This is Dave Katz with Therapist Consultants and I have a tip for you. Have you ever considered hiring someone? I find that most therapists don't have much for staff, but I think that it would increase their business, help the patients, and increase the profitability if you did have staff. Here's some things to think about. Sometimes we're a little hesitant to hire staff because it's such a big commitment, but think about these things.

Number one, you could start by hiring a virtual assistant. Somebody that would help you off-site, that could do anything from doing your booking to doing your billing. The second thing you could do is you could find somebody that will help you just for a period of time, like for the next three months. You tell them, "Through this summer, I'd like to hire you," or "until the end of the year, I'd like to hire you." That way if it doesn't work the way you thought it did you have a natural ending place.

The third thing you might want to do is think about...

Hi, I'm Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants and I have a tip for you. As I look at therapists and their billing, I notice that for some therapists, all they do is the counseling. Their every bill is counseling, counseling, counseling, counseling, counseling. Have you ever thought about having different revenue centers other than just counseling? I would suggest some revenue centers for you. First of all, I think everybody should start doing assessments. If you're not, you can go to Pearson Clinical Assessments, find the assessments that you like, and then start giving them to your patients. It's a great way to help them get better faster and to increase your revenue.

Another revenue center that you can have is sell any product that you think is worthy of them buying and help them do a better job. That's another revenue center. Then there's other revenue centers. I think of like doing supervising, becoming a supervisor. There are lots of different revenue centers. This year, I think...

Hi, I'm Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you. I've talked about this before, but it is hitting the scenes so hot right now that we got to do it again, and that is doing dual sessions with your patients. It used to be, 10 years ago, that everybody did a 50-minute session, and then they had a 10-minute break, and then they did another 50-minute session with another client and did a 10-minute break, and everybody got 50-minute sessions.

Today, there is a big move toward giving the patient the option of whether they want to do dual sessions. They can do two 50-minute sessions back to back. You may give them a slight discount. If you charge $150, you might only charge $250 instead of $300 if they do a dual session. Dual sessions are becoming very, very, very common. Now, you might say, "I don't know if my patients will want that." Well, you won't know unless you ask. It's not a sales job. Don't worry about them thinking that you're selling them some bill of...

This is Dave Kats with Therapists Consultants, and I have a tip for you. One of the things I've noticed about mental health, and that is once you've developed a problem, the tendency of that problem to return again is much, much greater. Then I did some interpolation and realized that's true with all health. One time you've had a panic attack, the chance of you getting a second panic attack is a lot higher. One time you've had depression, the chance of getting depression is a lot higher. Once you've had a marriage problem, the chance of having a second marriage problem or a continued marriage problem is much higher.

Here's the situation. If you've treated them for anything and they've gotten good results, you can end their program of care right then, stop their active care but don't turn them into the outer darkness. Schedule them for maintenance care every so often. I don't care if you schedule a married couple for a maintenance visit every three months or every six months. Just...

Hi, this is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you. We have a saying in Therapist Consultants among the staff, and that is that the client or the patient quits you about two visits after you quit them. Here's what we mean by that. As you as a therapist see a patient, eventually, that patient becomes kind of old stuff to you, and you tend to not do as good a job as you did at the beginning, and you think you know all the ideas. Sometimes if we're honest with ourselves, we go into the room and we really don't know what we're going to do for a procedure that day. Well, that doesn't work because they sense that and about two visits after you tune out, they tune out, which means they leave.

Here's what I suggest you do. I suggest about every 10 visits, you give a progress report. A progress report which you simply sit down with the patient say, "Listen, it's been 10 visits since we talked about your progress, let's talk about your progress." We have a little...

This is Dave Kats with Therapists Consultants, and I have a tip for you. Now that we have been through the COVID thing and everybody has had therapy online, telehealth, it's easy to stay with a telehealth procedure, and I'm not going to talk today about whether that's good, bad, or indifferent. You have to make that decision. One of the things I think we do have to talk about is if you advertise from now on, you can advertise now anywhere you're licensed. If you're licensed in two states, you can advertise in both those states.

Or let's say you're in Daytona Beach, Florida. You can advertise on the other end of the state in Tampa. Here's my suggestion to you, don't do it. If you're going to advertise, advertise close to home, even though you're doing virtual work. Even though you're doing telemental health, advertise close to home because, mentally, people want to know that they're going to somebody close to them.

We have experimented, and this is what we have found. The people that...

Hi, this is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultant. I have noticed one thing, and it's my tip for you today. Many people put together a website and then never look at it again. They might as well have put it in a time capsule and dug it up 20 years later because it had never changed. Now, let me ask you a question. If you are Google, and you have your software, and your software sees two people in your area, you and a therapist that went out of business 10 years ago, I'm sorry, a therapist that went out of business six months ago.

Now, if you haven't changed your ad, your website in six months, and they haven't changed their ad or website because they're out of business, what's the difference? Google doesn't know if you're in business or not. If you haven't changed your website lately, you're pretty much dead in the water as far as Google is concerned. Continue to change, adt to, rearrange your website and it'll make a lot of difference as far as your presence on the internet is...

Hi, I'm David Kats therapist consultants and I have a tip for you. Sooner or later, you may think about doing some advertising on the Internet, and I'll tell you where I would start. It's good to have a Facebook presence and have a Facebook page, new posts and blogs, and things like that on Facebook or boost your posts, I should say, on Facebook but really where we get the most action with our clients is when they do Google Ads, they do Google Ads.

Now, if you're full-time, and if you can afford it, I would suggest you start out spending at least $300 a month, let's just say $300 a month on Google Ads, and do it for at least three to six months so you see what your results are going to be. See, in the old days, which is like 30 years ago, we would put an ad in the Yellow Pages-- professionals would put an ad in the Yellow Pages and we would think nothing about spending $400 a month for the whole year that the Yellow Pages ran.

Now people only spent $300 a month for three months and...

Hi. This is David Kats with Therapist Consultants. I have a tip for you.

If you practice by yourself, then this particular tip may not be apropos, but if you have any therapists that practice with you, or if you have any staff or any volunteers that help you, then you need to know who sees your patient's PHI, their personal health information because HIPAA says, we have to have a list in our office of everybody in our office that's capable of seeing the patient's health history.

Right now, make a list. Even if it's you, just make a list of one, and just put in your HIPAA manual that you're the only person that has access to that health history. That way, if you're ever checked out by someone, you will be compliant as far as that part of the HIPAA law is concerned. If you have employees, if you have other therapists, if you have somebody that comes in and works for you, even on a volunteer basis, make sure that you get them all on the list. If it's just you, put you on the list, and...

Hi, this is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you.

Ironically, some therapists disobey the law without knowing it, and they do it this way. They give people breaks in that they don't have to pay their deductible, or they don't have to pay their copay, but the law is very clear. You're supposed to charge everybody their deductible and everybody their copay.

Now, if there's an occasional financial hardship, I certainly understand that you should have them fill a financial hardship form. I used to work with a company that was traded on a New York Stock Exchange. They said, if any doctor, I was working with doctors, and if any doctor gives away more than 5% of his or her services, talk to them about it because it's becoming too much. Don't give away more than 5% of your services. Make sure that you collect all your deductibles and all your copays. The patients will respect you more, and you'll collect more money, and you'll be within the law. That's the most...