Get More Clients: Focus on Marketing Your Business and Delegate What Others Can Do
What is the one thing that most clearly makes the difference between successful private practices and unsuccessful ones?
No, it is not the clinical skills of the therapists. Although good clinical skills help the practice grow through word of mouth
referrals, many good therapists do not succeed in private practice. The most successful private practitioners often are not the best
clinicians.
The answer to what most clarly makes the diference: marketing. Most clinicians have no little or no
training in marketing and are uncomfortable with marketing. They often think of it as a dirty word.
The most successful private practitioners spend time learning to develop a "marketing mindset" and learning to easily get more clients than
they can handle. They spend time learning what marketing methods are appropriate for their practice. Successful private practitioners spend
time and money learning what works to get clients and what doesn't.
Successful private practitioners also learn what to spend their own time on and what to delegate. They focus on marketing, business
planning, and providing good services to clients. Less successful practitioners avoid time spent marketing and business planning. They may
never change their mindset from what they had as a clinician for an agency or even as a student. They may do just what most of
the other clinicians are doing-- just putting an ad in the Yellow Pages and signing up for managed care panels that send low paying
referrals.
There are many things that can be delegated in order to have more time to find effective ways of marketing and providing services. Many
of the administrative functions can be taken care of by technology or by outsourcing. At the top of the list of what a clinician should consider
delegating is the time that is spent filing insurance claims and following up with insurance companies.
Using an effective mental health biller can save the clinician many hours of work. It is far more cost effective for the mental health
professional to spend their time marketing and getting an abundance of high paying clients, rather than to spend their time on the tedious chores
of getting insurance companies to pay.
The challenge is to find an effective and efficient mental health billing service. It took me years to develop my system, first doing my
own billing, then paying for assistance, and finally finding an experienced medical biller that was willing to use the efficient system I
developed. However, once you find a gem like mine--- delegate the tedious and spend your time building your practice.
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