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Video - Making the Transition from Technician to Entrepreneur Video - How to Start a Counseling Practice in 7 Days Staying Small to Grow Big What if it was 10 times more difficult to become a Counselor For Counselors Online Reviews Present Perplexing Challenges You Must Put What You Know in Writing.Or Video.Or Audio A Warning for Your Counseling Practice Be Different or Die 5 Tips for Building a Sellable Practice Creating a Free Psychology Today Style Counselor Directory To Build a Counseling App 3 Tips for New Healthcare Entrepreneurs Why Counselors Need Search Engine Marketing Why verifying benefits is crucial for all clinicians and practices 6 Places Where Counselors Should Spend Money To Make Money For Counselors Online Reviews Present Perplexing Challenges Three Real Challenges with Insurance based Mental Healthcare Marketing and Promoting Your Counseling Practice in 2016 Fixing the Problem of Counselor Turnover in Private Practice Counseling Practice Today | Welcome!CALPCC members who are interested in private practice have access to an expert in private practice in this section of the website. Here members can read articles, view videos and submit questions to Dr. Anthony Centore. You will need to be signed into your active CALPCC account to view the full content of each article and video. Not a member! View our Membership Benefits or Join Us! Anthony Centore Ph.D. is Founder and CEO of Thriveworks (a chain of 30+ counseling centers), Private Practice Consultant for the 50,000+ member American Counseling Association, and monthly Columnist for Counseling Today magazine. Anthony is a Licensed Counselor in Massachusetts, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and Colorado, and has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, ABC news, The Boston Globe, Prevention, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, The Washington Post, and other local and national publications. CALPCC members may submit a question to Anthony Centore and he will respond via email. If the response would be of general interest to other members, CALPCC will include it in the Private Practice section of the Members Area without your name.
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Staying Small to Grow BigI’m on the phone with a gentleman (lets call him Dan) who owns a counseling practice in the Midwest. He starts the conversation by describing some of his operational problems: “Anthony, recently some of my best counselors have left the practice. I have issues with notes not being completed. Our culture and team morale are low. We have lots of new clients schedule, but most don’t come back. And I’m losing money...” What if it was 10 times more difficult to become a Counselor?Recently, I was speaking with a counselor at Thriveworks Counseling Philadelphia and she said “I schedule clients for only one session a month because I don’t want them to get dependent on me.” I want to say that I was shocked, but I wasn’t. Too often I hear counselors with exceedingly poor ideas on clinical care. For Counselors, Online Reviews Present Perplexing ChallengesFrom Yelp, to Google Places, to Angie’s list, to Facebook’s new review system, companies today are more impacted by customer reviews than ever before. For some, this is a great opportunity. Business is booming at that hole-in-the-wall Mexican place after customers started rating them 5-stars, and word spread about their super-sized, extra-salty, margaritas. You Must Put What You Know in Writing. Or Video. Or Audio.A friend of mine has a great job as a web developer. Recently, in his off time, he published a 6500-word analysis of a tech company’s website that got some industry attention. I asked him, “Joe, I know you’re busy; you’ve got a good, and demanding, job. Why did you bother?” His answer was on point. He said, “According to the world, if you don’t write it down, you don’t know it.” A Warning for Your Counseling Practice: Be Different or Die!Some companies, through advertising alone, convince us to buy their brand of product over a competitor’s. It’s why consumers choose Advil® instead a generic painkiller. It’s why we grab a box with Tony the Tiger® instead of a bag of ‘Sugary Flakes.’ It’s why we feel safer buying Scott® grass seed when we could buy seed with a less familiar name. We’re so influenced by branding that we’ll pay a premium for these items even when the generics are the exact same product. 5 Tips for Building a Sellable PracticeSelling a practice. It might be the largest single financial transaction of your life. And it could go very well, or it might not happen at all. Depending on the choices you make, your practice could fund your retirement…or it might be worth close to nothing. While it’s a much larger topic than this column can due justice, this month I’ll provide a few tips to help you increase the value of your counseling practice. Creating a Free “Psychology Today” Style Counselor DirectoryFor years, I have wanted to create a Free Counselor Directory. Basically, a simple “Psychology Today” style product that counselors could use to promote their practices online, but without the $30 a month price tag…or any price tag! To Build a Counseling App OR Should Clients be Allowed to Record Therapy Sessions?For years people had said to me, “You should build an app.” 3 Tips for New Healthcare EntrepreneursI was recently asked to share 3 tips for entrepreneurs looking to build a company in the healthcare field. Specifically, I was asked “If you were talking to a young aspiring entrepreneur about their new startup, what would be your top three pieces of advice? Why Counselors Need Search Engine Marketing (SEM)Building a counseling practice (or any private practice) from scratch means that you have to appeal to strangers—your first clients have no idea who you are. They don't know the value of your expertise, your logo or brand. Why verifying benefits is crucial for all clinicians and practicesBilling is one of the least enjoyable aspects of any provider’s relationship with managed care. It can easily lead to frustration, and denied claims often result in thousands of dollars of lost revenue. 6 Places Where Counselors Should Spend Money To Make MoneyFor many of us, finding success in private counseling practice involves working with a shoestring budget, and making up for our lack of capital with a lot of sweat equity. While this approach works, there are some areas where under-spending can hurt your practice in the long run. Below I list 6 places where counselors should to spend money to make money: For Counselors, Online Reviews Present Perplexing ChallengesFrom Yelp, to Google Places, to Angie’s list, to Facebook’s new review system, companies today are more impacted by customer reviews than ever before. For some, this is a great opportunity. Business is booming at that hole-in-the-wall Mexican place after customers started rating them 5-stars, and word spread about their super-sized, extra-salty, margaritas. Three Real Challenges with Insurance-based Mental HealthcareBusy counseling practices today, with some exceptions, are insurance driven. There are good things that come from working with insurance companies. Clients who might not have been able to afford your services now have access. Also, it’s much easier to induce clients to buy services when someone else is paying the bill. Marketing and Promoting Your Counseling Practice in 2016Promotion is an art and a science, a gamble, and a moving target. Few things about building a practice perplex people more than promoting it. In this column, I dispense with style and cram as much advice I’ve learned from my Thriveworks Counseling Cambridge practice as I can into 1000 words. Enjoy! Fixing the Problem of Counselor Turnover in Private PracticeAt my practices, in the last year, two counselors submitted letters of resignation because they were tired of the daily commute and wanted to work closer to home, two others decided to work less and cut their hours by more than half, and another two resigned after deciding to migrate from the east coast to California (one had plans to join a commune and take up organic gardening). Even with over 50 clinicians on staff, losing even one counselor is difficult. But it’s all too common. Counseling Practice TodayThe biggest change between counseling today and 10 years ago (other than the DSM 5, the issue of bullying, self-mutilation among teens, internet addiction, unmarried adulthood, a better understanding of human sexuality and a few hundred other things) is that 10 years ago people would call a practice and sheepishly ask, “do you accept my insurance?” If the practice didn’t, then the caller would still schedule and pay out of pocket. Content brought to you by Anthony Centore. |
