Are you still struggling with figuring out how to set your rates? Maybe you want to raise your rates but are not sure how to do it. Want some inside info that will help you do both and make sure you are getting paid what you are worth?
In this podcast episode Joe Sanok speaks about how to set your private practice rates and how to raise them.
Podcast Sponsor TherapyNotes facilitates the workflow of mental health professionals through robust, secure, and streamlined software, accessible wherever and whenever you need it. With fully-integrated scheduling, notes, billing, electronic claims, and more, you’ll have more time for what matters most: your patients.
To get 2 free months of TherapyNotes click on www.therapynotes.com and enter the promo code: Joe
In This Podcast Summary In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks about how to set your private practice rates and how to raise them and he shares 7 tips you can put in place to make sure that you are not undercharging.
7 Different Tips of Things you Want To Do When Setting Your Rates 1. Evaluate your market Research Psychology Today, Good Therapy or any online directory sites to look at the average rates. Get a good idea of what people are charging.
2. Work on charging 20-30% higher than the market Once you’ve done the above research you should charge 20-30% higher. You will then be able to see fewer people then and it sets you up to grow faster.
3. Work backward based on your goals rather than just set it based on the market Think about how much you want to make in a year – take that number and multiply it by 1.5 (this will give you enough for taxes and covering business expenses). As an example, you need to make $30 000 per year x 1.5 = $45 000
Then think about how many weeks you want to take off during the year. If you want to take off 4 weeks in the year then it would look like this: $45 000 / 48 weeks = $937.50 per week you need to make.
How many sessions a week seems reasonable? Maybe you can do 5 sessions a week so then: @937.50 / 5 sessions = $187.50 per session
This may be more pronounced than what the market is at right now, so then you need to have a specialty and niche in. If this is not doable then you have to further look at what numbers you can adjust to get your goal, so this means adding more sessions.
4. Insurance pulling down the average Think through how many full paying clients you need to reach these goals.
5. When you’re 80% full you must raise your prices This is when you want to start raising your rates for your new clients. Throughout the year, keep people at their rate, but then raise it in January of the next year.
6. Evaluate all your time as part of the equation How much time are you putting into the practice over and above your clinical sessions? Make sure that you are as lean as possible outside of what you are getting paid for – outsource your admin work.
7. Raise your prices every year Costs go up across the board every single year so you want to make sure that your prices are also being raised. Keep having substantial jumps in your hourly, send an email to your clients in October notifying them that rates will be increasing. Your email could sound a bit like this:
Dear Jane,
It’s been awesome working with you in the counseling sessions, we’ve made such progress throughout this year. I look forward to continuing working with you and helping you work on your therapeutic goals. As you might not know, current clients are coming in at the rate of $195 per session and when you started in January of this year, you came in at $150 per session. It didn’t seem fair to raise your rates when new people came in, but in an effort to realign everyone, on January 1st I’m going to be raising everyone’s rates to that $195 per session.
I know that you’re probably looking for your health insurance right now, and even though we’re out of network I wanted to let you know that in case you were going to be contributing to a flexible spending account or an HSA. If this in any way gets in the way of your counseling and your ability to come, please let me know, we can change our schedule and we can discuss this as well.
Thank you, I look forward to hearing from you.
When you do this you are saying you went into this business to help people but that you also have very real costs that go up. Also, I recommend that your intake sessions be $25-30 higher than your hourly rate.
For over 30 free resources to help you start, grow and scale a private practice, click here.
Useful Links: Where to Take Your Wild Child on Vacation | PoP 383
Apply to work with us
Masterminds
Killin’It Camp
Killin’It Camp Tickets
Meet Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.
Thanks For Listening! Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!
The post How to Set Your Private Practice Rates (and How to Raise Them) | PoP 384 appeared first on How to Start, Grow, and Scale a Private Practice| Practice of the Practice.
Comentarios