on the panel, alot of them don’t pay for relational counselling so you would need to call them and ask if you have out of network benefits and what those requirements are.
Perry: I called family therapy in Wasatch and they take my insurance…
Julie: Awesome.
Perry: So why should I go with you guys?
Julie: You know, I’m not here to convince you to go with us, what I can say is that I have seen the work that Mike and Rachel have done and I’ve hired them because I trust their work and if I could refer my family and friends to them I would so I can guarantee that you will get the help that you need.
Perry: Great, well thank very much. So what you do after that so how would handle closing that sale then? Getting that client in for that initial assessment?
Julie: Yeah, so I would say, why don’t you come in for one session and see if it’s a good fit and then why don’t you call the other therapist you’re considering and go in for one session and see if it’s a good fit.
Perry: That’s a great way of handling it.
Julie: I’ve never tried to convince anybody, I will just express confidence in the work that we do and that its valuable so if you have said, “Okay, well, I’ll try it out,” then we go through the scheduling, looks like Rachel has an evening appointment , okay, in order to get on Rachel’s schedule, we need a credit card number to hold that spot , we will not charge you fee unless you don’t show up, we will charge a full fee to your credit card or if you cancel within less than 24 hours’ notice , we will charge your credit card, other than we won’t , we look forward to seeing you next Thursday and at that point you can pay with any form of payment that you want so if you change your mind be sure to call and let us know so we can take you off that schedule.
Perry: So then after the session, do most people have you charge their credit card or do most people… do you ask for a cheque at that time? How do you guys handle the processing?
Julie: Right now, it kinda moves to where pays with their credit card. We have them sign an agreement and we keep the credit card on file and we just charge it and it’s just really easy. If you’re not doing credit cards, I always suggest ask for payment and resolve that at the beginning of the session. Do not wait for the end. It’s just too awkward.
Perry: And so what do you guys use to process payments? Do you something like stripe? Do you use a different payment processor?
Julie: We use an online portal or my office manager will just go in and put all the credit cards in and then it just processes them. We’re looking to moving into another system at this point but right this works really well and Perry, I’ll tell you before everybody use bank cards so this is probably 15, 13 years ago, I would send people to the ATM , like they didn’t have their payment. Seriously. I would just say , oh, that’s really…unfortunate….if we didn’t have that kind of trust, I have honestly said, well , “that’s fine, you know, there’s a ATM two doors down at 7/11 and come on back, I’m here. I’m here but I don’t work for free.”
Perry: Do you ever get any push back from that?
Julie: I think I have way of saying that’s really nice and firm, but it’s not about I’m greedy. It’s like I have really good boundaries and I’m gonna good boundaries with you in all areas and I’m gonna teach you how to have good boundaries.
Perry: That’s definitely part of it. That’s a really great point. Collecting payment is a boundary.
Julie: It’s a clinical issue always. Maybe 99% percent but nothing is always but coming to get a service and not having money to pay for it. That’s a clinical issue, right.
Perry: It is.
Julie: You go to the grocery store. You go to the dentist or whoever, you have to pay at least you copay if it’s a medical thing. You have to pay.
Perry: Right, you can’t walk out of the grocery store with that steak if you’re not gonna pay for it.
Julie: Right.
Perry: You know Julie, this is just something that came to my mind here and I’m interested in here your thoughts on it. Do you feel that and I’ve done close 50 therapist experience interviews. We have over a thousand customers here at Brighter Vision and while speaking with you here , I think there seems to be a trend in personality types to private pay or maybe certain personality types are drawn to private pay more. Do you see that or no?
Julie: Yes, and I actually take that into consideration when I hire someone.
Perry: What kind of personality types do you see being attracted to private pay more?
Julie: In general, I think that they tend to be probably a greater percentage are extroverts and what I found is that people who transition to private pay realise that they have to be seen and heard which is there’s a certain of vulnerability so part of my consulting services is helping build an online presence and a media presence so you build trust with clients and they choose you and they are willing to pay your full fee, so, not everybody is interested in that and they are other ways to do it too. I mean that’s just one of my specialties areas so I certainly think that introverts can be successful but really our clinic have succeeded because of those of cause of being out in the community and being willing to be seen and heard.
Perry: You really hit the nail on the head on what my gut feel was there. So, I don’t the percentage of mental health professionals that are extroverts versus introverts. If you are introverts, do you have any strategies that you implement in your consulting services to help introverts transition and build a successful private pay practice?
Julie: Yeah, I think it’s all the same principles, it’s just for people who tend to lean more towards the introvert and that’s a really a reductionistic way to talk about people right, I mean we’re alot more broader than that.
Perry: Yeah, Absolutely, yes.
Julie: We can kinda know what we mean is picking something that is comfortable for you, well not necessarily, I mean less uncomfortable like that, yes….
Perry: I know that this is an uncomfortable topic kind of as well so I appreciate your flexibility to chat about it.
Julie: I’m good with it so do you love meeting one-on-one so alot of therapist who don’t like speaking, don’t like doing TV. Do you like taking people to lunch one-on-one or you know, three-on-one? Do that every week. You’re gonna text a provider or another potential referral source to lunch so they are ways to do it that work for each person and a lot of times that works more just the one-on-one drop by, you know reach out this massage therapist or this coach and so doing it kind of one off, also blogging can be a nice way to get your voice out there and build trust without having your voice or your image out there all the time.
Perry: Absolutely.
Julie: And I think this applies to people who tends to be more extroverted too is I do not talk in terms of marketing because people go well, I don’t want to promote myself and so how I frame it is you’re not promoting yourself . You’re promoting your message and this is not about but you have be willing to be seen and heard in order to help people.
Perry: That’s a great point and to sort of piggy back off that, Julie you’re a true expert in building a brand online and really helping people with.
Julie: Thank you.
Perry: To assist with that as well, going back to the value of perceived value. Having that professional online presence can really go a long way in improving that perceived value and along with in my opinion is a professional video so regardless of your personality type by having a professional video made, you’re able to speak to ideal clientele , you’re able to be seen and to be heard across a variety of mediums without the additional challenges that public speaking can present or holding an online webinar can present so they are definitely ways that you can assist with the getting your message out there.
Julie: Yes.
Perry: The factor of growing a private pay practice without…..there’s just a variety of ways to do it essentially.
Julie: Right, definitely and there’s a way…..there is a way for every single therapist and personality type and yeah… You just have find out what that it for you.
Perry: Yes, I agree. What works for you? Everyone is different, everyone is unique and you all have your unique wonderful message to get out there. Find out your fee, set a fee and get your voice out there in one way or another. Julie this was awesome, thank you for so much for being on today. Do you have part advice for our audience here to today?
Julie: Wow, we covered a lot of grounds.
Perry: We did cover a lot of grounds.
Julie: Yeah, I do have one thing that I think is really important and is a theme in a lot of my consulting work. Every single therapist that I’ve ever worked with always says, “Oh, the market is so saturated in my area,” almost everybody said that, there’s so many therapist and I would say, “It doesn’t matter how many therapist there are in your area, there’s only one you. You have to be you and that’s your selling point is you being authentic , there is nobody else who has your specific life experience, who has your specific training, your skill-set you passion so it doesn’t matter what anybody else is doing or if they see the same clientele ; build bridges with those people. Don’t think of them as competition and be yourself because there is no competition in that area.”
Perry: Wonderful Julie, so well said. Where can our audience learn more about you and the work you do.
Julie: So my main hub on the web is drjuliehanks.com and my private practice blogging and consulting and coaching is at privatepracticetoolbox .com
Perry: Well Julie, thank you so much for being on today. To our audience, this was again episode 4 in our mini-series on transition to being a private pay private practice. To listen to this episode again and to see all of our show notes, you can go to brightervision.com/privatepay4/ and to view all the episodes you can go to brightervision.com/privatepay/. Julie, thank you so much for being here today, this was fantastic and to our audience, stay tuned for next week episode on transitioning to a private pay practice.
meaghan flenner says
Really enjoyed listening to your experiences . Well Done !