Clinicians, This Is Your Moment: How to Pivot and Grow Right Now

Camille McDaniel (00:00)
announcement before today’s episode. The book Medical Mimics, a guide to distinguishing physiological from psychological symptoms is now available on Amazon. This book was developed from a consistent clinical pattern observed over 20 plus years in practice. Clients presenting with psychological symptoms that were later found to have underlying medical contributors. It is designed as a

practical resource to support clinicians as well as graduate students You can purchase and recommend it on Amazon. Now let’s get started

Camille McDaniel (01:03)
Welcome back to Christ in Private Practice. Today we’re going to be talking about something that a lot of clinicians are noticing and already talking about.

but we’re gonna also talk about the solution to what we’re noticing and ⁓ how to get started today. So what we’re noticing is that the fact that the mental health field is definitely changing. We don’t have to ask anymore if it’s changing. We already know it is. And it is changing in pretty big ways. So we’re actually seeing that there are a lot of venture capitalists that are entering into the spaces that are backing

⁓ certain platforms, creating new platforms, doing deals. We have a lot going on. We have AI that has already become a large part of mental health, whether it’s helping with documentation, whether it’s helping our clients and they’re coming to session saying, so I ran this through chat GPT or I ran this through whatever program they happen to be using, you so we know that that’s a big factor already. We’ve already asked a lot of questions around AI and

mental health care, can it take our jobs? And there’s just a lot of conversation going around there and just large platforms in general, even hospital settings. So for many clinicians, there’s just this underlying question of where do I fit in all of this? Is there still room for what I do? Now, if we don’t know that answer, the answer is yes, there is still room for what you do absolutely.

Absolutely.

And where do you fit in all of it? Well, we’re going to talk through how to actually not identify where you fit, but to identify how you can jump right on in and keep rocking and rolling with everyone else, but shine brightly. Okay, so we want to walk through today in a very grounded, clear way, how we can actually not only identify the changes that are

going on so that we’re just up to date on what’s happening around us but then start kind of talking like I said earlier about what we can do about it, some actionable steps that we can take. So let’s just go ahead and name it clearly. Let’s jump right on in. The first thing that I talked about were the venture capitalists and the platforms, right? There are a lot of platforms that we are very familiar

with and some of us, some of you who are listening to this podcast, some of you are on these platforms so you are very familiar with what we’re talking about but this is really big. A lot of the venture capitalists are putting major money behind these platforms. For example, United Health Services actually just acquired an online behavioral health counseling platform called Talkspace. I’m sure some of you all have heard of Talkspace if you have

Talkspace is an online behavioral health and counseling platform. Well, UHS purchased Talkspace for a whopping $835 million.

Okay, so nobody is spending that kind of money for something that they don’t believe could really be valuable, which tells us where where they’re headed. They’re seeing something in mental health care and they are definitely trying to get a piece of the action they already have, right?

So we have we have them and they’re they’re backing the venture capitalist backing of the different platforms. We know that therapy is now obviously scaling with rapid speed and that means that more people have faster access to mental health care, which is good, right? But also we noticed that that is more insurance integration and also something is changing with the referrals because whereas it used to be that these platforms, these large platforms were

available and people could just go google and maybe sometimes they these platforms would pop up in the google searches and people could then just go and ask and see if their insurance could be you know used. Now these platforms, they are actually talking to the insurance companies directly and insurance companies are referring clients directly to these platforms

some of these platforms are also taking the next step and getting the therapists that join the platforms, they are getting them credentialed with insurance. Now I will say that is actually kind of nice, a nice service but you do have to just be aware

that they’re not credentialing you under your own tax ID. They are credentialing you under their tax ID. So you just want to make an informed decision. Some people are absolutely fine with that. Some people don’t know that. And so they don’t realize that they are, yes, they feel like they’re working for themselves because they’re like 1099, but they are not credentialed with insurance companies under their own business name. It’s under the name of the platform that they work for.

So if they decide to leave and you

go back to just doing their own practice, they will have to make sure to kind of start over with regards to their reimbursement rates because the reimbursement rates belong to the company they work for. That doesn’t actually transfer over to your own private practice. So that just little snippet just in case, know, doesn’t necessarily have a lot to do with our episode today, but I just want to kind of throw that out there for your awareness. I also want to throw out there because I have seen where people have said,

how do I get around that? One of the things that you will need to do is if you are practicing on one of the online platforms and you also are maintaining your private practice on the side, then you’re going to want to reach out to the insurance companies and try to negotiate rates for your practice. Many of them allow you to do that annually.

and you are going to want to make the case for your specialization in the area that you’re practicing in and how that specialization may bring value to an area that doesn’t have a lot of that specialization. You may also want to bring and highlight the fact that you are

trained and and have been licensed for x number of years which may also be a value you know and any additional specialties in training that you get you’ll want to be able to present all of that just to make your case for why they should actually increase your rates. They do require that okay. So now back to what we were talking about with the way that things are changing and all of the different things that are coming into the scene like the Venture Capatalists and also AI. You know AI and mental health is definitely

showing up and yes it is allowing our clients to get support and sometimes it is allowing clinicians to get support especially with regards to their treatment planning and note-taking but also it is allowing us to just kind of have tools like it’s generating like homework assignments for people or booklets that people can give their clients and offer guidance in between sessions. It’s it’s assisting in a lot of ways for both the clinician and also the client.

and that can also raise some questions because the clinician might say you know will AI replace me you know and but I want to be clear about that with regards to can AI replace you. At this time AI does not have the capacity to fully replace many mental health professionals. Now

it can be deceiving because it can definitely give some good responses, but it doesn’t have the gift of discernment. So you may have two people that are presenting in your counseling practice and they both may have the same issue. Maybe that happens to be work-related stress, but what one person happens to be dealing with is triggering something that they told you seven sessions ago versus the other person where it might be triggering something that only happened once

session ago and the two things that are being triggered can be absolutely different and take you in totally different directions as to how you move forward and helping them to process and helping them to develop the skills and helping them to advocate, set boundaries and that those are the nuances that AI they’re not good, it’s not good with. It’s not taking full history. It’s not prompting people for that. It’s not then going back into

previous sessions to say, hey, when we took this evaluation, this is something you brought up. I think this could actually be a cycle. Let’s look at the cycle. Let’s look at how it presents today. It’s not doing all of that. It’s very black and white, and dry. It’s very much about patterns. And human behavior doesn’t have just a set pattern. It has patterns with nuances. And that’s where AI starts to fumble. ⁓

And sometimes I’ve even actually had a client or matter of fact, not very long ago, a client said they had to check AI and they were like, because AI gave them some advice that they felt was diminishing their voice. And they were like, hold on, wait a minute, because we have talked about this in my counseling sessions and I had to check AI real quick. So, you know, if people don’t have that awareness, they may fall into taking advice that is

actually not good for them overall. And that is where you can come in with your voice and we’ll get to that later because we need to add some healthy information to maybe counter what people are experiencing through AI. But overall, I don’t see that AI would be able to totally, totally replace us in a way that is just as valuable as what we bring to the table.

although it can present with some tools and some tips and some outlines for free. And that definitely appeals to some people for sure.

The next thing that we want to know about the changes or I want to share with you is that there are actually hospitals that are jumping into this kind of behavioral health platform creation. I know that I actually got a survey from a local hospital that has, it’s kind of like a network. they have their multidisciplinary team. So they touch on a lot of different factors and behavioral health, mental health is included.

they might be, it looks like, might be trying to create something of a platform for themselves because the survey that they gave me asked questions about would I be willing to actually see people for counseling, partner with them to see people who needed counseling services. Then they started asking questions like what would you need in order to make this?

this a lot more easier for you to perform your tasks? Would you need admin help? Would you need billing help? Would you be open to using our platform for documentation? You know, it was those it was those kinds of questions which led me to believe, they’re looking to actually expand and kind of create.

And they talked about that a little bit in some of the survey questions, something about multidisciplinary team and having access to multiple disciplines and them having access to you. So that actually sounded pretty nice, but that just lets you know there are different thoughts and different ventures and projects that are on the horizon so that more large industries are looking to enter into the mental health space.

for yourself, then you may question again, where does that leave me? How do I pivot? What do I do? What might be the impact? So we’re going to talk through some of that. But yeah, so when the hospitals they’re joining the game, if there’s already hospitals doing this in your area.

and in my area it looks like maybe there’s some who are looking to do this in the future, then it’s going to probably bring some positives, I would say, because to be able to have access to multiple disciplines,

it might be a client who’s struggling with an eating disorder and now you have access to a nutritionist who’s in this multiple multidisciplinary team. You might have you know access to a medical physician who might be able to help and and so they may then have access to you and be able to reach out if they notice that one of their patients is is probably needing something along the lines of mental health. So in that way I mean that is really nice because one of the challenges and one of the reasons why

I even wrote the book Medical Mimics is because there’s a gap between the disciplines and and we really need to be a little bit more aware of how we can come together and how we can kind of help each other. So that won’t necessarily be a bad thing but it definitely will be something that could cause us to have to rethink how we do business for those of us who are in practice for ourselves and how we connect. So

the reality of it is just that mental health is no longer just a relational thing that happens in a small office. Mental health care is an industry and it doesn’t look like people are backing down from jumping into this industry more and more. And that can feel unsettling, but…

like I said, it creates opportunity. And so we want to kind of look into like okay so how can clinicians build in this season you know while we’re seeing all these changes happening around and

And it’s not so much of, again, like we said, do we build now? Do we make changes now? Are things really changing? Because we already know they absolutely are. So what we want to really look at is how do we build wisely based on the changes that we see are already here? And let’s kind of go over some of that, some of this.

you might already be doing, which congratulations to you if you are. But some of this you may not have thought about, and maybe you’re at capacity, you’re trying to do so many things in your life, you’re like, you know what, I just do not have the time, the bandwidth to think about one more thing. And that’s why on this episode, we’re gonna be going over it together. So the first thing is we want to build direct connections.

We are not going to be able to rely on systems alone and those systems are like platforms or counseling directories. Those are definitely helpful. Don’t get me wrong. But we just are not going to be able to depend on those alone the way we once did. Now in some areas of the country, especially more rural areas,

that might work out a little bit better but remember now with telehealth you you know people are not confined to just finding a mental health professional in just their area. Now they can find anyone licensed in the whole state and we also have many mental health professionals who are licensed in multiple states and that will just probably continue to grow especially as like things like the counseling compact.

get really off and running.

So we want to work on building our direct connections outside of just our platforms. Because here’s the thing, you know, you can jump on a platform like a social media platform, but does everyone even see it? We already know that there’s algorithms to everything on social media. And you may have a lot of people you’re connected to and a lot of followers or a lot of

friends, but they may not all see your posts because we already have seen where some of these platforms are controlling that and it’s causing people to not be able to get their message out as well.

If it happens to be a directory, you know, like a counseling directory, well then one thing that we know with the counseling directory is that sometimes you don’t even show up on the first page of people. So certain zip codes on certain directories, they actually will just show maybe what, 10, 15 people at a time, and then it just goes to the next page. You might be on page three. You might be on page one.

You might be on page 10. It just depends on how many people are practicing in your area.

So again, that’s not necessarily the only thing that we want to use when we are trying to make connections, not in this day and time, not in this day and time. So you definitely want to begin with making sure that you have a way of staying connected, whether that happens to be with referral sources or that happens to be with current or past clients. This is going to go right on back to that email list that I talk about.

ways to stay connected to people directly and start to really build relationship. It does not matter how big your email list is. That does not matter. It matters that you just get started. You may decide to have an email list for referral sources and an email list for current and past clients where you are going to keep both of them updated in different ways or if your information is applicable to both, then you can just keep them on the same list.

You do not have to worry about creating the most fancy, you know, news articles and you don’t have to worry about putting things out every week, please.

We are not going to overwhelm ourselves. We just want to make sure to stay in the person’s consciousness because these venture capitalists and these platforms online, they are doing a phenomenal job of showing up regularly. They are showing up on radio stations, on television. They’re sometimes even in movie commercials. They are reaching out to very popular influencers online.

and they’re doing deals with them. So they’re making themselves known so much that they don’t really need personal relationship because they are able to flood the market with a message multiple times. So they just become a part of your awareness even if you’re not thinking about it all the time consciously. There it’s still back there. So to counteract that

we need to make sure we’re building genuine connection even if it’s small. The next thing and we’ve talked about this too in a previous episode on like slaying the Goliaths,

The next thing is that we want to make sure that we are networking. Multicultural networking is what we were talking about in a previous episode because we want to cross over lines. We don’t want to stay just where we’re comfortable. We want to reach out to others who are going to be able to partner with us and do some good work for those who are sent our way. So this is still going to be a very powerful, powerful strategy and I want to make sure to bring it back because I want to make sure that you are

actually doing it. want reaching out, this is reaching out whether it’s churches, whether it’s school settings, whether it happens to be referral sources like doctors or happens to be other professionals that specialize in certain things that are adjunct to what you do.

Maybe it’s professionals that do what you do and they don’t have any room for any more people and they need to be able to refer when they’re full to someone that they trust. Community organizations, different spaces with different people because

While all of these other larger systems are scaling, we need to remember that relationships, they are still powerful and it’s what people will always choose first when it comes to care. People will take a referral from somebody that they know that they trust before they listen to a commercial. They

prefer to have oftentimes a relationship where they have been able to determine whether they trust this person and this person could know what they’re talking about and they’re really good ⁓ versus just having to pick which commercial sounds kind of alright because there are a lot of commercials and a lot of platforms. So remember relationships are still key, very very powerful. The next thing we want to make sure

that we are very clear in the way we are positioning ourselves. Because people aren’t just looking for a therapist. They literally want to know specifically that you understand them, that you align with their values, that you can help with the specific struggle that they are seeking.

They want to know, they’re looking. They’re looking at your profile online. They’re looking at your website online. They’re trying to make sure that they’re not just getting someone who’s like jack of all trades, master of none. They want to actually see that you have something on your profile, your website that shows you know what they’re dealing with. So that actually makes a big difference. There needs to be clarity around what you do.

that matters now more than it ever did. We have really got to be very clear about what we do and that clarity is going to also help us as we develop our message with our clients, with our referral systems and moving forward. So.

let’s look at like more about building around those systems, let’s talk about how you can actually build something because I want to keep it realistic right and I know that everyone

is not on the same page with what they want to create for their business. So everyone doesn’t want to necessarily start a podcast or have a huge platform or, you know, create something very overwhelming. Not everyone wants to do that. And I get that. So let’s just kind of look at what are some of the options and ideally some of these options that we talk about are going to resonate with some of you, most of you. So you’ll be able to say, oh yeah,

definitely, I definitely could do that or yeah I’m excited to think about the possibilities of doing that. So I talked about this one and that was the email content. So the first option is for you to start putting in your

intake packets, a small question that says you know something along the lines of would you allow us to send you information so that you can stay updated on what our practice is doing and plans on doing in the future to support mental health and your mental health needs. And it’s just a yes or no and if they happen to say yes then there’s a space for them to put their email address and or they have already put their email address in and some question up.

further up in your intake packet and then you’ll just take that email address and you’re going to just throw that right on in to a online

email system, an email management system like a MailChimp or an Aweber or there’s there’s actually quite a few. I can’t even think of all of them off the top of my head but there’s a lot of places where you can put names in and they they even have some where it’s free unless you go over a certain number of people on your email list. Like it’s free unless you go over like 100 or 200 people or something like that. You can kind of look around now because there are definitely a lot to

from and here’s why that is I think a better idea than just sending out bulk emails in the blind carbon copy because we definitely have to keep people’s information private.

but you know people have an option then to unsubscribe. Like you know people might actually really need what you are offering in your newsletter for a long time but then there might be a point in time where they pivot. They just pivot. Life pivots for them. They don’t need the information anymore. They don’t need the updates and you don’t really want to then spam someone because they really want to get off the list and they you have given them no option for how to get off the list. So it’s

It

can be, email lists can be very simple and powerful where you can share your insights. And you don’t even have to feel overwhelmed that you have to do it weekly. That probably is a lot, but it can just be something where you do even if it’s twice a month or once a month where you are encouraging people and educating people. Twice a month might actually be good and then you can check your open rates and you can see what people are really doing with their.

what they’re liking as far as like how often that you send. And this is a way for you to just again, building trust and familiarity. The next thing, here’s another one that you can think about, short form audio content. Okay, so you don’t even need a full on podcast. You don’t have to do that. I actually do this for my practice, Healing Psychotherapy Practices of Georgia. I have…

a podcast called The Steady Reset and it’s really it’s in podcast form but what I did was I have I think on my website there are now five but they are short form kind of podcast bursts and they are probably when I say short form they are no more than two minutes or so. I don’t I don’t think any of them reaches three minutes and they are just

small bits of information tailored to my ideal client.

I did this so that when people come to my website and they click on my profile, not only do they have something that they can read about me and my specializations, but they can hear my voice and they can hear my preferences and my direction for how to help people with certain challenges. And they’re just little snippets. You know, I just did a snippet that I have to post, but I just did a snippet that came out of something that I responded to on a social media platform.

talking about, somebody asked about advice, ⁓ all the married women, you know, if there’s one thing that you can tell those of us who are not married, what would you say? And I literally just posted something that I oftentimes say in counseling and I’ll talk to you a little bit more about how that went. But you can do short form audio.

I don’t plan on doing a podcast for the steady reset for years and years and years. No, I just needed a platform where I can put up a couple of posts so that when people go to my profile, they can hear my voice, they can hear me speak about my expertise, but I did not actually frame it like me talking about my expertise. No, no, no, no. I think matter of fact, it starts with me saying, take a deep breath.

is your steady reset.

I’m Camille McDaniel, Licensed Professional Counselor. And then I go into, have you ever had a situation where, you know, and I just am talking to them as if I’m talking to somebody sitting right in front of me. And then I say, well, this is your reset for today. I want you to take a piece of paper and do, or I want you to sit with, like, I think one of them was me getting people to just learn how to calm their body because I work with a lot of women.

who happen to be high achievers, they also happen to be the one that everyone leans on and they are oftentimes operating out of survival versus success and so there are a lot of patterns that show up while helping that

particular clientele and I then create these little short form snippets so that when they are coming trying to make a decision, they actually have a little something they can listen to to determine if I might be the right fit for them. So.

Again, doesn’t have to be full on podcast, right? Could be short form. You can then place that in different areas so that people can just get an idea of your expertise on certain things and have a little takeaway. And then that helps them to make a decision when they are looking for a therapist that they might want to see.

So again, you can do things like this. It doesn’t take a lot. And this is just kind of like proof of your specialty. the next thing, let’s look at small resources,

because not everyone wants to create a full-on course. Everyone doesn’t wanna create a full-length training. So this can be something that is much shorter in format, a PDF or a guide, right? Maybe even like a really short manual or Let’s see, a miniature workshop.

I mean, something that literally might be only an hour in length.

or something that’s even smaller than that, depending on the information that you have and how powerful you can make it, you know, so that they have something really valuable to walk away with. So just think of it as something helpful, not super heavy, just a little helpful, you know, resource that they might take away and then kind of, you know, have some time to think about you, your practice and calling for an appointment. So yeah, make sure that the whatever helpful thing that you offer

also has a call to action, a call for them to receive more. Yeah, so here’s the shift.

you’re not trying to compete with these large systems. We’re not at all trying to do that. But what you are doing is you’re building connection and clarity alongside them. So they may be known as like the one-stop shop, but what are you known for? And so that’s all that’s doing. And now we want to look at, okay, how do we come up with these ideas? Because I know that many people will say, yeah,

but I’m really not sure what I need to do to get started. I don’t really know what kind of guide I would even create. I don’t really know what kind of podcast short form I would create or or training I would create but I’m gonna tell you something, it is not as overwhelming as it may feel. You may already have a lot on your plate so it could feel like my gosh this is one more idea that I have to come up with but no

guess what? It’s not gonna be that hard and this is the part that a lot of people don’t think about. They totally miss. This is where people really get stuck. So let’s kind of go through what you actually might need to do in order to make this as simple as possible, okay? Because you already have the content. Think about it like this. During this past week,

What did you say in your counseling sessions more than once? What did you say in your counseling sessions with great confidence that it was going to help who was sitting in front of you? Was there anything that your clinicians, not your clinicians, your clients came to you in session and said,

You know, I tried this thing that you told me about and you would be so happy. It worked out well. Or, you know, I was struggling with XYZ this past week, but I remember that we went over in session and processed this particular skill and I remembered and used it and I’m so glad I did.

That right there, things that you’ve said repeatedly, things that you’ve said with confidence, things that your clients have come back to you and said, I remembered what we talked about and I used it or I was going through this particular thing and I could hear you talking about X, Y and Z and I remembered, you know, those are things that are not random. They are actually things that you notice people need, which is why it tends to come up.

frequently. So let me go back to something I talked about a little earlier when I was saying that I created like a short form podcast. Okay so I was online on a social media platform and I saw someone asking the question, like I said earlier, there was somebody who was single, they were asking a question for women who were married and they were just asking you know what’s some relationship advice that you would give those of us who are not married? Well I literally

just shared something that I have said in session I feel like a million times over the years with different people and

it took off. It really resonated with people. Why? Because it was resonating. It was good information and it was resonating because it was needed. The reason why I’ve been saying it over and over throughout the years that I’ve been meeting with clients is because it’s something people really don’t think about, but it is definitely something very valuable in the framework for how you move forward in building healthy boundaries and connections with other people.

And it literally resonated with thousands of people because I had like this. ⁓ so the platform was threads. So I was on threads. And, and you get hearts and all this kind of stuff. But either way, there were like 1500 hearts on it. There were people who had commented saying, thank you. I really needed to see this. I thank you so much for sharing this, you know. So it’s like, guess what? Why did it work? Because

This is something that people actually need and so the things that you find you’re repeating throughout the years or throughout multiple sessions in a week or a month, these are things that are not just specific to your counseling space. This is stuff that the world actually needs which is why you find yourself going over it multiple times. So look at what you say repeatedly.

What do you explain to your clients often? What

What have you researched frequently in attempting to support your client’s mental health needs? What themes do you see in your practice consistently? That is going to be your starting point. Okay. And so this is where you’re going to start getting information that more than likely you can take outside of the counseling room to help more and more

people and to bring more attention to your practice and how it can support the clients who need the type of support that you offer, the specializations that you offer. That’s that is not small. This is foundational. You have everything within your knowledge, within your practice, within your experiences to actually get started. So let me just leave you with this.

you are not behind and your skills can’t be outmatched. I mean really and truly you’re not irrelevant. The field is changing. Yes, mental health absolutely is changing but that just means your approach also needs to pivot. It doesn’t mean that you are obsolete. So you don’t have to

have anything grand. We’ve already talked about several things that you can use. We’ve already talked about the fact that you have the message that you need to actually build on within you. It’s already showing up in your counseling spaces.

You don’t have to worry about building all these things all at once. You really don’t. Please don’t overwhelm yourself. We already have enough on our plates, right? Both professional and personal. You don’t have to figure everything out all in one day. All you have to do.

is just start with what you already know. Just start with what you already know, alright? Just start with writing down or putting in your electronic device what do you already say all the time? What do you know that oftentimes clients don’t know and need from you?

And who are you already helping? Because this is going to be more than enough for you to begin with. Yep. And if you feel comfortable, share it with me. Again, I’m always like encouraging, hey, put a comment under the video, put a comment under the podcast audio, send me an email. How are you getting started?

I am really excited for what we are going to be doing as we are moving forward in our practices, as we are moving forward and pivoting in our thinking, as we continue to be a light in a world that absolutely needs it. Until we meet again, God bless.