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Private Practice Startup Podcast
Episode 78: 3 Business Strategies to Show Your Private Practice Who's Boss
00:36:48
Jessica Dolgan
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- [00:03]
A
Welcome to the Private Practice Startup, where we inspire you from startup to mastery. We chat with entrepreneurs, experts in the mental health and business arenas, and successful private practitioners to give you the tools needed to make your dream practice a reality. Visit theprivatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, free trainings, and so much more. Here are your hosts, Dr. Kate Campbell and Katie Lemieux.
- [00:27]
B
Hey, Startup Nation, what is happening? This is Katie Lemieux from the Private Practice Startup, here with another podcast on a sunny South Florida Friday day. So actually, I am not looking to my left or right because Kate is not here with me. Kate's actually all the way in Texas supporting her mom, just going through some family and stuff. So I am here solo today. But of course we're gonna bring it like we do all of the time. So we hope you joined us last week because last week was part two of part one of Roy Huggins podcast, where totally inundated him with HIPAA questions. I think I could have done five parts on that. And I just have to say, like, Roy totally brought peace of mind to me and my practice in regards to hipaa, so you're definitely going to want to listen to that. So Today we have Dr. Jessica Dolgan, all the way from Colorado joining us, who is the founder and creator of Therapy Partner. Hey, Jessica, how are you?
- [01:21]
C
Good. How about yourself? Thanks for having me.
- [01:23]
B
We are.
- [01:24]
C
We.
- [01:25]
B
See, now I'm not going to always talk about we because Kate and I just are always together like we're Siamese twins. So I'll just say we, you gu go with it and that'll be good. How about that?
- [01:33]
C
She's there in spirit. I'm pretending she's there.
- [01:35]
B
Of course she is. Of course she is. So we wanted to say, if you are a new time listener, we wanted to thank you. We are rolling out the virtual red carpet to you and say thanks for checking us out and we hope you become a loyal Startup Nation member and family. So if you are a new listener, we want you to head over to Private PracticeStartup.com, head over to our resources page and we have a special gift for you, A to Z cheat sheet, the essentials for building and growing your dream practice. And if you are already a member of Startup Nation and you are a loyal family member, we wanted to say welcome back and we hope you gain a lot of awesome value bombs and ninja tips from today's podcast. So without further ado, I'm just going to turn it over to Jessica because they're actually our sponsor for today, and I think that they could probably share, or she could probably share way better the awesomeness of Therapy Partner. And really how did it come to be? So let's kind of start there.
- [02:26]
C
Well, I guess I'd like to start by talking a little bit about me being quite similar to everybody else on the line, which was I was a clinician looking for some business advising or support on how to start a practice. I wrote my dissertation on business inefficiencies among private practitioners. The good news about that was I was out of the door in about five seconds. No one on my committee really wanted to read the paper. I think it had fewer edits than any paper in the history of the doctoral program. One round of edits and I was out the door. And the paper essentially talked about the need for technology in our industry and additionally just talked about how how often clinicians find themselves graduated in the position of running a practice, but not feeling empowered by way of running their business. And so Therapy Partner is a technology application that streamlines the business side of your business. It handles every component part of managing a private practice, handles your billing, your scheduling. It has a secure patient portal for patients to securely fill out paperwork and communicate with you. It automates encrypted and secure statements. It allows you to quick bill an entire day. Instead of automating each session, you're able to quick bill an entire day. It tracks all your revenue. And I think one of the things that's unique about the product and really what I wanted to bring to the industry was, you know, it's a three part service. So Therapy Partners, comprehensive practice management technology. We also offer dedicated support. I don't feel busy. Doctors and therapists have time to sit on a 1, 800 line to figure out how to manage their practice management software. So we give you a dedicated account manager who's there just to help you with your practice. And then we ourselves offer a comprehensive live of free education to our community. So that includes a podcast, webinars blog, practice building strategies that go out to our members and clinicians, increase revenue 20% within the first year of using the product. And we're really proud of that.
- [04:22]
B
Yeah, wait, wait, I think we have to say that again, just really slow. Like that point is really important. Jessica, thank you.
- [04:27]
C
Yeah. So clinicians do increase revenue. So the three stats that we like to toss around here that I feel personally very happy about and I think represent how hard our team has worked here to bring this product to the market nationally is 98% of the clinicians that utilize therapy partners stay on board. Clinicians increase revenue 20% within the first year of utilizing the product. And one third of our new clientele every year come from happy clinicians who utilize the service. So that feels really good to all of us here.
- [04:58]
B
Yeah, that's awesome. And I know before we actually hit record, we were kind of talking about how this came to be. And I made the assumption, like, you're a tech person. You're like, no, I'm just the ideas person. So how did this come to be, aside from your dissertation?
- [05:10]
C
You know, I was working in a group practice, and this was an individual who. It was like an autism spectrum practice for children. And so they did group therapy. So there was all these children coming in at all times, and I was seeing patients and helping him to run the practice. And during my breaks, I would observe the assistants. We had an administrative assistant that I came to find out he was paying, you know, $55,000 a year to invoice patients at the time. And I, and I interviewed her a little, but I'm like, so how many of these patients actually pay the invoices? And she's like, maybe we get 30% back. They did not have. They were not able to streamline the way they process patients. I found all these doctors out in the lobby interacting, swiping credit cards, trying to talk to parents about past due balances, and they felt very overwhelmed. And as I came to know the owner, I came to understand that I think most of his emotional, physical, and kind of cognitive distraction was about the fact that the business wasn't operating efficiently. He really wasn't worried about his clinical care. Most of the people you and I talk to all day, they love their patients, but he really did not have not only maybe potentially the right skill set, and he was kind of naturally intuitive about business, but he still struggled with streamlining operations. And he definitely did not have a technology application. And so I set out on a very bizarre journey to try to solve this problem.
- [06:33]
B
And it was resonated with you so much. Like, why did it inspire you or motivate you to solve that problem?
- [06:40]
C
You know, I think one of the things that happened for me early on was I, like many of the folks that we talked to in your podcast and my podcast around the country, people that are listening are, you know, I had a great deal of student loans and I felt really disempowered around how I was actually, I found myself ruminating not around what I was going to do. When I saw My first depressed adolescent patient, or when I had to do a safety contract with a parent. Even though I was a young clinician, I was ruminative around how I was going to meet my student loan debt, how I was going to collect, make sure there was enough optimal referrals that I wasn't functioning outside of the scope of my competence. I was very worried about ethically feeling the need to. Maybe I should say this a little differently. I was very concerned that my distraction around how to run the business was going to impact clinical care. And when I started talking to other clinicians, I started realizing that this was a massive issue in our profession. When I sat at lunches and I connected with colleagues, all they talked about was business related issues, people not paying, grievances that were occurring around accidental breaches of confidentiality, doing something stupid like sending an email. And the more I learned, the more I realized that perhaps my greatest service to my industry or community could be empowering clinicians to run really tight, optimally run streamlined businesses so that they can actually focus on clinical care and then outside of that focus on their life. I think that this profession can be a little bit heavy and people can get isolated and really struggle. And I think a lot of it comes down to financial weight and the burden around operating a business. I always say just because we got a credential to be a clinician doesn't mean we know how to run a business. And no one should be ashamed to call in and ask questions or attend your podcast or maybe go to one of our webinars. Like, we didn't get the education. Me, you and everybody else who's listening. And we deserve it.
- [08:39]
B
Well, for sure. And you know, Kate always says we go to school to become great clinicians. We're not in business school and there's no business 101 or 201. And it's just really learning on your own. And I know for me it's been a great journey. I love, I love business. It's funny, I actually just went to Gary Vaynerchuk. He had a, actually was real estate auto. My spouse was in real estate. And so I went, we had a friend come in and I just realized for like 48 hours, I guess I slept, but I realized for 48 hours as I just talked, we talked about business and ideas and excitement because it just, that's what inspires me. Right? And a lot of times, like you're saying, but the majority of clinicians, they're inspired by their clients, they want to do the work they want to make the difference and they just don't want to deal with a lot of the other stuff because it is a lot. I mean, managing, growing, running, marketing. A business that's a business in and of itself and that's the business aspect. So I love when we can leverage technology to help other people utilize their skills, their natural born talents and they need to stay where they're at and take the rest, you know, and apply it somewhere else and let technology run that or people run that. That's so essential, I'm realizing, like I could talk to you about this aspect fore, but we do have a topic.
- [09:44]
C
Let's get to the topic. That wasn't the topic.
- [09:46]
B
Yeah, that wasn't the topic. But we're going to talk about the topic. So the topic is. Well, it's of course related. So the topic is three business strategies to show your practice who's boss. Oh yeah, love that title, love that. So what is one of those strategies, Jessica?
- [10:02]
C
You know, I think that I'd like to start just reflecting on something that you just said about running the business and some of us not liking it. What I'm really hoping is that by receiving some of the education, education you're providing or groups like us in the industry are all trying to provide that. You know, I was reading Gay Hendricks book the Big Leap and he talks about our zone of genius and our zone of excellence. I think for clinicians our zone of genius is probably being with patients. We're natural intuits and empaths and, and this is what we do. This is our zone of genius. But I would like for clinicians to feel that business could be there in their zone of excellence. And so one of the first things that I would really Recommend around in 2018, I think that's kind of our topic today, how to show your practice who's boss is first. Just doing exactly what people are doing right now, which is agreeing to participate in getting some business education around the business side of business. What I find is a lot of clinicians will say to us out of the gate, I don't like the business stuff. Well, I don't like to do things that no one has assisted me in doing either. But what is really interesting to me over the years when we've seen clinicians double, triple, quadruple their income, add associates, you know, really grow from a single solo practitioner's worried about money into a full blown clinic or sometimes even a clinic with multiple locations. Turns out some of these people who didn't think they liked business sure. Like business. They enjoy making an income, they enjoy extending their reach into the community. And I think all clinicians have one thing in common, which is if we can't do it for ourselves, we can at least do it for the mental health community. There are patients that are trying to find us and trying to access care with us. And one of the most ethical things we can do for our profession is to make sure that the public can find adequate care. And by running your business like a boss, and that means deciding, picking and choosing what you are going to do and what you're not going to do, outsourcing, utilizing technology, getting business education, and spending some time on business development each week would be a complete game changer for everybody who's listening. And so when I talk about kind of showing your practice who's boss, first of all, I think it starts with us internally. Just like everything that gets manifested from inside out, I think we have to start by showing our ourselves who's boss. And I would love everybody who ever considered that. You just said yourself, I like business. I'm not sure who is listening today who thinks they don't naturally like it, or some people actually think they do, but they don't know where to start. Everybody here went to graduate school. We know how to follow instructions. And this year, I would love private practitioners to just open up their heart around the idea that they could get some very simple business education. It's not even as complicated as clinical care. It's simple business decision making, number one, involving getting more education. Number two, utilizing technology and focusing on your highest and best use and really, actually intentionally building a business. These are things that will help. I don't want your business running you. I really want you running your business. And that starts with intention. And January is a great time to talk about that.
- [13:05]
B
Yeah. And you know, looking back, if I could have done it again, and a lot of times I'll see in the Facebook posts, like, people like posting like, how do I start a private practice? And a lot of the stuff that I see will be like, we gotta incorporate and liability insurance and all that stuff. And I'm like, no, if there's some bits of advice that, you know, words of wisdom that I could do now, mind you, I did that exact same thing right myself. And interestingly enough, when you talk about loving business, I didn't love business initially. I was scared as hell to go into business. My staff actually pushed me out of the community mental health center I worked in. They're like, you're too good to Work here, you should be in private practice. And so I trusted them and they kind of shooed me out of private practice or into private practice.
- [13:43]
C
Good for them.
- [13:44]
B
Yeah. One of the things, if I could go back in all the different education and I've done business coaching and I'm constantly doing personal and professional development is one I would first create a lifestyle business. Right. So first design your lifestyle and then you design your business. That's like key because what happens is when you jump into business, you're gonna become slave to your business. Another thing I would do is really look at the long term vision and actually start to put into place now. Like even when you start outsourc people and outsourcing technology. So thinking about those virtual assistants and who's going to be doing your marketing, when you have that stuff in your mind space, you'll be able to scale your business faster and also live the life that you really want. Because people come into business, why? Freedom time with family, you know, money, all those great things. Obviously we're here to make a difference. And that's no, you know, that's, that's no secret that that's what we're really passionate about. When we look at ourselves, that's a lot of times that we're often to make. And so you know, streamlining your business operations, what you're kind of talking about and you know, I'm just inviting you guys to think the big picture and how are you going to have those things in place and kind of begin to start now or at least get in the mind space of it and it would really help. Instead of looking down, I think sometimes we look kind of right down at what's in front of us. You know, I get stuck in that. Kate and I get stuck in that. I'm like, guys, we got to plan quarter two, three and four now, not in quarter two. Like we got stuck in the minutia again. So we're constantly having to pull ourselves out, but just really being mindful of that. So you know, when I think about what you guys do with therapy partner and it really helps people streamline.
- [15:12]
C
Yeah, I really love that you're telling folks about this. It's incredibly important. You know, in every other business community we talk about business planning. We have a set of projections, we write down how we want to work, who we want to work with, who's an optimal patient for us to be seeing, how do we want our business to run, what do we need to make, what would we like to make, how do we kind of Lift our upper limit. And it starts with being intentional. And I might add, when we're kind of managing our practice like a boss. I would add, again, I couldn't support more what you just said. This is all about intention. And one piece of advice that we give clinicians, we even have a class just on this. A lot of it, I believe, is related to shame, and we'll talk about that in a moment, I think. But a lot of this is related to shame in a sense that we're not really supposed to be forward focused. We're supposed to just be kind of present and in the moment with patients. One thing I ask clinicians to really come to understand, maybe this, if this is your 1 objective for the entire year, is the difference between business development and business operations. Come to work, park the car, see patients, go home, you know, chase around a bunch of paperwork later and try to, like, swipe credit cards and add notes. I need our clinicians to have a business plan. I need them to take some basic business education. The good news is, 20 years ago, this wasn't available. Ten and a half years ago, it still wasn't almost available. There are people like you or me, we have free education for clinicians, and we know that there's a ripple effect. The more clinicians are educated, the better the service that they are able to provide to the community, and the more the public is able to access quality mental health care. And so having our clinicians determine what is business development time and what is business operations time. Business operations might involve pulling a statement from your practice management technology or making sure that your new patients are set up on a patient portal through technology. Business development involves doing what we're doing right here means going to a business class. It means taking time to write your business plan for next year, writing down what your financial goals are, running out, a set of projections about what happens if you increase clinical time by three hours per clinical week. Nothing will help people to meet their financial goals better than making sure that that time is delineated.
- [17:22]
B
Jessica, are you a numbers person?
- [17:26]
C
You know.
- [17:29]
B
I hear the excitement about numbers and I was like, oh, I wonder if she's a numbers person.
- [17:33]
C
You know what's really funny that you say about that is like, you know, I. You know, the answer is I really don't know. I think that I have a funny part of my brain that it really enjoys business modeling and economics. I like thinking about how to back your way into a solution, including people's financial solutions. If we had to just do some standard math I think the answer would be no. And probably most people who ever. I mean, I took statistics three times, so it might be this like, funny. It might be this funny little section of my brain. What I like doing, I think more above everything. I enjoy really empowering people and I love small business and I really want people to feel like they've got it by the reins. It should not be running you. Just like you said, the reason we get into small business is because you want to be empowered, you want to spend time with your family, you want to provide optimal care. And you should not be sitting up at night having like litigaphobia about how you might have like a HIPAA breach or storing credit cards in your file cabinet or handwriting notes or, you know, just not having the support or infrastructure at this point, there's no excuse. There's podcasts, there's webinars, there's technology companies. We are here to help clinicians and all they have to do is admit that this is not their highest and best use and ask for it. I mean, it's the best way to get out of our own way. Yeah, it is. It really is. Also, I think that that taps into our upper limit issue, which I think, you know, maybe you and I can talk about the business, you know, the shame, the money shame part. Yeah, let's, let's talk about shame, which is, you know, I think we just, we just published here a two part webinar ran called It's a Damn Shame and I think great title.
- [19:13]
B
I love it.
- [19:15]
C
I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out why as a group or an industry we might not ask for this help. Some of clinicians know that it's there. They, they have the awareness that they don't have the business skills. And I think there's something, you know, I'm a psychologist at core, so I like to think about why things are happening inside of us as a group. I think there is some shame in the industry around running a business that crushes it. I think that we.
- [19:43]
B
That's a good title too. Running a business that crushes.
- [19:46]
C
Yeah, I think that we are public servants to some degree. This has kind of been the halo over this profession. And we believe that policemen don't make any money and firemen don't make any money and school teachers don't make money and clinicians. I hear, I hear people joke all the time. From the moment I entered the profession all the way till now, they're like, well, I didn't go into it for the money. I'M like, well, I had to because I don't know how to have $250,000 worth of student loans without going into it. I have to do something that involves me doing well and that does not mean I am doing harm. And, and most of the clinicians that I know who do the most charitable work, who are the most philanthropic, who have the widest reach, do well financially, they've built businesses with the right infrastructure. The way I like to think about it is architecture, right? If we're going to do, if you and I are going to build an addition on our amazing home, the first thing we have done is we have the structural engineer come out and take a look at the foundation to determine whether we can add an addition. And this is no different than a clinician's business. We need to look at the foundation of how we run our business. The foundation around how we feel about business and how we feel about success and how we feel about money. If that foundation looks solid, you can build on that. You can have more patients, you can have associates, you can build a secondary stream of revenue for yourself, have an ebook, start a podcast, everything can come from there. But we cannot do anything until we get out of our own way and acknowledge that we have some upper limit issues regarding what we should be earning. We have shame.
- [21:17]
B
I love that you say that because, you know, a lot of times, like I said, I go a lot to professional development and when they talk about mindset stuff, I'm like, da, da, da, da, da.
- [21:25]
C
Come on.
- [21:25]
B
Like, alright, let's get on the stuff that I'm really here. And then I realized that the majority of people in business don't have mindset stuff. So we're actually ahead of the curve, right? We're so often in our own space, in our own awareness that we can see these things quicker, faster, and we have great resources. I mean, we can do some NLP or EMDR or whatever on ourselves if that's what we practice. Or reach out to a colleague and say, I need a referral to get that stuff handled, right? Because there's the mindset aspect and then there's the development, what you're talking about, right? Like the nuts and bolts, the strategies, like, well, how do I create a Facebook ad or how do I find a virtual assistant? That stuff is way easier sometimes to conquer your own mind in this stuff.
- [22:02]
C
That's a lot.
- [22:02]
B
But we do have that stuff. I know I've had my own money limiting beliefs that I've had to address even before stepping into private Practice. Right. And I'm always up against them now for the next level of growth. So I think that's so important. And then what you're saying is, you know, not only do we have that, but then there's this really, like, dominant discourse of that therapists aren't supposed to make money. Right.
- [22:23]
C
And that's just.
- [22:23]
B
Yes, it's garbage. And so we could choose to believe it or not. Right. And, you know, there are some people who do work with populations that are maybe like lower income and that's. They're drawn to that. If that's your passion and you're aware, and maybe you have either different sources of income or things like that, or you're, okay, great, great, thank you for being of service. But ultimately we can make money in this field. And a lot of stuff goes back to that mindset. And also outsourcing and understanding those. What are the opt operations and where can I leverage other things?
- [22:54]
C
I also just don't think it's psychologically healthy for us to be distracted by those things. So, I mean, when I really think about this from an analytic standpoint, I put on my psychologist hat for a second. Think about a distracted clinician. I mean, there are individuals who are coming to us at the height of crises in their life in great pain, great suffering. I believe it's a sacred art form to provide therapy and to be an intuit or an empath. We all came to this for a reason. It requires such a quietness of mind and spirit to be able to sit with people in a meaningful way. And when. And when I hear clinicians tell me what they're distracted by, the background noise is always about business and about money and success and timing. They're like, how do we take a vacation without me getting throttled to the tune of $3,000? These are the things that are distracting somebody when we are trying to provide kind of a sacred art form. I would not want my surgeon who's operating on me or my anesthesiologist or my dentist to be distracted about how they're going to pay bills while they are providing healthcare services to me. And I think if we can, if we can. I always prompt clinicians, sometimes they're givers, Right. And so I always say, if you can't do, work on doing it for yourself. Genuinely lifting your upper limit, getting out of your own way, being intentional. Starting with the premise, I'm a smart person. I could probably learn to run a business. Like, I just need a little help. If you can't do that, that's the, that's the first step. If you can't do that step, I still want you to think about your patients. Because if we tell ourselves that we are not having patient care impacted by being completely distracted in business, and I'm not just talking about cognitive distraction, I'm talking about errors in business. You know, most, most ethical grievances are related to confidentiality breaches. There's not one clinician on this line, including me, that's like, you know what I'm going to do today? Breach somebody's confidentiality. That's going to be fun. And get a board notice. It happens by accident because you send an email, because you text a patient, because you didn't take the time to try to insulate a business. And there's nothing more sensitive than patient data and financial data. When people ask me why I got into this, the question I usually ask myself is, how did I end up in the business of securing financial data and mental health data? Why did I get into such a serious business? This is a very serious. When we take it really seriously here.
- [25:15]
B
And your answer is to yourself.
- [25:17]
C
Answer is, like most people, I guess, who are a little bit entrepreneurial, I saw a problem and wanted to fix the problem later. I was like, this is. I got into some heavy business. I'm protecting patient data all around the country. I am happy to be in that business now, though, and I'm happy to offer that service to clinicians. I don't want them to wonder where their data is. I want it to be securely stored. With a business that's in the business of doing that, they're in the business of providing health care that is of high quality. I'm in the business of making sure their business operates well. And that's my calling. And that's what we do here.
- [25:51]
B
Awesome. Awesome. And I know you had one other point, and we're running out of some time, so let's hit on that briefly. So talk to us about increasing the revenue by using technology. Like, how does that happen?
- [26:02]
C
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I was like, what is my point, kt, you're like, you have one more point. I'm like, I hope she. I hope she prompts me. I forgot what my point is. Everybody's getting access to what it's like to deal with a woman with ADD. Okay, so when revenue increases 20% by access to technology, here's. And I'm going to use technology broadly, so I'm going to talk about practice management technology, but I'm also going to talk about Like a profile directory listing or, you know, utilizing technology. Well, first of all, it starts driving optimal patients and optimal referral sources to your business. And when we are seeing the types of patients and accessing the type of referral sources that we actually serve best, our businesses grow financially. Next, in in streamlining operations, the general early feedback is, I don't know that I can afford practice management. I like to tease clinicians. You can't be worth $150 an hour at 4pm and be worth $9 an hour at 8am you have to make a decision. You're worth $150 an hour clinically. And what happens with practice management? We earlier kind of touched on business operations versus business development. When you engage in utilizing technology to run your business, what happens is your business becomes operationally efficient. If you start all those micro moments that it takes to schedule, reschedule, handwrite notes, manage clinical files that are paper files, swipe credit cards, negotiate with some sort of bank about your credit card rates, automate statements to patients, or try to figure out how to get them statements. Half the clinicians, when I asked them where they wasted a bunch of time, it was tracking their revenue. They're like, well, I'm just trying to put my figures together for the year. I'm like, you need a practice management system that spits out a report in two seconds about. You just go online, tells you what you're making at all times. So what we find is that clinicians who utilize, we track this very early on. We did some research. The clinicians that utilize Therapy Partner, for example, increase revenue 20% within the first year. I think a few things happen. One, I think their business becomes streamlined, which creates more time for them to see patients and grow their business. The second thing that happens, I think they get to get paid for everything when you're not storing a form of payment on file. So I always like to touch on that. In every industry around the world, you increase revenue 20% when you store a form of payment on file. So this is the secret behind the technology I like to use, right? There's, there's Amazon for the example, right? Amazon is great. They're like, do you want to use that credit card? How about I add that back to your cart? They know what to do with me to make sure that I get all my stuff. And when you about the user experience, right?
- [28:38]
B
That's when something is convenient for us. It's just easier for us to do that. It's easy for us to go onto Amazon with the one Click or put in your. Because it's already there. We don't have to add it again. We don't have to do another step and put our credit card. When we're saving client credit cards and encrypted form, right? It's easy. Like there's. And then you know what, and we go back to the money. Shane, let me just go back to this, right? Then we're not even having to talk about money.
- [29:00]
C
You don't have to talk about money. And there will be clinicians who will say that's part of the therapeutic process. Here's the deal. Patients know that they're being billed when they come to your office the first time and store a form of payment on file. It is very redundant, right? So there's enormous amount of redundancy in healthcare, period. Every, you know, you go check in at your doctor's office, you fill out your name, someone else swipes your credit card, someone else gives you an invoice. It's replete in the healthcare industry. So when you use a product like Therapy Partner, you store form of payment online. First of all, you don't have to talk to your patients. Every time they come in, they know they're being billed. You don't have to give up precious clinical time. We have discovered that patients will seek more services when there's a form of payment on file. If they late cancel or no show, you actually get to charge for. And here's a big one we noticed clinicians do not bill for consultation and it is a billable event. So you call out to another doctor's office, you do this phone tag voicemail game which by the way is not really good solid care coordination. Instead, with a process like this in place, you call another doctor's office or clinician and you say, I'd like to do a consultation on our patient. My patient knows that I'm billing for this. It's in my paperwork. I hope yours does too. And I'd like to schedule a half hour with you. And, and when the credit card is on file, you click that, the person gets a statement. People will pay for their doctors and their therapists to speak to one another. We don't bill for this. So if you add together streamlining operations, having more time for go forward business, and then actually billing for the things you actually did. This is how they increase revenue 20% and it far covers the cost of engaging any form of technology. You buy a profile, directory, listing, for example goodtherapy.org they send you optimal payment patients. The 2995 or whatever it is for the listing is really quite reasonable. If they send you three to five patients for the year that are right within your zone of genius.
- [30:47]
B
Nice. Well, I could probably like talk to you like all day. I mean, you're just as excited about this stuff as I am and this is going. And yeah, the user experience is so, so important and really just streamlining things to really optimize. And sometimes, you know, sometimes people get uncomfortable talking about the money stuff or the business aspect or what. But really on the other side of that is client care. And I always like to invite people to look at it from you as a consumer.
- [31:13]
C
Right.
- [31:13]
B
We talked about Amazon and things like that. Like, that's easy. You're going to send something to me in two days, I just push a button. Or now they have those actual button buttons that you can store somewhere. I don't know, that's a little too advanced for me. Well, not advanced, but that's. I like to go on and look and browse. But you know, those are just really interesting things and it really can make a huge impact on your business and your life. Right. If you are wanting to take that dream vacation or do something nice for your kids or family or whatever, this could be part of the answer and it could be part of the solution. And I love how, I think you open the audience's eyes to how else you can utilize software and technology and really expand those possibilities, making it win, win for everybody.
- [31:50]
C
So, yeah, I call it a client. I was going to say I would call it a client centric business. You know, I think whenever we have a client centric business that really makes it easy for people to access care with us and get straight to the meat of why they're there. And they're there because they're suffering and they need your assistance. I think you're going to do really. And it gets us back to where we started today, which is this is all about permission giving. And you have to start by giving yourself permission to run a sweet business. And then you have to give yourself permission to actually promote a business that has a strong professional precedent. One of the things that I think you can't really measure is what I see after clinicians that you and I talk about take on some of these things. They're so empowered and they're so proud of the businesses they run. They're really setting a professional precedent in the community and they're making sure that people who access mental health don't think that mental health clinicians loosey goosey are not good in business. It feels really empowering. And then when the money follows and the success follows and the growth follows and the peace of mind falls, it kind of becomes, you know, it's like a win, win, win. It has an exponential value.
- [32:55]
B
Yeah. Awesome. So if you could kind of summarize everything that we talked about today, what is the main point or takeaway that you would like Startup Nation to really take away from your message today?
- [33:08]
C
I did not expect that question. I think the main takeaway point is for me, and it might not be something I said, but it truly is never too late to start running your business in a different way. I talk to clinicians that have been doing things one way for a lot of years and they feel intimidated to do something different. I talk to new clinicians who feel like they're not big enough or strong enough or, you know, they don't have enough of a business yet to take on new ways of running a business. I would go right back to that architectural analogy about running a house. Build a beautiful foundation. Set the course for your ship. Stay on top of the deck with your maps in hand. You are the captain of the ship. And it's not just about clinical care. I would really encourage people in 2018 to take that ownership. And it's a dual process. I'm going to sound like a clinician again. It's a dual process. We ask patients to do this every day. Take the steering wheel. Guide their own life. Do it with intention. Do it with focus and passion. Ask for help. Help. Every single thing we say in every single session, every patient needs to be turned this way and it needs to be focused in business, you know where to go for clinical help. Ask your colleagues for assistance with patients. Ask people like you for help with business. Take a webinar at Therapy Partner. They're free. Go get some business education. You don't have to ask your colleagues for that. Go to Startup Nation for that, or come to Therapy Partner or any of the other abundant people around the country who are in the business of helping you run a great program. Business.
- [34:36]
B
Awesome. Awesome. And I know that you guys have an awesome giveaway. So, I mean, after listening to this, like, it really expanded my mind and the possibilities of more than just, you know, some type of software technology program to, you know, run my business. It was, wow, look at all these ways I could increase revenue and client care and things like that. And I think that's awesome. So on our show notes page, guys, you will have a link there if you are wanting to use Therapy Partner or checking them out. You can get two months free. Like Jessica said, if you're going to try it out, you're probably going to stay. They only have 2% that leave. I think you said a 98% retention rate. So that's awesome. So obviously Jessica is super passionate about this. You can tell I know that she makes me inspired and passionate so I could talk forever with her. But we wanted to say thank you to Jessica and Therapy Partner for joining us today. And actually next week on our podcast you're going to hear us on Therapy Partner having them interview us and I think it's still topic to be decided. That's what I'm looking at in my notes and without my sidekick here, she's not done to here next to me nudging me and telling me exactly what the topic is. So it's going to be a surprise, mystery, surprise. And you'll have to join us then if you haven't already started hanging out with us. Where else in Facebook look for this? The Private Practice Startup Facebook. Ask to be part of the group and there you can actually interact with us directly. We pop in, we pop out, we chat with you. If you have questions, we're happy to guide and support you. So Startup Nation, thank you so much for joining us today or tonight or whenever you're listening. We look forward to catching you next time and allowing us to inspire you from startup to mastery. Have an amazing day.
- [36:10]
A
Thanks for joining us on the Private Practice startup. Visit the privatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, free trainings, attorney approved private practice paperwork, and so much more.
- [36:23]
C
Sam.