Balancing Act: Thriving in Private Practice While Homeschooling

Camille McDaniel (00:07.468)
Welcome back. And if you happen to be new here, then welcome. It’s wonderful to have you along for the journey. We are going to be taking some time in today’s episode to discuss something that is hitting all of us because it’s very close to home as in it’s happening now. It’s.

Camille McDaniel (00:40.654)
Welcome back to another episode. If you happen to be new here, I’m so glad that you found Christ in Private Practice podcast. Welcome to the journey. We are going to be talking today about something that is hitting very close to home because it’s actually happening right now, happening all around us. And we are right now as we are.

talking as I’m talking right now, we are currently facing in the United States and around the world, some economic pressures and some turmoil that we’re facing. We’re facing some tariff wars that have gone into effect and it’s pretty new. So we’re not exactly sure what that’s going to look like as everything plays out. Inflation is rising and the cost of just doing business has increased.

That impacts our private practices and therefore it impacts us as owners. So today we’re going to start a discussion about how to recession proof your private practice. And I’m going to be talking about some realistic, very actionable strategies that you can put in place right after you turn off from this particular podcast.

There are other podcasts that will also talk about sustainability. And so you may want to listen to this podcast and a few of the other ones and then start putting a plan in place. This is not going to be about fear. Again, this is Christ in private practice. It’s about faithful stewardship and just smart planning so that we can continue to do the work that the Lord has called us to do.

even through tough economic seasons. So let’s talk about what’s going on. Many clinicians may have noticed, or at least I’ve seen where some have noticed that there are fewer intakes. Now for some people, they are not experiencing that and that’s wonderful. But some are noticing that it’s a little bit more difficult for them to get to whatever number is full for them.

Camille McDaniel (03:02.478)
Some have noticed that clients have kind of dropped out of therapy for a little bit and some clients are a little hesitant to just start altogether. And then we have the issue of like, know, how when the economy is really tough, how that might impact cash pay clients. And then we have things going on with the insurance companies that have

kind of already been brewing as we have a lot of large tech companies that have entered into the mental health space and arena. And as they have kind of come into the space and they’ve made some kind of some deals and negotiated some things with the insurance companies, some people are even noticing that insurance companies are referring potential, they’re members.

potential clients for us, but they are referring some of their members to some of these larger companies that have entered into the mental health space. Whereas it used to be that the insurance companies may have more regularly referred to, you know, just regular private practices, whether solo or group, but these companies are like major conglomerates.

And there have been some individuals who have noted, some clinicians rather, who have noted that their clients may have shared that at one point in time, they were referred to one of the big companies that have entered the mental health space by their insurance company. So we’re just noticing a lot of different shifting. Some people are even noticing maybe shifting in…

in reimbursement or they’re trying to get higher reimbursements and experiencing some difficulty over time. You may notice that even for those of us who may rent out office spaces that rent is going up or that just the cost of doing business has increased, whether that happens to be supplies or that happens to be like your electronic health record, there’s just a lot going on.

Camille McDaniel (05:23.828)
I definitely want you to know that I am hearing it all like all over the place. So how do we start to address it really, you what are we going to do about it because we we do want to go ahead and put a plan in place. We don’t want to just sit around and and find ourselves either putting our head in the sand or or being nervous.

And so we’re going to just make this one thing clear. This is our foundation for like almost every episode that we hear, right? And that is that God is still our provider. God is still our provider and he has given us the ability to have wisdom and a plan for what is going to be coming ahead. All right, so we’re not going to walk around nervous.

We’re not going to start projecting that nervousness way far down into the future. We’re not going to do any of that. Instead, we’re going to be reminded of his greatness and we are going to be good stewards of what he has given to us, even our private practices. And we’re going to put a plan in place. And I know that you have heard me reference this scripture before, but I’m going to give it to you again. And that’s from the book of Luke chapter 14, verse 28 that says, for which of you intending to build a tower,

does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it. So this isn’t going to be an episode about scarcity thinking. This is not going to be any kind of fear mongering. Look, this is about clarity. So let’s look at what you can do today. And we’re going to start off with the first thing that you can do. And that’s looking at how you might be able to diversify your income, right?

So one of the ways that we can recession proof our private practices is to diversify our income streams. If all of our revenue comes from maybe let’s say just one-on-one therapy sessions, we might be a little vulnerable. Let’s say something happens like we talked about or talked about at the beginning of the episode opening.

Camille McDaniel (07:37.612)
Let’s say that maybe you’re noticing calls are kind of dropping or clients are taking a break or maybe some people have been laid off. You know, and so you notice that this has impacted your practice as the economy gets tighter. Sometimes that impacts cash practices. But if you have a diversification of income and your revenue doesn’t come only from just one stream, then you may allow yourself to be positioned in a way to be able to kind of buffer.

in case something does happen to one of the income streams. Okay? So you have a little bit of flexibility. Some of those options might be maybe you offer a virtual group. You start offering group support services because there are a lot of individuals who are looking to be able to gather and get support from others who actually know what they’re experiencing and you know they can feel like they are heard and understood.

And that’s like, whether it’s anxiety, whether it’s grief, whether it’s parenting, depression, I’ve had a number of clients that I have referred since the beginning of this year for group support as an adjunct to the individual counseling that we are doing. And I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback, thankfully, about how they felt like some of the groups were very real and honest or

they were glad to hear that the group wasn’t scared off by what they had to say because those individuals had experienced similar things or maybe even more severe things. And so they really felt like it was a place where they could be heard, where they could be understood. And that made them feel great. And that made me feel great because I knew that the client had some additional supports that they could turn to in between our sessions if they felt they needed it.

Here’s another idea, what about creating like a self-guided mini course or program, you know, on a topic that you’re already helping people with, but maybe this just goes into more depth for individuals who again, aren’t sure if they want to sign up for counseling, or it might be individuals that you are already seeing that just want to go even deeper on a self-guided journey, you know, outside of your sessions.

Camille McDaniel (10:00.192)
I know we did this in our own counseling practice over at Healing Psychotherapy Practices of Georgia. I created one program that is live now and I created another online wellness program that will be coming up next week. The one program is for clients or even other clinicians and it’s called The Woman Everyone Leans On.

reclaiming your time, health, and identity. And then there is going to be another program that’s coming out, another self-guided online program next week that’s gonna be called Body and Brain, The Overlooked Connection. And that’s gonna be for everybody. It could be students, it could be newer therapists, seasoned therapists, and definitely clients so that clients can best advocate for themselves.

recognizing that sometimes it’s not all in your head, but there are physical things that can impact or mimic mental health things. And there may be certain things that you can talk with your doctor about, that you can look into, or that you can ask questions in order to better advocate for your needs. So those are two things that were added to the support services that we already offer. That can allow us to be able to reach individuals

in ways that one-on-one may not allow. So what are some of the things that you focus on in your practice? Is there a way to go a little deeper with that? Maybe you can also then create an online wellness program or course, right? Well, there’s another thing that you can also do that is not really, it’s online, it’s digital. So not necessarily like a wellness program, but

You can do a downloadable that somebody can do. Maybe it’s a workbook. So maybe that one might be something you create and then they order. Or maybe a a journaling guide or a devotional. These are things that you could create and then start offering. Now, let’s be clear because I don’t want it to come across as you just create it real quick.

Camille McDaniel (12:11.628)
And then you start offering it and then instantly another stream comes in. Well, no, you create it and then you do need to share it. Ideally, you’ll have an email list because you can share it there. But if you don’t have an email list, you may want to think about getting one. That’s just good for staying fresh in somebody’s mind, staying at the forefront of their brain, right? And being able to reach out to them with different supports that you may have.

along the way. As years pass, those individuals may not even be in your practice anymore but if they have given permission for you to put their name on an email list, you never know when getting a newsletter from you might just jog their their memory. I cannot tell you how many times whenever the newsletter goes out, someone schedules that maybe I haven’t seen in a while that says I would like an appointment.

And so, so there is some connection. And I’ve seen that over years, like, you know, pretty regularly. So there’s some connection with being able to stay in touch with those who give permission to be on your newsletter list and being able to have individuals stay connected with their mental health and wellness journey. And again, then you can also share with them, even if they don’t come into your office, maybe at that time in their life.

they do need a devotional or a journaling guide or a workbook, whatever it is that you have created. So again, let’s be reminded, like remember the story of the the parable of the talents, like you know, each person was given a certain measure of money and those who actually did something with the money multiplied it was

they were praised but the person who actually dug it into the ground and basically buried their talents was kind of admonished pretty harshly for it. And that actually comes from the book of Matthew verse or chapter 25 of verse 14 through 30. And it’s verse 29 where it says for everyone who has more will be given and he will have abundance but from him who does not have

Camille McDaniel (14:24.584)
even what he has will be taken away. So we want to use the talents and the gifts that God has placed within us to multiply those gifts and talents and be shared with the rest of the world. And you will have ideas. You do have things that the world needs. You want to just, if you have not already, take a moment and start thinking about it. This is something that I also help other clinicians do, whether it’s creating additional services,

or start to kind of narrow down what it is that they actually could offer and start to think about what is that title going to look like? What’s it going to entail? How do we break that down? So we want to keep that in the back of our mind. Let’s move on to something else that we can also do in order to help ourselves to recession proof our private practice. Let’s take a look at some of the financial strategies that we can put in place.

Getting ourselves ready in that way. We want to ask ourselves first and foremost when we are talking about getting ourselves ready financially is what’s the bare minimum that we need in order to even run our practice, to keep our practice afloat each month?

This kind of goes back to something I talked about in a previous episode about sustainability. We want to know our numbers. We have to know our numbers. So do you know what it costs to run your practice? How much altogether will everything total up to be? Now, is that the bare minimum, right?

And we’ll kind of like address that when I’m talking about ways that we can kind of cut back. You want to make sure that that’s not all the extra frills and all of that. That’s just the bare minimum. Do you know what that is about in your head? And then you look at that bare minimum and you want to then start kind of looking at like how to create a cushion. Should there be some slow down in your practice?

Camille McDaniel (16:37.654)
Start building up three to six months of business emergency fund is crucial. Start building up three to six months of expenses so that if things start to slow down, you have a buffer. I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed by the idea of three to six months of expenses. Think about it like this.

What would you tell your client? You would tell them start somewhere. Start with $5 a month. Start with $10 a month. Start wherever you’re able to. If you can put aside $100 a month, just start building a little bit of a fund. It’s okay. Just get started, okay?

take a look at your current expenses and start looking at your subscriptions. Now this is where I said, you know what, we’ll talk about it real quick so that you don’t feel so overwhelmed by having to create this like emergency fund, right? What subscriptions do you hold right now that honestly, you don’t really need? That could be that you’re on multiple directories, but when you look at the directories that you’re on,

Maybe out of all of the directories that you’re on, you really only get referrals from like two. Well, if you’ve been on those directories month after month after month and you’re paying for it, but you’re not ever getting any referrals, could you actually throw that bit of money into an emergency fund instead? It probably would be a much better use of your money since you’re not getting a return on investment.

What is the return on investment? That’s the question that you want to ask yourself, right? Maybe there are other types of subscriptions that you had. I don’t know. There might be a number of things that you once upon a time signed up for, but when you look back, you’re not using them anymore, or you have already used them and you don’t really need it anymore. You’ve moved on to something else. Can you cancel that? You know, if you’ve moved on, you don’t need it anymore, you’re not using it. Can you go ahead and cancel?

Camille McDaniel (18:56.568)
Take that money, put it towards your emergency fund, all right? So if there’s software that you’re using, if there’s subscriptions that you have, whatever it is, if you don’t need it, scale back. If you happen to know that there’s something that you’re going to use, like for the long haul, go ahead and if you can, purchase the annual package versus doing the monthly payments.

Because sometimes what happens is that while the monthly payments are small chunks, right, but you end up actually paying more over the course of a year. So if you actually purchase the annual plan and you actually know this is something that you’re going to need regularly, you end up saving some money in the long haul. I understand if you can do it, great, and if you can’t, that’s fine, but there’s something to consider for things that you know you’re going to use long term.

Okay, the next thing that you want to kind of look at is like, what are you doing with your payment and fee schedules? As in, this is going to go back to our sustainability episode where we took a look at, hey, are you offering sliding scale appointments? Are you offering pro bono appointments? Have you actually looked at your numbers, as in numbers.

going back to like how much money do you actually need to bring in to cover your expenses and your responsibilities. So when you look at your numbers and how much you need to bring in, are you accepting the appropriate number of sliding scales? Are you accepting the appropriate number of pro bono or have you overextended yourself to the point where maybe you are causing your budget to go in the negative every month?

And that’s no good. So make sure that when you take a look at how you’re spending your finances, you also take a look at your fees and the structure of your fees and just make sure that in your give back areas. So if you’re giving back through sliding scale or you’re giving back through pro bono, just make sure you have calculated and are taking the right number so that the numbers all line up.

Camille McDaniel (21:21.614)
make sure that you have prayed on it. Because even though I know, when you think about Christ and marketing, we gotta put it together because sometimes the Lord will instruct you to take somebody on and you’re like, hmm, but the numbers aren’t really adding up. But if the Father tells you and you absolutely get the green light that the Lord has told you to do it, he’s got you covered. Go ahead and do it. Okay? Let’s go ahead and talk about

The next area that’s going to help us recession proof our private practice and that is going to be we really, really, really want to hang tight to relationships. are literally, we are gonna double down on the way that we connect with others in the community, people we have connected with already and people that we may not have connected with quite yet.

So when things get tight in the world economically, it can be easy to kind of isolate ourselves, know, kind of go quiet, find ourselves getting a little nervous in that isolation. But this is actually the time to just start leaning into connection really strongly, lean in. So go ahead. And again, I talked about just a minute ago, if you have a newsletter and maybe you have not,

actually sent out a newsletter in a while, go ahead and fire that bad boy up and so and get get a newsletter out so that you can reconnect with past clients and maybe encourage a check-in. Reach out and make new connections. Reach out to pastors, reach out to ministry leaders, reach out to schools, although

School will be coming to an end soon, I know, in the South. And in the North, I think you all are going to be going just a little bit longer. you may be able to make a connection there, but maybe not. Go ahead and make sure you’re connecting with other colleagues, because maybe you see a population that they do not see, and it might actually be a good fit. So for example, let’s say

Camille McDaniel (23:45.662)
you work with children and you connect with a colleague who actually works with couples, maybe even high conflict couples who have children, and you may want to partner with them to provide services for the children of those couples. You know, just look at how you might be able to make connections in the community, doctors, offices, all of that non-profits.

even if it’s just to educate them on services that you offer or maybe even offering a workshop, know, offering workshops. That’s another stream of potential income that I didn’t mention, I think, a little earlier in our time together, but something to think about. Remember, people still need help.

You know, especially in times like these. In times like these, mental health needs definitely increase. So you know that people are really feeling it. Maybe they’re feeling fear or anxiety. They may even be worried about spending the money at this particular time on their own health and wellness. So you wanna stay visible, stay present, keep on offering hope.

keep on connecting with people and it can definitely be helpful over the period of time that we are possibly going to be entering into. The next thing that you want to look at, well, what are some things that you might be able to do that can kind of help the office run a little bit better as in like, you know, with appointments or like appointment reminders?

This might be a period of time where you want to look, do you have a number of people who happen to be forgetting about their appointments, missing their appointments, thinking that they are having an appointment but it’s at the wrong time that they show up? So maybe you want to start looking into appointment reminders at this point in time to see if that helps kind of the appointment retention, if you will. Maybe you want to start implementing a

Camille McDaniel (26:01.666)
telehealth only day to maybe cut back on the amount of gas that you actually are using, getting to and from the office, if that’s something that might help. Again, let’s just generate things that you can kind of think about so that you can put these things in place. Maybe you might be able to, I don’t know, instead of maybe having an assistant that you

you know, at this point in time are paying a lot of hours in order to do certain things. Well, maybe you might be able to have an intern help a little bit in certain areas that then may allow you to kind of cut back on some virtual assistant hours. Again, this all depends on what your practice is really needing and where each person is proficient and can do the job well. So we only really want to make sure that

outsource things at this point in time if it’s going to contribute to our return on investment. So every decision you want to just ask yourself, does this help me to serve my clients more efficiently, more sustainably? Is this going to help my practice in the long haul even through difficult times? All right.

In all that we do, we want to just make sure that we stay grounded, we stay rooted in our word. And so one of the things that I want us to do and just kind of let it all sink in is just to remember a scripture I’m going to share from the book of Philippians chapter four and verse 19. And it says, is one, we, well, it says this.

And my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And so what we want to do is we want to make sure that as we show up and we put this plan in place that the Lord God Almighty, he’s faithful. He is on the throne. He is governing and watching over us and our businesses. We are going to be good stewards.

Camille McDaniel (28:26.412)
We are going to be putting plans in place and we are going to release the rest knowing that it is going to be his will and his way that we submit to and all the things that we do. So let’s just make sure that before we end our time together that we remember these quick actions that you can take. You’re going to go ahead and you’re going to audit your services. Make sure that you are

giving yourself the opportunity to create more than one stream of income, we are going to reconnect with referral sources. Go ahead and reconnect with at least three. Like say, these are the three people I’m definitely going to reconnect with. And then go ahead and do it even this week. Make sure that you are evaluating your pricing structure. Make sure that it’s all balanced and then it’s not actually overextending in ways that are going to hurt your business.

And then go ahead, the last thing is make sure to open up a savings account and you are going to get started today with whatever amount of money you can throw in there. Again, remember, I don’t care if it’s $5, $20, $100, $1,000, just start somewhere, okay? You are definitely, you’re called a…

to do what you are doing and you know it doesn’t matter rain or shine, economic troubles or not, we are not going to be afraid, we are just going to plan accordingly. And if you need any help with planning accordingly, I help clinicians with that. You can go to christinprivatepractice.com and you can see about the services that we have in order to support our clinicians who are doing great work.

for the kingdom. And if you happen to want to take a look at what it looks like to kind of create a online wellness course, then you can go right on over to healingpsychotherapyga.com and you can take a look at our online programs page and there you will find the program that is currently live, the woman that everyone leans on, and then you will also see the program that will be live next week.

Camille McDaniel (30:51.392)
Until we meet again, God bless. We’re gonna do it, or we’re gonna do it together.

CPP Ep. 32 Recession Proof Your Private Practice