Knowing Your Dollar Visit Average (DVA)
A lot of therapists ask me, how many dollars should I be collecting per patient?
That’s a hard thing to say because if you take insurance it’s one thing, if you take cash it’s another thing. If you’ve been in practice for a long time and have a good name and good reputation it’s one thing. If you’re brand new it’s another thing, but let me give you some real general guidelines.
First of all, whether you take insurance or don’t take insurance, you should have a Dollar Visit Average of at least $65 a visit. If you have less than $65 a visit, you either are not charging enough or you have too many people that you’re giving away services for free, or your billing is behind or you’re billing incorrectly and not getting paid but something’s happening. If you have a Dollar Visit Average of less than $65, you probably have to look seriously that you might some financial mistake going on. Now, you may say, I have some EAPs...
Intensives
Hi. This is Dave Kats from Therapist Consultants.
I have a tip for you. Have you ever thought about doing intensives? You know what intensives are? Intensives are sessions that you do that are longer than just your 50 minute sessions. It could be that you do a three hours intensive. It could be that you do a 6 hour, 8 hour, 12 hour, even 18 hour intensive.
I have two therapists that work with this and do intensives very well. They specialized in marriage therapy. If a married couple is having a problem, they always give them the opportunity to go through an intensive rather than to get their care 50 minutes at a time spread over 18 weeks. This couple can come in and they can get a lot of their needs and lot of their work behind them just by doing this intensive.
If there is a situation where there’s been unfaithfulness in a relationship, or if one partner is trying to decide whether to stay or to leave, probably 50 minutes once a week for a while isn’t enough. The...
Group Sessions
Therapist Consultants - Group Sessions from David Kats on Vimeo.
This is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants and I have a tip for you.
One of the things I’ve found that most advanced therapist do is they have group sessions. Of course, they meet with their clients or their patients individually, but they usually have one or two groups going during the week.
I think that’s a great way to handle people who may not need one-on-one care. There are a lot of patients that come to you and they may come to you for 15 or 18 visits and then they pretty much completed their care and they don’t have an imminent problem right now, but you want to keep them in the fold, so to speak, so nothing develops.
One of the good ways to do that is have them join a group. I think the main reason therapists don’t start groups is because number one, they don’t know if they can fill a group, and number two, they don’t know exactly what they’ll say during the group.
...
Future Appointments
I know an important statistic that I bet you don't keep and still it's very important, and that is the No Future Appointments statistic.
Do you keep track of how many people leave your office without having another appointment scheduled? It's critical to the growth of your practice. It makes all the difference in the world as far as your practice is concerned. Let's say that you have a real good day and you see nine people today, you have nine people scheduled and all nine show up. At the end of the day, you say, “Well, that was wonderful, I had a great day”. But, you go to the front, let's say you have a staff person and the staff person tells you that not one of the nine made a future appointment. Now you say, “Man, I had a terrible day”, because nobody rescheduled. Well, what was the difference? The difference was that people didn't make an appointment.
So, how do you keep track of that? I suggest, on your appointment book, you keep track of...
CEU Seminars
Hi. This is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants. I have a tip for you.
Now this tip isn’t for everyone. I find that lot of therapists not only are good listeners but they are good teachers and they like to teach things. Well, I would suggest that if you’re at the right place at the right stage in your practice, that maybe you think about giving some seminars. One of the best ways to get started doing seminars is to do seminars for CEUs.
I have different groups in our organization that get together and do seminars for CEUs around the state, and really you only have to get your seminar approved by the State Association or the Board of Examiners, and you get CEU hours for it. You just advertise the thing. You collect at the door. You collect an advance. You give the seminar. You keep track of the hours that you’ve given. You have people sign in and sign out, and you’re automatically given CEUs. Now there’s a little more involved than that, but you get...
Becoming A Supervisor
Hi, this is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants and I have a tip for you.
Have you ever thought about being a supervisor? A lot of therapists become supervisors and it can be profitable and helpful to your profession in lots of different ways.
Let me give you an example. I have one therapist who has five interns that she supervises. They all work in her office, they all get their own patients, and she pays them just $25 per session. She collects anywhere from $75 to $100 a session.
I talked to her the other day and we did some calculations and she makes $3500 profit on those therapists, those interns that she’s supervising, every single month. I’m not saying that you have to do that; you can just do one at a time, but I want to explain to you how successful it is to have a person that you supervise.
It varies state by state. In most states, a supervisor will supervise someone for approximately three years until they get their hours and they’ll have a meeting...
Cash
David Kats: Hi, this is Dr. David Kats and Dr. Michael Perusich. We have a video tip for you. Most people now are thinking about moving to a cash basis, either to a total cash basis or a partial cash basis. You have to decide what to do in your practice because insurance companies are paying less and less and less every year. Just this year, their deductibles went way up and the-- What they're paying went way down.
Michael Perusich: Yes, the reimbursement trends keep going down. Analyze your practice. We recommend doing an excel spreadsheet, and if you're a member, we already have that spreadsheet built for you, get it on the back office, but we recommend that you analyze your insurance companies and see what your reimbursement is compared to what your fees are. You may be really surprised. You may find that many of the codes that you're submitting to insurance are not getting paid well.
David: Yes, as a result, you'd probably be better either going to cash with that insurance...
