In the early stages of building a practice, you may decide that it’s in your best interests to accept insurance. Though this might limit how much of a profit you can make (insurance companies are fairly notorious for providing much lower payments than therapists deserve), it is a useful way to make sure that your practice is sustainable, as it increases the population of potential clients while also potentially sending some of those clients your way.
Still, at some point, you’re likely going to want to move towards “cash clients” – the clients that pay for your services in cash. Cash clients are where the real money is, as you get to collect and keep whatever it is you’re charging. A therapist with 40 weekly cash clients paying $100 per session is making $200,000 a year. A therapist charging $200 per session is making $400,000 per year.
Now THAT is “Getting Out of Bed” money!
Still, there is a delicate balance between the amount you’d like to make, what you’re worth, and what your clients are willing to pay. That balance is also something that changes frequently, sometimes as often as month to month, and it’s important to be aware of how to navigate that if you want to both grow your client list and earn what you’re worth.
How to Determine the Value of Your Services
During our coaching sessions, we can talk about how much you should charge based on location, insurance, experience, and financial needs. It’s not something we can easily describe here, because there are so many factors involved. But what you’ll want to navigate is the following:
- What is the average going rate in your area, and how does your experience compare?
- How many clients do you currently have and how many do you need to survive?
- What is your “presence” – meaning, how hard is it to find new clints and how much can people find about you online or offline?
- Do you have a niche, and is that niche in an area that attracts higher paying clients?
- Do you have the resources to help clients with out of network insurance reimbursements?
For example, perhaps you’re in a situation where you have a currently empty schedule, and taking on lower paying clients to fill the void may be in your best interests. As you fill, you can be more selective, requiring clients to pay more knowing that if they say no, you can still survive without them. During that time, perhaps you build your experience and have a social media/internet presence that gives you the appearance of more value, justifying a higher pay.
This is an example of the thought process that you may consider as you navigate pricing.
“Why You?”
One of the most important questions to answer – and one that we work on together here at PsychFusion, especially for therapists with an existing practice, is why someone should choose you over all the other therapists out there.
We often forget that the average person knows almost nothing about the difference between two therapists. They may be slightly familiar with a modality (eg, CBT vs Psychodynamic) or they may know they want to work with someone that fits their preferred demographics, but beyond that they have no way to tell why they should choose you over someone else.
Answering this question is also how you’re going to be able to charge more. If you still have not determined what your niche is or what makes you different, it may not yet be time to require higher paying cash clients. But once you have, you then will have the conviction needed to justify it, and the ability to attract people to your practice.
Working Together with a Private Practice Coach
It can be a challenge trying to navigate pricing and attract clients willing to pay your fees. Even if you prefer to accept insurance in the beginning, you have to know how to set that up, which carriers pay their therapists more, and so on.
These are all things that are easier for us to work through together. Give me a call, and let’s start the process of helping you create and grow a sustainable private practice.