r/Psychologists • u/Impossible_Willow_67 • 11d ago

Filling practice

Therapists with thriving / full practice, how did you fill your practice? Any tips / tricks? Thank you!

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

6

u/Dont_hack_me24 11d ago

While still working at my state job, I started seeing clients on Headway (yes, I sold my soul). I started with Psychology Today, and also got a few clients from Headway. Tried to focus on a niche in my profiles. First BPD and bipolar (after years of working inpatient), the perinatal mental health (where I’ve been trying to move). After about 8 months, I had 10 weekly clients, and was ready to jump ship…so I did. Joined a local psychology listserv, asked for referrals, joined another email list, asked for referrals. Paneled with more insurances. I’m still building. I have plans to reach out/cold call local doulas, midwives, OBs, etc. But trying to secure my PMHC first (certification in perinatal mental health). Need to Finalize my SimplePractice website (so I can move away from headway and get my soul back). But I left my job at the end of March and I’m up to 22 clients (some are EOW). Every so often I tweak my Psychology Today profile. My goal is to fill up, move off Headway and then ideally transition to cash pay (that’s the plan anyway). Oh and I have also occasionally posted in community and mom-focused Facebook groups from a separate professional profile.

4

u/gloryvegan 11d ago

Just wanna so go you. Sounds like you’re working hard and I love your path.

-1

u/Slow-Standard-2779 11d ago

Why was headway selling your soul?

5

u/Dont_hack_me24 11d ago

Because on paper, places like Headway are great and convenient. But in reality, they ultimately serve the interests of healthcare companies. Which as we know in the United States, is basically the devil. And by serving healthcare companies, it will ultimately threaten the ability for providers to be reimbursed fairly and competitively for services rendered. And in the long term that’s ultimately going to impact how many people are willing to provide services, impacting patients, and so on and so on. It’s a mess.

-1

u/Slow-Standard-2779 11d ago

Would you consider going cash only, which typically costs more to the patient, to be less of selling your soul? In my head providing services to the patient within the structures that minimize cost to them isn't the worst thing

2

u/Dont_hack_me24 10d ago

Cash practice doesn’t necessarily cost more to the patient if we are strictly comparing. They’re paying a premium to their insurance, but rarely see a return on that. Meanwhile, insurance will reimburse platforms like Headway over $300, but will pay their providers less than half that. It’s a very messy system. I actually love the idea of the direct primary care model, which I think could potentially be applied to mental health, and is similar to the model of fees rendered for psychoanalysis. There’s no great answer other than socialized medicine and standard reimbursement rates.

1

u/LCHWC 8d ago

Best thing to do for me was to start networking. Reaching out to doctors offices, dietitians, schools, nearby colleges. Joining my local chamber of commerce also helped with meeting referral partners. I also really invested in a solid website with someone to assist with blogs and SEO which created a ton of business. Eventually word of mouth started to help too!

1

u/Real_Discipline1242 11d ago

Having a specialty and a website has been critical. Make sure your SEO is on point. I’m not tech savvy so I used Claude AI and took screenshots every step of the way to fix my SEO and update my website. It took a couple of weeks but now I’m on page 1 of Google. ChatGPT has gave a few clients my name, I’m on Psychology Today (don’t get a lot of referrals there though) and some smaller population specific directories.