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

You want to see the gift that keeps on giving? Here it is. It's a gift card and this makes any promotion that you have a better promotion. Let me explain. Let's say you go to a church and you say, "I'd like you to send anybody that needs counseling to me." You're talking to the counseling pastor. At the end, you say, "And I have these gift cards that are worth $100 that I give for the person that you refer to me. The first day is at no charge." Naturally, they'll refer to you as opposed to someone else.
Now, let's say you go to the school counselor and you say, "If you have people that you can't meet with because you can't counsel with families, you got to keep it with just your children, and you have to send them out, why don't you send them to me?" They say, "We have a list of therapists that we're going to send to." You say, "Okay, but I have a gift card and it's worth $100. The first day will be no...

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

You know, one of the things I have found over time is that the therapists that grow are therapists that have energy in their practice. Now, you don't have to be a wild person or anything like that or be flamboyant. You just have to be full of energy.
One of the things I say is your practice is going to grow when you are one step more enthusiastic, one step more energetic, than your patient. Now, you can't be a wild person. If the person comes in and they're depressed, you have to be just a little more energy than them. If they come in and they're doing pretty well, you have to be just a little bit higher than them. Wherever they're at, you have to be one step higher than they are because people will go to the place where the energy flows from. If they get energy from you, they will keep coming to you.
I used to have a therapist that was working for us, and she was very slow in her walk and in her approach. She...

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

A lot of people ask, as therapist, what type of business entity should I be? There are various types of entities. You can be a sole proprietorship, you can be an LLC or an LLP, you can be a corporation of some kind, but I'll tell you the most common kind is some derivation of the LLC. That's the most common kind.
Now, if you are real small and only going to see one or two or three people a week, perhaps you can stay as a sole proprietor. If you're going to be seeing more than just a few people a week, if you're going to be a real business, so to speak, I think you'll want to form an LLC. You can form an LLC in different ways. You can have an attorney form one for you. It's going to cost you somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000 probably.
You can form one through Legal Zoom or Rocket Lawyer or something like that. That's going to cost you probably $250 to $300, and that's a good way. Or you can literally do it...

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

One of the things I notice about therapist offices is sometimes they get a little old looking without the therapist noticing it. I was at a therapist's office several years ago now, and I walked in and the hallway was dimly lit. About half of the fluorescent bulbs are out. There were dust bunnies in the corner. There was an orange shag carpet. It was a terracotta type wall on the outside and it just was dingy. You know what? He charged $40 for his therapy sessions, just $40.
I went to another therapist that same week, had a really nice looking office, had stone stacked front on their desk, had a granite top where you check in, granite top where you checked out, had music playing in the background, had free coffee, had a TV running with information on it. Really nice place, a lot of nice music in the neutral areas of the clinic. She charged $150 and I'll submit to you that they both were charging about the...

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

Most therapists eventually find a niche. When you're first in practice you're eager to get every new patient that walks. If there's a new patient that comes in, you want to take them as long as you feel like you can do a good job with whatever their situation may be. As you get more involved in your practice, we find that the practices that really grow and the therapists that have the most fun are those practices and those therapists who have a niche, who have found a niche.
Now, I don't care what your niche is. I talked to one person recently whose niche was PTSD with Vietnam era veterans. That's a fairly small niche but she was in a base where she could take advantage of that as a good niche to have. Maybe your niche is adoption, maybe your niche is marriage counseling, maybe your niche is affairs. I don't care what your niche is, but you'll find that you have more fun and attract more patients if you...

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

If there's one thing I see that therapists do that's unusual, is they almost always underestimate their overhead. I asked them how much their overhead is, and they say, "About 1,500 a month." I say, "How much do you make and how much you collect each month?" They say, "$10,000." I say, "Okay, that means that you have $8,500 that you take home every month. That's $100,000 a year." They say, "No, no, I only take home $60,000 a year." The problem is they have underestimated their overhead.
What you have to do is you have to look on your taxes and say, "Here's what I did for total collections. Here's what I took home. Divide those out, and you'll find what your true overhead is." Now, one of the ways you can find your overhead that I try to bring therapists around to understanding their overhead a little better is by using forms, and there are lots of templates online. One of my like is called...

This is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants and I have a Tip for you!

People a lot of times ask us, ‘what are the most prevalent and best software out for billing insurance?’. The first thing I would say is this, every therapist should be using their own software. Sometimes I see a therapist that accepts insurance and they will go to Blue Cross to file, Aetna to file, UHC to file. It is better having your own software. If you would like to have something free, I suggest that you use Practice Mate which is by Office Ally. Just look up Office Ally and Practice Mate. It has a great billing system and is absolutely free. If you are a cash practitioner, I would use this type of software to keep your practice organized and your notes organized. If you can afford to pay for software, there are two that have become the king of the hill in the last few years. These are Therapy Appointment and Therapy Notes. We use Therapy Appointment in our office, and we are fans of Therapy...