The Independent Clinician Guide to Creating a Web Presence is an easy to use,  step-by-step guide to growing your private practice by being exactly where your clients are looking for you… online.

Listen, I know you’re a therapist and [...]]]> This week, I’m launching my new book, The Independent Clinician Guide to Creating a Web Presence.

The Independent Clinician Guide to Creating a Web Presence is an easy to use,  step-by-step guide to growing your private practice by being exactly where your clients are looking for you… online.

Listen, I know you’re a therapist and not a computer guru.

With this guidebook, you’ll be able to create a professional and effective website that brings in ideal private clients - without spending all day in front of a computer. (Or hundreds of dollars with an unreliable web designer.)

You’ve probably been meaning to get or develop your website for years.

Now is the time.

This is the resource you’ve been waiting for.

To learn more, click here.

Hello, my name is Pamela and I am a recovering, unabashed, self-professing, do-it-yourself Clinician.

For me, it is absolutely exhilarating to dream of new ideas and execute them. I enjoy marketing, researching evidenced based practices, billing, talking with parents [...]]]> This guest post was written by Pamela Rowe, MA, CCC-SLP of Speech Orlando

Hello, my name is Pamela and I am a recovering, unabashed, self-professing, do-it-yourself Clinician.

For me, it is absolutely exhilarating to dream of new ideas and execute them. I enjoy marketing, researching evidenced based practices, billing, talking with parents and patients, treating patients, arguing with insurance companies, faxing and filing, formulating new forms, and expanding. Although I enjoy it all, last year I hit critical mass. I came to the inevitable crossroads…Either I delegate, or drive my nine year Speech Therapy Practice into the ground.

Upon retrospect, I had unknowingly stunted the growth of my business. While it is important to know every detail of your business, at some point it is time to delegate. Whether you are a solo-practitioner or a group practice, delegation is key. The vision of your business must spread beyond the walls of your mind.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines delegation as the act of empowering one to act for another. With delegation, you are not just handing over a task or telling someone what to do. You are empowering them to act for you. You are enabling them to carry your vision beyond the walls of your mind. You may be very surprised at the way they carry your vision and add to your Practice.

I highly recommend that you start small and put everything in writing. You can hire someone to fax for you or stuff envelopes. Another great start is hiring someone to answer your calls. I chose a bilingual answering service. The answering service bills me once a month and can answer simple questions on my behalf (with pre-written answers provided by me). This small delegation changed my image overnight. My patients, colleagues, and provider representatives see me in a different light. I am no longer at their beck and call and they respect that. The free time created by hiring an answering service allowed me to further develop my Company’s vision. Over the next six months, I hired a Billing Specialist, SLPs, and an Office Manager.

Delegation is a mindset. It starts in the mind and will spread. As a recovering DIY Clinician, I continue to renew and reprogram my mind in this area. Here are a few of my favorite daily truths that I like to keep in mind. Post them on your mirror or recite them out loud:

1. Just because I can do it all doesn’t mean that I should do it all.
2. The more I delegate, the more I will grow the vision of my Practice.
3. The vision of my Practice was meant to be carried by a team, not just an individual.
4. I will continue to have more than I need as I start to delegate tasks to others.
5. This team will grow, impact this Area, and do wonderful things in the Community!

Delegation is a lifestyle and does not happen overnight. Open your mind to the possibilities, take small steps, and enjoy the journey!

________________________________________________________

Pamela Rowe MA CCC-SLP, LLC is a Speech-Language Pathologist and private practice owner in Orlando, FL.  To learn more about her visit her website or connect with her on Facebook.

I have the design skills of a flea. Yet, I have a pretty cool website, some fab marketing materials, and a nice looking office, that are tied together with a central theme. I never could have come up with such [...]]]> The following is a guest post from Ann Kulichik, MS, CCC-SLP, BRS-S of  www.akspeech.com

I have the design skills of a flea. Yet, I have a pretty cool website, some fab marketing materials, and a nice looking office, that are tied together with a central theme. I never could have come up with such a stylized plan on my own. I have the distinct advantage of being married to someone with a strong innate sense of design, and a background in marketing. So, being that I am the driving force behind all of these creations, and I started out with no idea of how to do them — I have to say that I have picked up a few things along the way. That is what I will be sharing with you here.

It Started with the Logo

It is very easy to get mired in the conceptual aspects of what you want to portray, with the image that is central to your branding. What is the service we offer? Communication? Speaking? Listening? What aspects of listening? What aspects of speaking? Voice? Articulation? Language? What about a globe with words wafting up, showing the voices of the people, the voices of change, the voices of empowerment? What about lips and ears and vocal cords and epiglotti (that’s my plural for epiglottis), and supra-laryngeal nerves, and, and….

After I tossed a kajillion concepts on the drafting table, the husband gave me the keep it simple stupid message. The logo, he said, should be iconic. Think Nike swoosh. An image that can look good on a big banner, as well as on a little business card. An image that will show up on your mugs, post it notes, pens, stationary. Since I am treating both adults and children, we didn’t want the logo to look kid-centered. There is lots of information out there on what colors denote what meanings. In the end, we went with green and blue, because they are considered to be healthful, stable and serene. So, this is what we came up with. O.k., it wasn’t me. It was all him.

The sound wave to encapsulate all the aspects of communication, and two different colors to show that it’s not all one word.

He picked out a font for my letterhead and correspondence — something modern, but not too stylized. I stick to this font for all of my flyers, website and correspondence.

Then to My Office

Then, when I got an office, the logo decided on the color scheme for me. I have 388 square feet, all in one room, and we used three paint colors to denote different areas.

Blue for the office area. Green for the treatment area. And white for the refreshment/additional seating area.

The husband drew a schematic of the floor layout, with measurements, on graph paper. That way, when I went shopping for furniture, I was able to figure out what could fit into what space. I really could not have done it without that piece of paper! I went to a warehouse that liquidates offices, and got my desk, desk chair, file cabinets, a painting, and love seat at sizeable discounts. The warehouse was pretty dirty and dark, so, even though they steam cleaned the love seat, it still needed another cleaning by the time it got to my office. More sweat equity!

The biggest ticket item, the couch, I got at Ikea, and assembled myself. Whew! By the way, I have found Ikea to be the most cost effective place around to get accent pieces — lamps, wall hangings, fake plants, picture frames, accent pieces. Another pearl of wisdom with which the husband gifted me, is the notion that every wall does not need to be adorned with a painting. Varying textures and media keeps it interesting. So, over my desk, I have a Van Gough.

A bunch of framed pictures of my clients on another.

An oblong mirror over the refreshment area, to make it look bigger.

And a stylized clock over the love seat.

My diplomas are in one corner. Metal bowls from Ikea on one wall.

One nice thing about having a central design plan, is that every time you have to make a new decision (a brochure, a business card, giveaways, even which color iPad to purchase), you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Just take a nod from your logo.

I hope this inspires you to create a consistent, and beautiful business image of your own.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Ann Kulichik, MS, CCC-SLP, BRS-S

Speech Language Pathologist

Board Recognized Specialist – Swallowing

www.akspeech.com

Here was the original question:

When you’ve got private pay clients you want to:

I personally have been using free ad credits on The Independent Clinician Facebook page. I’ve gained 20 followers over the past 3 weeks from ads alone. It works!

As I expect for most people in our field, my experience as an employee left no room for salary negotiations. My pre-professional work mostly involved office jobs, and then with my degree in hand I applied to hospitals and school boards. [...]]]> The following guest post was written by Jennifer Benedik of Simple Speech Therapy

As I expect for most people in our field, my experience as an employee left no room for salary negotiations. My pre-professional work mostly involved office jobs, and then with my degree in hand I applied to hospitals and school boards. All these locations had pre-determined salary scales and benefits, so there was never any negotiation with my employers.

Fast forward to myself today as a private practitioner looking to hire my own employees, I found myself stumped for ideas about how to determine a payment scale. And this was something I needed to finalize before I could even think of offering someone a job!

So I started at the beginning by asking a few simple questions:

1. What tasks did I currently perform for my business? It is important to get clear about where and how we allocate our time. This can include anything from answering phone calls to providing therapy services.
2. What tasks did I want an employee to perform? Did I want a graphic designer to create marketing tools, or another therapist to whom I could subcontract clients?
3. What do I currently pay myself for each of these tasks? Perhaps you know that you “should” allocate payment towards all your task time, not just your direct-client time, but do you? Or have you jumbled it all together in some vague hourly rate that’s based on your current market norms? Yup, that sounds like me!
4. What benefits can I offer my employees? Here in Montreal, Canada, we are paid directly by our clients, so we do not deal with insurance companies (the clients submit our receipts independently). Also, I can hire employees as “private contractors”, which means that I pay them directly for services rendered and they are responsible for submitting their income at the end of the year. As such, I am not responsible for providing my employees any medical or vacation benefits, but should I? And are there other benefits I can offer?

Payment for tasks that do not immediately generate income might be best divided into one-time and reoccurring groups. Examples include web site creation, or weekly administration tasks. Then you can clearly budget the funds you have to spend on each group. For the moment, I still take care of all these items myself.

My pressing need was to subcontract clients to another therapist, and I chose to offer a percentage of the client fee. I set a starting percentage based on the therapist’s level of work experience, with annual increases determined by the number of clients seen and client satisfaction survey results. And then I got creative! Here are a few additional perks I included, and I would love to hear about ideas that other employers offer:

• When going to a client’s house or daycare, the therapist received 100% of the associated travel fee
• Free access to all my therapy materials
• Weekly meetings to discuss clients and review progress, receive mentorship, and obtain training if needed
• Bonuses for bringing in new clients
• Bonuses for recommending new team members (who get hired)
• Accumulation of bonus funds for education reimbursement such as workshops or courses
• Bonuses for creating new programs (such as language camps or daycare screenings) that will generate company income.

The difference between finding one private client on the side and creating a full caseload for yourself AND additional employees is exponential.

As an employer, I began to acknowledge the time, effort and money that I put in to generating new clients, accumulating therapy material and purchasing evaluation tools. The idea is that my hourly cost covers all the time involved.

Mentoring, supervising and bookkeeping are just a few examples of additional tasks that having employees entail, all of which also have tangible costs. For a business to be viable, they (read: you the employer) need compensation as well, and that is how you will determine the right pay scale for everyone involved.

Above all, it is important to keep an open mind and be willing to adapt to both the needs of your clients and your employees. A business relationship only begins with the pay scale. My goal was to reward the efforts of my employees and create a team mentality of contribution. Then everybody wins. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

Jennifer Benedik is a Speech and Language Pathologist (M.Sc. CCC/S-LP) who returned home to work in Montreal, Canada after graduating from the University of Vermont. Always having a few private clients in addition to her regular workload, she recently created Simple Speech Therapy and has focused on expanding her business as well as her family. She has a 2.5 year-old little boy, and is expecting her second child this May.

With over 750 million active users, it’s safe to say that (almost) everyone is on Facebook.

(Including your future private clients and referral sources.)

If you haven’t tried using Facebook Ads - or if you’ve tried unsuccessfully – here’s a FANTASTIC OPPORTUNITY.

How does some free money to [...]]]> Quick question:

I entered the field of speech-language pathology 10 years ago as a wide-eyed, driven graduate, positive that I would make a difference in the lives of others.  In the early years of my career, I began to notice a [...]]]> The following is a guest post from Lauren Ferrari, MS. CCC-SLP of Wee Talk Inc.

I entered the field of speech-language pathology 10 years ago as a wide-eyed, driven graduate, positive that I would make a difference in the lives of others.  In the early years of my career, I began to notice a pattern.  The number of students eligible for speech and language services was increasing… and as a result, our caseloads dramatically increased.  The paperwork required of us also began to increase as states and school districts came dangerously close to non-compliance and faced increasing threats of lawsuits.  With each passing year, we were forced to spend more time analyzing data and completing requisite paperwork than we spent working with our students and clients.

The number one complaint of SLP’s and therapists alike has been the extraordinary amount of paperwork and data that we need to maintain and track to comply with state standards. This paperwork costs each of us precious time – time that could be better spent providing therapy for clients and students.

The Spark of an Idea…

Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention and so it was from this frustration that the seed for the Wee Talk Tracker Pro was planted.  I spent years developing and honing an easy and effective system to collect and track data for my students and private clients.  The system was great, but it was still in the paper-and-pencil stage. Finally, in 2009, invention met opportunity… Apple released the iPad. Sleek, portable, and user-friendly, the iPad was the perfect platform for the program that SLP’s had been waiting for.  The Wee Talk Tracker Pro iPad app was born.

I have spent my career dedicated to helping hundreds of children and their families accomplish their communication goals.  My dedication to serving others and providing the best possible therapy was the impetus to creating the Wee Talk Tracker Pro iPad app.  SLP’s can now fulfill requisites of the job in an efficient, visually pleasing way and have more time to work with their clients. It’s a win-win for all!  The Wee Talk Tracker Pro iPad app is the culmination of years of hard work, research and testing.

What can clinicians expect from using The Wee Talk Tracker Pro iPad app?

• Reduce your risk by using an app that will track empirical data
• Reduce the amount of time you spend collecting and analyzing data
• Create and prepare fully customizable goals and your own unique goals from the built-in goal bank
• Track individual and group sessions
• Manage your busy schedules using the in-app calendar, which is linked to  each client’s individual profile
• Create/Print/Save/Export/Email detailed, visually stunning, and interactive graphs from your collected data
• Put reference materials and state standards at your fingertips
• Password protected and encrypted- all of your data and clients remain confidential, secure, and safe
• Saving time saves you money

Finally we can spend more time providing great therapy than we do analyzing data on the goals for the students and clients that we work with.

Purchase in bulk- save 50%

The Wee Talk Tracker Pro is enrolled in Apple’s Volume Purchase Program (VPP).  This program allows educational institutions to purchase 20 copies or more of the Wee Talk Tracker Pro and receive a 50% discount on their purchase.  This is a valuable piece of information given that many school districts are adopting the use of iPad’s in special and regular education programs.

Quality Assurance

There are NO monthly or annual subscription fees!

We provide FREE app updates and support!

Upgrade yourself today! For more information visit:

iTunes App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wee-talk-tracker-pro/id477952641?ls=1&mt=8

Website: http://www.weetalktrackerpro.com

YouTube demo: http://www.youtube.com/weetalktrackerpro

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/weetalktrackerpro

Lauren Ferrari, MS. CCC-SLP, Wee Talk Inc’s owner and founder is an ASHA certified, CA and RI licensed Speech-Language Pathologist with over 10 years of experience.  Born and raised in Rhode Island, she attended the University of Connecticut and continued her studies at Boston University’s prestigious Master of Science Program in Speech and Language Pathology. Upon graduating with honors, she worked as an SLP in non-profit, public, and private school settings, and now manages a successful private practice in California.

‘Budgeting’ and ‘Financial Management’ are two words that I come into constant conflict with as I work the dual roles of physical therapist and business owner.  I find that as a physical therapist, I constantly ‘need’ a [...]]]> The following is a guest post from Stacy M. Menz, PT, DPT, PCS of Starfish Therapies

Get Organized!

‘Budgeting’ and ‘Financial Management’ are two words that I come into constant conflict with as I work the dual roles of physical therapist and business owner.  I find that as a physical therapist, I constantly ‘need’ a new piece of equipment, ‘need’ to take a certain course, or ‘need’ to go to a conference while as a business owner I constantly have one eye focused on the bank account and the bottom line.

Have a Clear Financial Path

Starfish Therapies has come a long way since I started 3 ½ years ago and my budgeting and financial management has had to shift.  We started as a one man show (me) providing home care for kids receiving early intervention services and one or two kids receiving school services.  This was the time I should have spent making sure my books were organized meticulously and developed a well thought out budget.  As with many start-up businesses, these things didn’t happen due to lack of time and experience.  I used my daily bank balance to guide me rather than a pre-determined budget.  During that first year I added two more therapists and an office manager.  I was still operating in therapist mode and I didn’t have a clear financial path.  We were already using Quickbooks but we realized that we needed help getting our accounts and records organized.  My biggest piece of advice is that you need to find a bookkeeper that is willing to work with you and adjust to the needs of you and your business as opposed to one who thinks they know exactly what you need.  Communication is also a key for any successful working relationship.  Our first bookkeeper couldn’t meet our needs.  He had us entering transactions into Quickbooks but things weren’t being classed correctly and we still didn’t have a budget.

Open Up a Credit Card Early On

During this time, we were fortunate enough to come across an opportunity that would get us into some clinic space.  Another therapist was moving and selling her small practice so I took a risk and bought it.  Was it valued correctly? To this day I’m not sure; however, the choice I made was based on the idea that I could spend the money that I was paying for the practice on a marketer and I could only hope to see the same results.  Now comes to the next lesson I learned the hard way.  I hadn’t wanted to run up a lot of debt early on so I had resisted opening any credit accounts.  When we went to get our loan we found that we didn’t have enough credit history to be eligible and I was forced to fund the purchase through several personal loans.  After that experience, I would advise any new business owner to open up a credit card early on so you can develop credit as your company grows.

Track Everything

The purchase gave us clinic space so we were now operating in 3 different service offerings: home-based, school-based and clinic-based.  With this business model, it became very important for me to understand the profitability in each patient case.  I learned to track revenue, cost of service, time of service, and I worked to create schedules for my therapists that produce the highest profit margins.  The tricky part in all this is balancing the therapists’ travel time and expense in with their salary and their ability to maintain a profitable caseload. That’s where having my books set up and tracking the above mentioned variables became essential.  The first salary I offered was made on a wing and a prayer. Now I know what packages I am offering each new employee and how it will affect us as a business.

 ”The Moral of the Story Is…”

The moral of the story is to

• Get your books set up as detailed and meticulously as you possibly can from the very beginning
• Make it a priority to build company credit as soon as possible
• Create a budget to guide you as you make decisions.  However, you also have to be able to trust your instincts.

My success has come through listening to my employees, constantly asking myself if Starfish Therapies is somewhere I would want to work, and keeping my eye focused on the big picture rather than being discouraged by the obstacles that arise along the way.

__________________________________________________

Stacy Menz, DPT

Stacy M. Menz, PT, DPT, PCS, Starfish Therapies’ owner and founder, is a pediatric physical therapist with both a Masters and a Doctorate in Physical Therapy from BostonUniversityand is a board certified pediatric clinical specialist. She loves working with kids because of difference she makes in their lives and their families, and she loves that she gets to do it by playing with kids all day long. In addition to doing hands on physical therapy with kids, she also promotes overall wellness and prevention of developmental delays through education. Stacy is actively involved in her professional organizations and is on the editorial board of Impact, the publication of the Private Practice Section of the APTA, and serves on the education committee of the Pediatric Special Interest Group for the California Physical Therapy Association. Stacy and her colleagues believe in continuing to promote evidence based practice so they are actively involved in research and have an article submitted for publication.  Stacy has a blog that she regularly writes and is also a guest blogger for PediaStaff as well as a Guest Advisor for the Down Syndrome Centre.

website: http://www.starfishtherapies.com
blog: http://starfishtherapies.wordpress.com
pinterest: http://pinterest.com/motorsmartkids
facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/starfishtherapies
twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/motorsmartkids