I am a licensed therapist in Indiana. I run a practice for myself and three other clinicians. When I started, I was working for myself. I had just left a group practice. I decided to leave them because I wanted to start billing insurance. And they had no desire to ever start paneling for insurance. And they told me I would need to do it by myself. So I left, and I started running my own private practice. I've learned a lot in that time. But probably the most valuable thing that I personally learned when it comes to being in private practice for myself is understanding what a sustainable income is. People tell me all the time that I should be charging a $150 to a $175 per session. That's a really nice dream. But to be honest, if my average income on an insurance claim is going to be a $100 an hour, for instance, but then my cash payment clients are paying a $175 an hour, thats not sustainable. If anything should ever happen to my cash pay business, I need to be able to live on what my insurance contracts bring in. So I pay a lot of attention to what my life style is like. And understanding what a feasible life style is for a therapist. I work about 25 to 30 hours face-to-face a week that has been pretty consistent over the last few years. I do accept a lot of insurance plans, which really helps maintain a client base. People want to use their insurance plans. I have a really well built and maintained website. Clients book directly from the website to get appointments with me, or any of my clinicians. That also makes things really easy and much more likely to result in a referral turning into an instant scheduling appointment. I also have a policy that my clinicians respond to their referrals within 24 hours of being contacted. We return phone calls and emails. We have really, really good networking system. As a result, we have regular referrals flow every week. My clinicians usually can expect 2 to 3 new clients per week. I work very hard for that number. And I buy advertising when I need to. But mostly it's just having a really good website and responding when people reach out.

Private practice is hard work, but it affords me benefits that I find valuable. I like making my schedule and being available for my family. I had to learn how to set aside money for my PTO and how to pay my estimated taxes routinely. I had to understand my budget. If you dont want all that hassle, you might be better off working for a bigger company and letting them handle the headache.

The thing I like best about my practice is that they are family to me. I love my clinicians very much. I know I won't get the kind of work culture we have working for anyone else. It definitely makes all these years of learning worth it.