Hi, this is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you. We are often asked what's the best software to run a therapy practice. Really, there are three of them that are up at the top that we think are doing a good job. The first one is SimplePractice. SimplePractice has come onto the scene the last four or five years and has been very popular with the therapists. We don't get paid by any of these software companies. We don't endorse any of these software companies where I'm just telling you what I hear from the therapists that we service.

The first one, and in no particular order, but the first one is SimplePractice. Most of the therapy software you pay by the month and by how many therapists you have but with SimplePractice, they adjusted their prices lately. You want to see how their prices compare to the other two. The other two that I want to tell you about are TherapyAppointment and TherapyNotes.

SimplePractice, TherapyAppointment, and TherapyNotes all have...

Hi, this is Dave Kats, with Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you. You want to know who the busiest therapists are in our organization? Those therapists that have a niche and that work in their niche. Now, when you first start in practice, you take about anybody that walks as long as you know that you can help them, but as you get farther into your practice, you get more about thinking about being a specialist and specializing in something or having a niche.

Now, there are broad niches, like probably the broadest niche that I know of is couples counseling. It's a good niche and a lot of therapists are in couples counseling, and it's a good thing to do. There's some sub niches under that, like couples counseling of those people that have had affairs and divorce counseling is another one that would be a subcategory under that, but the biggest niche is marriage or couples relationships. Then there are smaller and smaller niches and a lot of times you have to pick your niche...

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

About 30 years ago, I had an opportunity that very few consultants have. I had an opportunity to work with the biggest and best plastic surgeons in Hollywood and in Beverly Hills. I went into their offices to work with them. I will tell you that the way they treat patients is a whole world apart from the way that a lot of therapists treat patients.
When you walk in, the receptionist is dressed to the hilt. They come around to the front desk. They shake hands with you. They call you by name even though you just walked in. They automatically know who you are because they've been waiting for you. They offer you several different types of things to drink. They fill up the form for you. You don't have to write it down. They ask you the questions. It's beautiful all over. The doctor is impeccable in his or her dress. They have everything exactly the way you want it.
Now you compare that to therapists who sometimes...

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

When you wonder why you're not rated too high on the internet. I have the reasons for you that are the three biggest reasons. Number one, Google and other search engines look for three things. The first thing they look for is pervasive presence. You have to be on Google, Bing, Yelp, Yahoo, Facebook, all the social media sites, and then your website has to be active. That's the first thing. They look for a pervasive presence. You have to be all over. The second thing they look for is that all your information is the same. If you have a different address on one site than on the other site, if you have a different phone, if you have your cell phone number on one site, you have your home phone number on another site, and a landline on another site, it all shows them that we don't know what exactly what we're talking about.
If they see two different phone numbers, why would they show this to the people that are...

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

One of the things you can do to stay active on the Internet is to write articles and put them on your website. What's the difference between somebody that six months ago was in practice, and went out of business and their Internet is still up there, the website's still up, and you, who six months ago were in business, are still in business but you haven't done anything with your website? How does the search engine even know that you're still in business? One of the ways you do it is by having articles posted on your website. I'd say about every two weeks. If you can put an article on your website about every two weeks, that's enough. The good news is the articles can be very short. I'm telling you that an article can be one paragraph. It is nice to be two or three paragraphs, but if it's just one paragraph, that's good. It doesn't necessarily have to be about your specialty. It can be about anything...

This is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants and I have a tip for you, and I have a question for you.

Are you practicing in the old style, or are you practicing in a new style? See, the old style was this. You have one patient. You see them for one hour, one time a week, but the new sessions go like this. You have a patient. You may see them two hours during the day and you see them once a week. You see them for twice as long. You charge twice as much, and they get twice as much as care as they would have gotten originally.
I think dual sessions are a great way to improve your practice and to give the patients a lot better care. When I think about it, some of the marriages that are under stress, they need more than 45 or 55 minutes a week. They need a couple hours to really get into the depth of things that they need. I know lots of therapists that don't accept marriage counseling patients unless they're going to do dual sessions.
It doesn't just have to be with marriage therapy. It...

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

You know they say record keepers are record breakers, so I have to ask you a question. What records do you keep? Well, there are certain statistics that I think every therapist needs to keep to know where they stand. First of all, you should track how many new patients you get each month. Second, how many patient visits you've had each month, and third, how many services you've rendered.

In other words, how many dollars worth of services you've rendered, and number four, how much you've collected. Now, what good do those do? Well, after you have amassed a group of about six or eight months, you can see whether your practice is going up or down or staying the same. You can also see what areas you're weak in and what areas you're strong in. Let me give you an example. The average therapist gets seven new patients a month.

If you average 10 or 12, you're above average. If you average four or five, you're below...

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

I find that many therapists run over in the therapy sessions. They schedule patients on the hour, but they'll run up to about 55, 60 minutes before they actually cut off the session, and then they either tight or they run behind. I suggest that you move to 45-minute sessions. This allows you to put in your notes and go home on time. Think about this with all your new patients, when you start to schedule them, say, "Here's how we work, our fee is $150, and we have 45-minute sessions, and I have sessions available on Thursday or on Friday, which day do you prefer?"

See, when they say Friday or Thursday, or even if they say, "Do you have anything on Saturday?" and you say yes, they've already agreed to $150 and they've already agreed to have 45-minute session. I think that if you move to 45-minute sessions, you'll feel much more rested, you'll do a better job, you'll get your notes done on time, and...

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

There are a lot of ways to encourage patients to stay under your care but one of the best ways is to give them an occasional progress report. Here is what I mean by that. About every 10 visits you should sit down with your patient and before you start the counseling session you should simply say, “Let’s recap what we’ve accomplished in the last 10 visits.” Then you can do it in two different ways. You can use the plan of care that you gave them at the beginning of their care and say, “ Here is what our goals are. Here is the ones we’ve accomplished. Here’s the ones we have yet to accomplish.” And give them just a progress report. The other way I like to do it is just look at my daily notes for the last 10 visits and say, “Well, we had problems with this when you came in and that’s gone. Your anxiety level was at a nine. Now you say it’s at a...