Building a Successful Private Practice - A Review

Finally!  The one HLPCA meeting I have been waiting for all year has arrived.  And it was everything I hoped for.  The presenter this month was Rachel Eddins, LPC who owns her own practice and does personal and career counseling.  Since they didn’t teach Practice Building 101 in my graduate program,  I was dying to hear what the woman had to say, and it was juicy. 

The first point that Ms. Eddins made was the importance of preparing to be your own boss.  Part of the preparation, is valuing what yourself, and what you have to offer.  Another part of preparation is having a vision, and defining it in detail.  You can’t just say, “I want my own practice.”  You have to define what that means and put it on paper.

The second point that she made had to do with the importance of marketing.  How can you build a practice if no one knows who you are?  It was especially nice that she gave us tips on marketing and even matched marketing tips to personality types.  One tip we spent a lot of time discussing was the need to find a specialty, a niche market if you will.  For example, the speaker from last month was Angelina Rodriguez, who specializes in Art Therapy.  Recently, she informed me that she was thinking of narrowing her niche down even further and focusing on grief and loss using Art Therapy.  I found that to be intriguing, because it seems to me that focusing on a niche would limit your client pool.  But according to Ms. Eddins, focusing on a niche, does not exclude you from seeing clients with other problems.  If your specialty is drug addiction, but a client you have refers a friend who is dealing with depression due to being laid off, are you going to deny the client just because depression isn’t you niche market? Of course not, a client is a client, and we are here to help those in need.  She even advised us interns to begin focusing on our niche markets now, while we are still under supervision.  That way, you can hit the ground running once you have your 3000 hours.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the seminar was the fact that Ms. Eddins does not take insurance.  Before the seminar, it never occurred to me that you could have a successful practice, and not take insurance.  She was very informative on the matter and explained that the price of the convience of being on an insurance panel is lower fees for you.  I’m not sure I’m ready for that trade-off.   

Overall, I’m glad I was able to attend this seminar.  Ms. Eddins was able to explain in detail what it takes to get out on your own in plain language.  The question is, now that I have the information, will I act on it?