Owning your own counseling private practice is no doubt a huge responsibility and endeavor. But there are some definite benefits and perks to it too! Here are five benefits of owning your own private practice that I have experienced myself, and I’ve also seen other mental health professionals experience too. Private practice does have its fun stuff too!
#1 Counselor Autonomy
Maybe you’re coming from the nonprofit world, an agency, or a group private practice. In these cases, someone else is your boss. When you have your own private practice, you are your own boss.
You get to pick and choose which types of clients you want to serve, prescribe the session frequency, and ultimately conduct therapy in the manner that you see is best. You don’t have to conform to anybody else’s expectations of a theoretical approach. This is all for you to apply the best ethical counseling standards with your clients. Within your scope of practice and ethical responsibilities, it’s your decision.
#2 Schedule Flexibility
You can officially pull away from the 9-to-5 job. Unless, of course, you still want the 9-to-5 hours! You have the flexibility to set your own hours. Whether that’s evening work, weekend work, or during the day, it is completely your call. Your schedule, in essence, can be set by you.
However, before you get too excited about this, I want you to think about the clients you serve. For example, if you serve children, wanting to work 9 to 3 Monday through Friday is probably never going to work (unless it’s summer time). You have to be willing to compliment your ideal clients schedule when setting your own schedule. So while 9 to 3 Monday through Friday would probably never work with a school-age child, it could work with the stay-at-home mom of the school-age child. Follow me?
Think about your ideal client and what their hours are going to be (consider if they are working individuals, if they have young children, are caregivers, or commute a long distance), and consider your hours to be complementary of that. You absolutely have flexibility, but flexibility doesn’t mean creating a schedule that your ideal clients can’t actually accommodate. That’s one of the quickest ways to lose clients.
#3 Ability to Diversify
Because you are the business owner, clinical director, manager, and every other boss in one, you have the ability to diversify. You no longer have to contain your creative juices and stick with only a certain role. A huge benefit of being a businefit of owning your own business is the ability to diversify as a mental health provider. If you enjoy public speaking, speak. Want to write a blog? Write one. Want to host groups? Host them. If you want to become a supervisor and supervise clinicians on the outside, you can do that too.
You are the only person who has to clear it. Of course, you need to be sure you have some type of format, policy, and structure around the things you decide to offer, but you can diversify and go as expansive as you want or stay as simple as you’d like. The decision is yours.
#4 Control Over Your Caseload
Here’s another benefit that I think people sometimes overlook: you don’t necessarily have to go into the office five days a week—or even four days per week. It really is basic math.
Think about how much you want to earn per year. Then divide that by 52 weeks. Or, if you’re like me, divide it into 49 weeks so you can take three weeks off per year. This equation only works if you know your average session rate. How much, on average, do your counseling sessions reimburse you? Divide your weekly revenue goal by that number, and that gives you the approximate number of clients you would need to see per week. Then you can figure out how many you need to see per day. That’s your number.
For example, if you want to make $100,000 in gross revenue per year, divide that by 49 weeks. That is roughly $2,040 per week. Then divide that by your average rate, which let’s pretend is $105. That is roughly 19–20 sessions per week. That means you have to see about 19 clients per week, 49 weeks per year.
If you’re like me, I don’t want to work long, drawn out days. I prefer to work 4 part time days, then 3 jam packed days. So with that equation, I would work about 5 clinical hours, 4 days per week in order to make the $100,000 revenue goal.
Keep in mind, this is gross revenue. This is not what you’re bringing home into your wallet. You still have business expenses, taxes, cancellations, no-shows, and other things that affect what you actually take home (that is called net revenue). If you’re looking at net profit or what you ultimately want to bring home, that number will be different, so keep that in mind. Which brings me to number five.
#5 Higher Income
As you can see from the example listed above, I’m throwing around $100,000 like it’s nothing. The reality is, it’s a lot of money, but for a master’s-level professional, why shouldn’t we be able to earn that much?
Although there is a ceiling associated with being a solo private practice owner, you can only make as much as you have enough time and capacity for. I would never expect anybody, even in their own private practice, to see an unreasonable number of clients per week, especially if you have a challenging specialty.
For example, I specialize in treating childhood sexual abuse. It makes me cry even to this day, but I happen to be really good at it and I’m an expert. There is zero possibility of me being able to treat 30 clients—children and adults, male and female—with this type of trauma every week. It’s overwhelming, sad, and difficult work.
So think about what your capacity is for the type of client you serve. Then think about your average rate of reimbursement per session again. This gives you a certain number per week. That week becomes your monthly revenue, and then your annual revenue.
If you’re coming from the nonprofit space or agency work, you’re probably used to working a set 40-hour schedule. If you’re coming from a group private practice, those hours will probably be in closer alignment to what you will be working as a solo private practitioner. But your income potential can look very different because you’re building the practice around your rates, your caseload, your expenses, and your business model.
And I know it’s enticing, but not everybody has the marketing strategy, expertise, and referral system to be able to take private pay only. So be realistic with what your income is going to be. What is your average reimbursement rate? How many clients can you realistically see every week? What are your expenses? How many weeks do you want to work? Know your numbers.
Are You Considering Opening Your Own Private Practice?
If you are considering opening your own private practice, I encourage you to do so. But it’s really important that you do the homework beforehand rather than jumping in blindly. Private practice gives you autonomy, flexibility, the ability to diversify, more control over your caseload, and the potential to earn more. But you’re not just becoming a private practice therapist. You’re becoming a business owner.
If you’re ready to start doing the homework, take a look at my Launch Your Private Practice course. It’s a step-by-step course that allows you to build your private practice in a DIY format and start thinking through the decisions you’ll need to make before you launch.
You don’t have to have everything figured out before you start, but you should know what you’re getting into—and have a plan for how you’re going to build it.