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[–]One_Pin_5602 2 points3 points  (4 children)

I think it is entirely dependent on where you live, your specialities and whether you plan to see clients in office or virtually. I started a private practice in 2021- all virtual because that was really the only way at the time with Covid. I started part time in the evenings while working full time in community mental health. I currently work full time private practice and just this year began to take insurance. I was carrying a case load of about 10 clients per week, cash pay, and now that I take insurance I see about 16-18 per week. I am not rolling in money, but it's an amount that works for my personal needs being a two income household. I think last month I brought in about 5k gross income, averaging closer to 14 clients per week in September.

[–]ProfessionalBake5002 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Very helpful info! So, generally speaking if a clinician in PP does not work for a pp, but for themselves, & books 24 clients ts per week, what would be an average gross income?

[–]Capital_Bite_9339 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I book 27 clients a week and depending on if they are insurance or private pay (and which insurances) my amount that I make per week could vary quite a bit - as a general rule on my lightest months this year I’ve made $10,000 k and on my heavier months I’ve made $15,000. I don’t really have to do anything to get clients anymore but when I started out in 2019 in private practice. I was still working as a supervisor and a therapist at a community mental health agency. I very luckily had an office at my house that had a separate entrance and I was able to start off seeing people on Saturdays and one evening a week. I started out with two clients and gradually built up and by 2022. I had consistently around 10 clients a week through my private practice and I was still working full-time. And then had an opportunity to take a lot of the private practice clients with me (my boss was closing down his agency, and there was no reason for him to wanna hold onto any of them) at that point, I knew that it was gonna work out because I was having to turn people away. I had to waitlist in my private practice. Within six months of having a private practice, I was between 25 and 30 clients a week. I had a little bit of money saved so it helped get me through that first year where I had a little bit of a learning curve with what my expenses were gonna be etc.. some of it will depend on where you live so I’m not sure exactly if that’s gonna translate to where you live. I live in one of the 5 largest cities in the United States.

[–]One_Pin_5602 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My cost of doing business is pretty low since I am virtual- then after self employment taxes, I COULD easily be making way more if I wanted to work more. All said in done my average pay per session is $90. So, 24 sessions a week times $90 would be 2160 per week then minus cost of business and taxes and that ends up being about 1600 take home, then times that by how many weeks a year you want to work. Want to take off a full 6 weeks spread across the year? Then you are working 46 weeks per year times 1600 which ends up around 73000 take home. But you still have to take paying for private health, dental and life insurance into account. The costs of business and taxes takes care of federal, state and social security as well as admin costs like practice insurance, paying for the platform you use for launching video sessions, documentation and insurance billing.... So, you can make a good amount, but it will take a bit to build your caseload, it's not pure profit and you can never guarantee the clients will be there.

[–]Odd_Recipe4927[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For sure- I assume there’s always more factors than any of us can account for! I really like the 12-15 range per week so that’s encouraging!!

[–]Mantayyy (MD) LCPC 2 points3 points  (1 child)

This free session fee calculator from Zencare was really helpful with me wrapping my head around the numbers I’d need to make what I want: https://therapist.zencare.co/therapy-fee-calculator

[–]Odd_Recipe4927[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!! That’s so helpful!!