Running a group practice doesn’t have to be hard if you work smart. If you would like to find out more about the private practice consulting we offer and set up a free consultation to determine if we are a good fit, please visit our contact page.
Do you feel like you’re in over your head after making the leap from a solo to group practice? Are you overwhelmed by the demands of running your business? Would you benefit from experienced consulting for your private practice?
If you have an entrepreneurial passion, you may feel driven to expand beyond independent practice but executing your vision may be more challenging than you thought. Perhaps you were hoping to make more money in less time but, sadly, the opposite is happening. Although you’re an expert at managing human emotions, you may be out of your depth managing the details of your business.
As you navigate growing pains, the daily headaches you encounter seem endless. Who will manage incoming phone calls and inquiries, ensure everyone follows policies and procedures consistently, and handle issues that seemingly come out of nowhere?
Ever since you brought on more therapists, you might be working more than before, not less. Unfortunately, you’re the one getting called when an emergency arises and whose time is spent managing other therapists. Rather than enjoying more time with your family as you’d hoped, your work-life balance is in shambles, making you wonder if pursuing your dream is worth the additional stress.
Perhaps you feel disappointed that getting your group practice started has been so time-consuming. All you want is for your business to run itself and focus on what’s important to you while still making money. Or maybe you’re currently in the planning stages of your practice and want to take preemptive steps to ensure you won’t be derailed.
Growing your group practice can be challenging. Luckily, private practice consulting allows you to learn from our mistakes and skip the hard part.
For therapists who decide to expand, it begins with a kernel of an idea that spurs us forward. Perhaps we have a desire to support our community by specializing in an array of modalities currently not offered in our geographic area. Or maybe our entrepreneurial spirit has driven us to be enterprising and, hopefully, build a practice that yields higher profits and requires less of our time. However, the myth that a group practice by definition will make us more money while allowing us to work fewer hours simply isn’t true.
We may not have realized how much work goes into setting up a successful group practice. Finding high-quality candidates who share our values is difficult. In addition to ongoing employee concerns, there are a host of other issues—such as client management, insurance, website support, marketing, and government regulations—that need to be addressed.
We may feel like we have to figure it all out on our own. However, just because we’ve spent years becoming an expert in the field of psychology doesn’t necessarily mean we understand the principles of running a profitable small business. Perhaps we’ve never learned how to develop policies and procedures, create a profit and loss statement, or effectively delegate responsibilities.
Unfortunately, we often don’t realize what tools are available to help grow our business. We’ve probably heard about consulting that focuses exclusively on marketing a private practice but didn’t know that business coaching for therapists can help us with everything else.
Fortunately, we understand the challenges starting a business presents and how valuable it is for you to receive consulting for your private practice sooner than later. Receiving one-on-one coaching can have a long-term impact on the success of your group therapy business.
One-on-one private practice consulting allows you to explore the pain points of your business and figure out what changes are needed to rediscover your passion and move your group practice to the next level. By finding solutions that make your business work for you and not the other way around, not only will your business become more profitable, but you can reduce the time you spend addressing problems.
We have first-hand knowledge of growing a solo practice into a thriving, successful group practice. After briefly starting out in private practice, within three years, Monarch Family Counseling grew to include 45 employees, three locations, and a stand-alone telehealth team. Not only was our practice able to achieve this growth during the pandemic, but we also established the telehealth arm before the shutdown. Our experience makes us uniquely qualified to help you avoid the growing pains we went through and to learn from our mistakes.
After reviewing your business plan, policies, and procedures, and determine what your biggest struggles are, your consultant will identify what you are spending most of your time doing. From there we will develop goals that will help make your business run as effectively as possible.
For your group practice to succeed, you need to be seen as the leader. If you haven’t established clear boundaries or empowered yourself to be the boss, problems with employees can arise quickly. We can help you develop workplace culture and values that reflect a clear vision for your team, setting the tone for other policies and procedures within your practice.
These values can be part of the onboarding process so that standards of conduct are shared with new hires on day one. Additional employee guidelines can also be developed to ensure an aligned relationship with your team.
For clients, ensuring that your policies for procedures proactively address any potential issues will help your practice thrive. Whether it pertains to payment, cancellations, or insurance, having well-defined, understandable policies in place for your clients will keep your business running smoothly.
Like therapy, the skills and resources we talk about in session may sound good in theory but are only valuable once we confirm they work for you. Your private practice coach will typically schedule a follow-up coaching session several weeks after the initial sessions to make sure your business is benefiting from our proposed changes, allowing us to make tweaks if necessary.
With private practice consulting, you’ll come away with specific, actionable goals to improve your business and restore work-life balance.
But You May Wonder Whether Private Practice Consulting Is Right For You…
Will the coaching and consulting I receive be tailored to my small business?
When we decided to offer small business coaching and consulting for therapists, we realized that providing one-on-one coaching would be more beneficial than a generic online course. With one-on-one coaching, we can pinpoint the unique issues your business is facing to determine what’s working, what’s not, and what options are available to address challenges proactively. And although our sessions with you will be virtual, we will focus on your practice exclusively. Regardless of where your practice is located, we can help you.
Can I really have a group practice that runs itself?
Although it may sound too good to be true, your practice can run itself with minimal demands on your time. With a proactive and intentional approach to setting up your practice, you can choose where you want to focus your time, passion, and energy. Business coaching for therapists offers the leg up you need to hit the ground running and avoid the common pitfalls usually associated with building a group practice.
What’s the benefit of growing my individual practice into a group practice?
A group practice holds the promise of eventually becoming a more profitable business. However, before you embark upon this venture, you first need to identify your “why”. Outside of making more money, a successful group therapy needs to have a clear vision. What are you hoping your practice will offer within your community that doesn’t yet exist? What services will you offer that can benefit clients most? Having clear goals at the outset will help you align with like-minded therapists and get started on the right foot.
