← Abundant Practice Podcast
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Foreign. Welcome to Ask Allison. Y' all ask the questions about having a fun and thriving practice and I answer them. We have a worksheet for you today so you can bring this answer into your life. You can Access that@AbundancePracticeBuilding.com links where you'll also be able to ask any questions you have for Ask Allison. If you want more support, we've got some free trainings in there too. If you can't get enough Ask Allison, check out our YouTube channel for our entire Ask Allison library. Welcome back to Ask Allison. Here's today's question. I'm going to be moving myself and a business to a new state. I'm planning to continue working with my current clients and obtain a license in my new state. What are the steps to transfer my business to my new state? In order to do business in both states, I'd love to keep my business name if possible. So before I answer that, I'd Love to thank TherapyNotes for sponsoring Ask Allison. I've talked about them for years. I know their features by heart, but what really sets them apart is that they genuinely care about your experience. It's not just about troubleshooting. They actively implement user suggested features like real time insurance checks, a super smooth super bill process, and their AI feature, therapy fuel. Everyone at TherapyNotes believes in the product and they want you to love it too. Plus, they're independently owned, which means no venture capital and no pressure to prioritize investors over customers. This independence allows them to keep prices fair, focus on innovation, and prioritize customer experience. With over 100,000 therapists already on board, they've proven you don't have to compromise success for quality. If you're ready to see for yourself, try Therapy notes free for two months with the code abundant@therapynotes.com all right, let's break it down so you can move and work confidently. Here's how I want you to think about this. There's your clinical license, which determines where you're allowed to see clients. That's based on where the client is located physically during that session. And then there's your business registration, which determines where your company legally exists for tax and compliance purposes. They're totally different systems that just happen to overlap. So when you move, you're not just updating your address. You are setting up the right legal home for both your license and your business. So start with your licensing board, both the one you're leaving and the one you're coming to. Most states require that you're licensed in the state where the client's located at the time of the session. Which means you usually can keep seeing your existing clients as long as you keep your active license in that state. But once you physically move, you can't see new clients from your new state until you're licensed there. Most states like California or New York are pretty strict about this and won't let you provide telehealth unless you're licensed in their state. Others have temporary practice allowances or compact participation in process. So the safest thing you can do is research what's allowed while your new license is pending. Licensing takes forever, so I advise getting started on the licensing process in your new state asap. All right, let's talk about your business entity. You can be a sole proprietor, but it doesn't offer protections that other entities offer. So if you're a therapist, you can't just open a regular LLC in most states because you're a licensed professional providing regulated health care services, your state will require a professional limited liability company or a PLLC. If a state doesn't offer PLLCs, they will often require a professional corporation which is a PC or a similar structure. And here's what that can mean for you. You can either you may be able to keep your current PLLC active in your old state and register it as a foreign PLLC in your new state. That lets you legally do business in both states under one company name. Foreign just means out of state. You'll file paperwork with your new state Secretary of State and pay a small registration fee. In some states you can register your existing PLLC as a foreign policy and legally operate in both states. In others you can't because it's a new state requires the professional entities like these be formed under their own authority and verified through their own licensing board. So it's not universally allowed the way it is for regular LLCs. So you can form a brand new PLLC or PC in your new state. So this is going to depend on the state you're moving to. When I moved from Washington to North Carolina, I had to close my PLLC in Washington and and open a new one in North Carolina, which was required that I was licensed in North Carolina already. I could have operated as a sole proprietor in North Carolina until my license and PLLC was processed. And there's this back and forth process with the PLLC that can feel a little ridiculous. That often means the board has to verify that you're a licensed professional before the Secretary of State will approve your new PLLC or PC paperwork. So it's like bureaucratic ping pong. You send the documents to the board, they send you an approval letter. You send that to the Secretary of State, Secretary of State says, oh wait, we need this other thing too. You send it back and forth. That's totally normal. It's part of the process. It's really annoying. Also a great moment to involve a small business attorney or an accountant familiar with mental health businesses. They can make sure everything is filed in the right order. If you have a business name in most places you can keep it. But if your existing business name is taken in your new state, then it gets tricky. You'll just need to make sure it's available by doing a quick name search on the Secretary of State's website. If the name is already taken, you can register a DBA that stands for Doing Business as and it lets you keep your preferred brand name publicly, even your legal entity name, even if it's slightly different. And that's especially helpful if you want all your marketing, your website, your social handles to stay consistent. But be extremely careful about this though. If the name is trademarked, don't do it. Once your PLLC or PC is official, you update your practice stuff, your business insurance, your malpractice general liability coverage. Make sure it's extending to both states if you're working in both states, and make sure you've selected that you're a pllc. That's going to make that insurance a lot more expensive. I'm sorry. You need to update your NPI registry address, your informed consent forms and website need to list both state licenses and the appropriate disclosure language for each. If you take insurance, contact each panel to update your new practice address and any new tax ID that's associated with your PLLC or PC. And don't forget to tell your accountant about the move. If you're operating in two states, you may owe taxes in both. It's usually not double taxation, it's just reporting where the income came from. I find that that's actually pretty rare though, and you end up just paying for you know where you are. And finally, give yourself grace because moving a therapy business across state lines is not a one week process between the licensing boards and the Secretary of State filings and updating your practice infrastructure. It may take a few months for everything to be squared away. That's totally fine. If you can plan a small buffer between winding down in one state and ramping up in another. You're going to need that to unpack anyway. You don't have to have every piece in place before you move. You just need to keep taking the next right step. I know this sounds like a lot, I'm saying a lot of letters, but it's not as complicated as all those letters might have made it sound. So we're going to recap the roadmap. Confirm what each licensure board allows while you're in transition. Usually, in most cases, you can continue seeing people in your old licensed state, but you might not be able to see people in your current state until you're licensed. Register your business in your new state, probably as a PLLC or a PC. You may file as a foreign entity. You may not update your name, your insurance, your npi, your paperwork. And then give yourself time and patience because bureaucracy takes a lot of time. It's totally out of your hands, which is annoying. But you know, you're not just moving furniture. You are really you're relocating an entire professional identity. That's huge. So you're going to do it thoughtfully and legally, which already puts you miles ahead. And if you want more help with the business side of being a therapist, like setup systems marketing, that doesn't make you want to hide under a blanket. We've got you covered in the Obun dance party. I'll see you next week. I hope that your move is paperwork light and coffee heavy. And we have our free worksheet this week, which is moving and your practice. You can message me the word sheets and I'll send it to you or it's linked in the show notes. For those of you listening to the pod. All right, take care. If you're ready for a much easier practice, Therapy Notes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code abundant for two. I hope that helped. If you have questions for Ask Allison or you want to get your hands on the worksheet for this episode, go to abundancepracticebuilding.com Links if you're listening, you probably need some support building your practice. If you're a super newbie, grab our free checklist using the link in the show notes. I'd love for you to follow rate and review, but I really want you to share this episode with a therapist. For friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.