Is it possible to build a fee-for-service private practice anymore? Can you attract the therapy client you’ve been looking for, or are you required to accept managed care to make ends meet? This is a decision that many therapists struggle with when they are building private practices. And it is a question that many therapists continue to struggle with as they grow their practices, and attract new clients.
In my 2 1/2 years of training and coaching therapists, counselors and psychologists on practice-building skills, I’ve never once heard ANYONE say they were happy to be part of managed care. For most of them, it was a choice of desparation: they didn’t know how else to find clients. For others, they didn’t even realize there was a realistic chance of attracting clients to a fee-for-service practice.
Both these choices just remind me how sadly lacking our field is in preparing new graduates to be successful in private practice. We leave grad school with excellent clinical skills but no real knowledge of how to market a private practice.
If you’ve had it with managed care, and are seeking new alternatives, or if you are just looking to attract more clients to your practice, read more about how to attract your ideal therapy client.
