WP132 | Profit Without Panels: Your Guide to a Private Pay Practice with Laura Long
When Laura first stepped into couples counseling, she didn’t expect one of her biggest challenges to come from outside the therapy room — but it did. Behind the scenes, insurance systems built for individual treatment forced her into an impossible ethical bind: label one partner as “the problem,” assign a mental health diagnosis that didn’t fit, and document intimate relational healing through the cold lens of medical necessity.
It felt wrong. It was wrong.
And Laura realized: playing by the insurance industry’s rules wasn’t just exhausting — it was setting the work up to fail.
What followed was a bold, mindset-shifting journey from moral tension to empowered service, from burnout to abundance. Laura’s story offers a powerful roadmap for therapists who know, deep down, that there’s a better way to serve — with integrity, freedom, and impact.
Ready to see what’s possible when you step outside the system?
The Ethical Dilemma with Couples Counseling and Insurance
For Laura, one of the biggest hurdles was the ethical discomfort of billing insurance when working with couples.
Insurance systems are designed for individual treatment, not relational work. To get reimbursed, therapists often have to designate one partner as the "identified patient" and assign a mental health diagnosis — even when the real work is about the relationship, not an individual’s pathology.
"It set us up almost to fail from the get-go," Laura explains. When therapy is meant to foster unity and healing between two people, starting off by labeling one of them as "the problem" felt deeply wrong. Beyond that, there was the exhausting work of documenting sessions to satisfy insurance audits — bending her notes to fit a medical model that didn’t reflect the relational healing taking place.
This moral tension ultimately helped Laura realize that continuing to work under insurance wasn’t sustainable — ethically or personally.
Shifting Mindsets: Service, Stewardship, and Abundance
Making the leap to private pay isn’t just a logistical shift — it’s a mindset shift.
Laura emphasizes that 80% of the transition is mindset, while only 20% is strategy.
Many therapists, especially those with a faith-based mission, feel a deep calling to serve. Accepting insurance has often been viewed as a way to stay accessible. But Laura reframes this idea: moving to private pay doesn’t mean abandoning service — it means stewarding your gifts wisely.
By seeing fewer clients at a higher fee, therapists can create a surplus of time, energy, and income. That surplus can then be intentionally directed: offering pro bono spots, volunteering, donating to causes you care about, or simply providing clients with a much higher level of personalized care.
"You don’t have to serve everyone," Laura says, "but you are called to serve well."
Private Pay Means Greater Impact
One powerful insight Laura shares is how private pay actually increases the depth of service:
Hiring help: With increased income, you can afford to hire an assistant, positively impacting someone else's life and freeing yourself up to do your best clinical work.
Client care: A smaller caseload means you can show up fully for your clients — giving them more consideration, follow-up, and personalized support between sessions.
Thriving with integrity: Therapists who aren't burnt out from 30+ clients a week are better equipped to deliver transformational care, not just basic service.
Separating Your Worth from Your Pricing
Another major barrier therapists face in moving to private pay is the uncomfortable task of setting (and saying out loud) higher fees.
Laura is clear: your worth as a person is priceless — it cannot and should not be tied to your hourly rate.
You’re not charging for your value as a human being; you're charging for the professional services, expertise, and care you provide.
Avoiding money conversations can actually erode trust with clients. Transparency around pricing — and a clear articulation of the value clients receive — builds a stronger, more honest therapeutic relationship.
The Truth About Clients and Value
One of the most freeing realizations Laura shares is this: people will pay for what they value.
When someone believes you are the right person to help them through their struggles, the fee becomes secondary.
We do this in everyday life: whether it's childcare, medical care, or personal growth, we’re willing to invest in what we believe will make a real difference.
Therapists moving to private pay simply need to position themselves as that trusted solution — someone worth investing in.
Private Pay is About Freedom and Service
In the end, Laura’s experience shows that moving away from insurance isn’t about greed — it’s about integrity, freedom, and better care for everyone involved.
It allows therapists to:
Work with clients who they feel best equipped to serve
Have the energy to show up joyfully for each session
Serve the community from a place of abundance, not burnout
And let’s not forget Laura’s mic-drop moment:
If anyone should be accused of being greedy, it’s probably the insurance companies, not the clinicians trying to run sustainable, ethical practices.
Well said.
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[00:00:00] Laura Long: Hi, I am Laura Long, and if you're a faith-based therapist stuck on insurance panels, drowning in low payouts, and wondering if private pay is even possible for you. I want you to know it absolutely is. That's why I created this masterclass to help you confidently transition off panels and build a profitable God-honoring practice that gives you freedom and margin.
We'll have six live classes and three live office hours where I will personally walk you through the strategy and mindset shifts that you're gonna need to go private pay. Plus I'll be able to answer your questions in real time. And don't worry, every class is recorded and sent to you afterward. It's $249 a month for three months, and trust me, the return on investment is well worth it with the income that you're going to earn.
Sign up at www.wisepracticeconsulting.com. Oh, and here's the best part. You'll save $50 per month if you register by May 16th. Let's build the practice you've been praying for. I'll see you inside.
[00:01:01] Whitney Owens: Hi, I'm Whitney Owens. I'm a group practice owner and faith-based practice consultant, and I'm here to tell you that you can have it all.
Wanna grow your practice, wanna grow your faith, wanna enjoy your life outside of work, you've come to the right place. Each week on the Wise Practice Podcast, I will give you the action steps to have a successful faith-based practice while also having a good time. Now let's get started.
[00:01:27] Jingle: Where she grows your practice and she don't play.
She does business with a twist of faith. It's Whitney Owen and Wise Practice Podcast, Whitney Owen and Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:01:46] Whitney Owens: Hello friends, and thank you for hanging out with me on the Watch Practice Podcast today. I'm excited to have Laura Long in the house. She is the latest consultant to join the Wise Practice team, but also very experienced in what she brings to the table. She's been doing consulting for many years, helps so many practice owners do amazing things, find their big idea post retreats, start private practices.
But another thing she specializes in is helping you go off of insurance panels and go totally private pay, and she actually has the personal experience to back it up. What I love about Laura as I got done with the interview was reflecting, she has this amazing ability. To give you these applications and these steps, but, and, and that's great, but she really sees that deeper part.
Like she understands the mindset, she understands the way that we experience our practice, the way we experience money and the way that we experience God in our work and in our money. And she brings these deeper concepts to the table. She's able to address our fears and talk about how to go get over those mindset hurdles.
I absolutely love every conversation I get to have with her. It's always enlightening and helpful for me, and I know it will be for you too, and I'm super pumped about her course that's coming out. She's gonna have that start in June and it's live. You will be able to meet with her. In person on Zoom, uh, and you'll have six courses and three office hours.
It's gonna be excellent. It's low cost to be able to get you in the door because we want you to be able to have the private practice that you're looking for. So to get the more information, head to wise practice consulting.com. And remember, sign up early, you'll get 50 bucks off if you sign up by May 16th.
Again, thank you for taking the time to be on the show with us. If you have questions, if you're interested in consulting, reach out to us. We're here to help, and we're gonna go ahead and jump on into the episode on how to get off of insurance panels and how to be completely private pay practice.
Hello, and I am excited to have you here on the podcast because I am with Laura Long today. How are you girl? Hi. Good to see you again. Yeah, you too. You too. And we have some fun conversations that we get to have today about money mindset and private practice and insurance and private pay. So we'll go ahead and kind of get going here.
Why don't you first kind of talk to us about your own journey of becoming a private practice owner, and then kind of how you decided to go private pay.
[00:04:29] Laura Long: Yeah, well, so when I first started my private practice, Whitney, I actually took insurance. And a lot of people don't know that. They maybe think that I started private pay from the get go, but I actually started taking insurance.
I believe I was on three different panels to start. And I just thought that's what you do. You know, you go into private practice, you get on panels. That's what everyone in my area told me to do. So I really didn't know any better. And I did that for about three or four years. And what I started to notice is a few different things.
One. In order for me to make the income that I needed to make to support my lifestyle, I was having to see a lot more clients. And that was leading me to feel really tired, you know? So at the end of the day, I didn't have enough energy to spend quality time with my husband. I knew we were wanting to start a family.
I. And so I started looking ahead and sort of future projecting what my life was going to look like, and I realized that it just was not sustainable for me. Another thing that happened is that I was getting a lot of calls from people who just really weren't a good fit, and it started to make me feel like maybe there was something wrong with, with me or my level of competence because I was getting calls for issues that really I didn't feel like were within my, my wheelhouse.
And so I ended up having to refer out a lot of folks. And then of course you have some of the more common issues that folks have with dealing with insurance. You have denied claims or you didn't read the client's policy, right, or they got a new policy at a certain point you didn't know. Luckily, I didn't have to deal with any of the clawbacks that I've unfortunately heard from a lot of other clinicians, but there were times where payment was delayed so much that I was ending up having to pull from my own personal savings at times, and it just didn't feel like this was the way that I wanted to.
Run my practice long term. And so after a lot of conversations with my husband, obviously a lot of prayer, we made the decision that I was gonna have to go to more of a private pay practice. And at that time I did feel more confident in some of the work that I was doing, the modalities I was using, the clients I was treating.
The first thing that I did was improve my website to better reflect the kind of clients that I was wanting to target, and I reached out to all of my referral sources to let them know about these changes, and then I just did it in more of like a step-by-step plan instead of ripping the bandaid off and getting off of all insurance panels at the same time.
Mm-hmm. I just did it more like one at a time over the course of a year. And there were a few things that happened that surprised me in that process, but I would say the biggest shock was how many clients stayed with me. Yeah, and I think that that's a huge concern that therapists have when they are thinking about moving away from insurance and going to more of a private pay model, is that they're gonna lose all of their clients.
Not just from an income standpoint of what that would mean, but also just it's, it's heartbreaking to think that you're doing really excellent work with somebody and then if you stop taking their insurance, they're suddenly just gonna be. Left to their own devices and they have to start over with somebody, and that was definitely a huge fear of mine and luckily it didn't come to fruition.
There were a couple of clients, of course, that weren't able to make that transition, and I worked really hard to make sure that I gave them appropriate referrals and that I transitioned them to a clinician I thought was really great, who took their insurance, but I would say the vast majority of clients were able to stay and make it work.
[00:07:47] Whitney Owens: Hmm.
[00:07:48] Laura Long: Yeah.
[00:07:48] Whitney Owens: Yeah. There's so many things that you just shared. I'm like thinking of other practice centers who've said similar things when,
[00:07:54] Laura Long: mm-hmm. We
[00:07:54] Whitney Owens: were at the Licensed Professional Counseling Association conference in Georgia last year, and people were coming to the table and. The therapist looked so burnt out, like I could feel the drain, and they're like, I'm so tired.
I'm seeing 30, 35 clients a week. And I'm like, why? And they're like, well, well, insurance, I have to do this. And I was trained this way. And when I would say private pay practice, it was like I had said something they had never heard of before. Like what? You know. And Laura, I'm curious, how many clients were you having to see when you were in private pay practice with insurance?
[00:08:29] Laura Long: Yeah, for me to really earn the kind of income that I needed to, at the time, I had to see a minimum of 25 clients a week, and so that meant that during weeks where I had more no-shows or late cancellations, which I definitely had more of when I was taking insurance, and we can get into that a little bit later.
I would start to get really nervous and a bit panicked. Even if I had certain weeks where people were sick or they were on vacation, I just, I found myself almost feeling beholden to my caseload. And if I didn't see, you know, at least 22 to 25 clients, I was already worried about what my income was gonna look like for that week, or how I was gonna make sure to cover my overhead or pay for groceries, even if I had a.
A really low week. Mm-hmm. Like I was feeling really tired and you know, I think if I may, some of the reasons why. A therapist, especially if they're newer into private practice, taking insurance, might feel that pressure to see so many clients beyond the income limitations is that if they're coming from, say, an agency or community mental health, it is standard practice to see.
Mm-hmm. You know, at least 25 to 30, sometimes even 35 clients a week. That's just the norm. And so when you're moving from an agency setting or even sometimes a nonprofit or any sort of community mental health agency. It that becomes what you think or expect private practice is going to be. So then when you're in private practice working for yourself and you're your own boss, it doesn't seem crazy that you would be seeing the same 25 to 30 clients a week until you do that for several years and you realize how exhausting it is on your body.
[00:10:12] Whitney Owens: Hmm. Yeah. And then when you're seeing all those clients, and then when insurance has issues, I'm guessing there are times that claims are denied. You're having to make phone calls. I mean, that's more time.
[00:10:22] Laura Long: Well, then you're sitting on the phone with, you know, blue Cross Blue Shield or Aetna or Cigna for up to two hours to try and fight with them about a denied claim.
And that's hours that you are not being paid for. So suddenly the, you know, 70 or $80 that you might have been paid out for that claim, now you're having to argue it over the course of two hours and you're losing money. So at that point, continuing on in that way, I. Is costing your practice more than what you're actually earning.
Now, luckily I did have a billing person that I paid for and I, I paid her well to make sure that when there was a denied claim, she was the one having to hop on the phone. So that is something that I encourage my consulting clients who do work with insurance to explore, because oftentimes they're just charging you a percentage of what you're making on that claim.
Only paying your biller when, when you are generating revenue. But even still, that's an added expense on top of the fact that insurance reimbursement is generally much lower than what you would receive as a private pay clinician. So it's just more money that you're having to shell out just to operate a practice that you want to be sustainable.
[00:11:29] Whitney Owens: Yeah. And you're just wanting to help people. Mm-hmm. And so did you feel that pressure to diagnose a certain way, you know, to make it. So that a client can get treatment. 'cause it's, I hear therapists talk about client comes in and their diagnosis is minimal, you know, adjustment disorder, but you kind of feel like, oh, well they want their insurance to pay.
What do I do? Did you have those kind of dilemmas?
[00:11:52] Laura Long: The biggest dilemma that I personally had with this was because I primarily saw couples, and so it was very difficult to figure out how to navigate insurance when a couple came in and wanted to use their insurance. But of course, the only way for me to do that.
Was to choose one of them or have a very difficult conversation with them about how insurance works. And I think that that it, it set us up almost to fail from the get go because I'm working with a couple on their communication and yet I'm having to choose one of them to be the identified patient and to receive a diagnosis.
And ethically, it definitely felt really sticky and muddy for me to find out ways to write my caseload progress notes in a way that. Still reflected the good work that we were doing and yet also, uh, appealed to insurance and almost placated them because if there was some sort of audit, I needed to ensure that my notes reflected that I was working with the couple on the identified patient's diagnosis, when really a lot of the work that we were doing was relational.
So that was the biggest challenge that I had just because of the population I enjoyed serving most, which was couples. Yeah, it also made it easier though when I made that decision to finally get off insurance panels to start moving away from. Or toward working with couples because it was an easier way for me to articulate to couples that would call why I didn't take insurance for couples work.
So I would say that that was one almost blessing in disguise is that I got to say, well, really, if I were to bill insurance for you to receive couples counseling, here's what that would need to look like. And that really doesn't align with my ethical code anymore. You know, this is something that I need to change because I want my case notes and my progress notes to reflect the actual work that we're doing as opposed to pandering to insurance companies.
[00:13:44] Whitney Owens: Yeah. So, so much of the conversation is about that educational piece that clients just don't understand how it all works, you know? And, and even as clinicians, like it is our ethical mandate to educate and let clients know what's going on.
[00:14:00] Laura Long: Mm-hmm. We've
[00:14:00] Whitney Owens: done such a great job addressing those pain points that therapists feel like.
I, I hear those same exact things. And I also just a lot of mindset stuff. Like when therapists finally start thinking. Maybe I could go private pay. A lot of fears come up. So what are some of those fears?
[00:14:20] Laura Long: Well, first let me just say that I think mindset when it comes to transitioning away from insurance more into the private pay model mindset is probably 80% of it.
And the actual strategy of how to do it is 20%. Okay? So mindset takes up a huge. Part of why clinicians feel so afraid to do this. I think for faith-based practitioners, especially, there is this, this call to serve. And so when I speak to faith-based practice owners, whether they're group practice owners or solo practitioners, they do wanna, they have a heart of service and they want to be accessible.
And insurance and taking insurance is one way for them to be accessible. So I would say that the number one fear that clinicians have, who I talk. Two on a daily basis is that, how am I gonna be accessible to people who maybe aren't in a financial position to be able to pay privately? And that is a hard question.
You know, I do, I do understand how difficult it can be for some folks, especially when the economy is not doing well, to also feel like, oh my gosh, now I'm gonna have to pay privately for therapy and I really need it. But something that you have to remember is that God calls us to stew. Our gifts wisely.
And so moving to self-pay actually can give you the capacity to serve more deeply and with integrity. So for example, if you're moving from an insurance-based practice to a private pay practice, you don't have to see 25, 30, even 35 clients per week to generate the same amount of revenue to support your lifestyle.
You may only have to see. 10 to 15 clients. So with all of that extra time, you can choose how you want to spend it, and that's how you can choose to serve. So whether that looks like volunteering at a local organization, offering a pro bono spot to somebody, even donating your. Your time, energy, resources, if you want to see 15 to 20 clients, but you're doing it in a private pay model that's gonna give you a surplus of revenue in your business that you can then use to help causes that mean a lot to you without necessarily having to take insurance.
So that's one way that you can. Make that transition and, and help with the mindset. Part of it is to realize that, you know, I don't have to serve everyone, but I, I do need to serve. Coming from a place of abundance and joy and stewardship means knowing your limits while still being able to make an impact.
Because we are called to serve. We're just not called to serve everybody.
[00:16:50] Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. Oh, such a, such a good point. I even think about in my practice, having an assistant. Has been pretty game changer, and I don't know if I'd have the income for that if I was taking insurance. You know, you'd have to do all that yourself.
But having an assistant allows people to get served faster. Mm-hmm. You know, she can answer those calls. She can really spend time with people that I simply wouldn't have been able to. So it is a way that we can serve greater. I also try to remember that we all feel called to different things. You know, and someone might feel called to do a insurance-based practice, and that's what they're doing.
You know, and I'm, and you know, we feel called to something different. And so there it is flexibility there for if people do need to be served or there's an a nonprofit, you know, they can offer really low cost services to people that really need them. And, and we're not set up as nonprofits. There's a whole structure to that.
And so there are a lot more options for people to be served. And we have to do what we feel like is best and what we feel called to.
[00:17:51] Laura Long: Yeah. Well, and I wanna make two additional points to piggyback off of what you're saying. So first of all, you're able to hire an assistant to help you because you don't take insurance and therefore you have that extra surplus.
And so you are actually positively impacting your assistance life in a meaningful way. Yes. Mm-hmm. Right, because she's earning a, a nice, I would imagine, salary from what you're able to give her. And so if she wasn't working for you, she would have to work somewhere else. So that's one way that you are positively impacting somebody else because you can now afford to pay that assistant.
And then also what you spoke to is quality of care. So your clients are now experiencing that really elevated level of. Consideration time and care that is gonna help them reach their goals more quickly because they have this person that's gonna walk them through the process. And that's often what I will tell a new client is that I'm able to maintain a smaller caseload, which means that I'm more available to you.
I love this. So client care also improves when we are able to put our own oxygen mask on and fill our own cup as practice owners and as entrepreneurs, because then you are able to pour from a more full cup rather than feeling like a martyr, having to see all these clients, but then you are really stressed and what kind of energy are you bringing into session when you're feeling that way.
Mm-hmm. Um, and then the thirdly, I just wanted to comment on the fact that, you know, if someone. Has a heart to serve people and take insurance. There is nothing wrong with that, and there is flexibility in that. I have a very close friend who, as a ministry, chooses to take insurance. Now his financial situation is such that his wife earns a, a very generous living and they don't have children, so it's okay for him.
To work with insurance companies and receive a much lower reimbursement rate because that's how he's choosing to give back and choosing to serve. If that's someone's life and their, and they're feeling called to do it that way, there's absolutely no problem with it. So I, I do disagree with. Demonizing, you know?
Mm-hmm. People who choose to take insurance or trying to idealize private pay practices. It, I think you have to figure out what's going to work for you and your life. It's just that the problem I often see is that for many clinicians taking insurance doesn't work, and yet they keep trying to, almost like a.
Square peg in a round hole, and those are the clinicians that I really want to work with, or the ones who they realize that this is not working for them, but they're so caught up in their own fear of how to do it, the logistics of how to do it, and still wanting to come from a place of service, and they're just not quite sure how to operate a practice that's sustainable while also no longer taking insurance.
[00:20:38] Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. I'm so glad that you, you mentioned that part. And we even have Amy Dover on the team, and she is amazing at helping people with insurance-based practices and has a group practice herself, you know, and doing God's call in the way that she feels called to it. And so it. It's a beautiful thing in the way that we, we listen and we respect one another in that.
Alright, so let's go into some more of kind of, are there other fears that we could address? Mm-hmm. Okay. Tell me more. Oh yeah.
[00:21:06] Laura Long: Well, I think addressing sort of the money mindset behind it all is really important. That could probably be its own entire podcast episode, so we could probably only scratch the surface of what that looks like.
But I know that a lot of. Therapists, particularly Christian therapists, do struggle with the idea of private pay because it inevitably means charging more and having to talk about money at all. So shifting their mindset away from that and helping them to better explore what that looks like for them.
You know, we have to talk a lot about separating worth from pricing. Mm, because when you're talking about a private pay model, you might be charging a an A rate that that just doesn't feel like, oh, am I even worth that? You know? And I know I struggled with that too when I first started to transition to private pay.
Like how can I go from, you know, insurance is only paying me 70 or $80 and I know that I need to charge 1 25, but I don't even feel like I'm worth that. So one thing that I will often say to therapists just kind of tongue in cheek, is you're never gonna be able to charge your your worth. You're priceless.
So it doesn't even matter, you know, because your worth as a person is inherent. Your worth as a person on this planet is completely priceless, and there's no amount that you could charge per hour that would reflect your worth. So separate your worth from the pricing of your, of your business, of your services.
And I think that can be hard in the profession that we are in because we actually are the product at times, right? Like our knowledge and the way that we're connecting with our clients and what we're sharing, our education, those are what we are charging for. But it is vital, I think, to separate your inherent worth and value from the value of the services that you're providing.
And I also think that avoiding money conversations can actually become a barrier to trust and transparency. Because if you're not showcasing and sharing what the value is that you're providing and the price that's reflecting that, then how are you gonna build trust with your clients? So yeah, so talking about the money part is huge.
And you know, scripture doesn't condemn wealth. It warns against idolizing it. So you can honor God and build a thriving business at the same time. I don't believe that those are mutually exclusive.
[00:23:19] Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. Yes. You're, you're totally spot on with that.
[00:23:24] Laura Long: Anything you wanted to add?
[00:23:26] Whitney Owens: Well, I, I, I'm, I'm listening.
You're doing great. Is there any more there that you wanted to say before we get into how, how do we, 'cause honestly, I have so many people who want this. Mm-hmm. But they just are like, it can't happen. Yeah, I could never do that. You know? And, and so then they run away from it. And so I guess that would be the big thing I wanna address.
Can, can they do it? Absolutely. They
[00:23:47] Laura Long: can do it. And what you have to remember is that there are people out there who would happily pay more money if they got better care. It's just like almost any other treatment. You know you when you are in a place of despair, when you feel hopeless, and when you are so desperate for a solution.
If someone tells you that they can help and you actually believe them, the price becomes secondary. For most people, if they value something and if it is so important to them, they are going to find that. That way they're going to make it happen because they believe so much in what it is that they are paying for.
And we do this all the time in our, even in our day-to-day lives, there are things that we value that we. Don't even blink before paying for. And there are other things in our life that we just don't really value as much. So we're gonna look for the cheapest option. And there's no shame in that because I, you know, I can't afford to just be price insensitive to everything in my life.
I have to be able to budget and cut corners on things that I really don't value. But if it is something that I value that's important to me, including. Childcare or any sort of extracurricular activities for my child, certain medical procedures, you know, I want to get what I think is the best care and I'm also willing to pay for that.
And so that's something to just keep in mind when you are in a position of wanting to transition away from insurance into more of a private pay model, is you need to be that hope for somebody. Uh, you can no longer get by. By just doing the bare minimum, which you might be able to do if you're seeing 35, 40 clients a week and they're just coming to see you because you take their insurance, but you're really not having to be on the hook, I would say, as much as someone who is a private pay practitioner, and that can be a bit of an unsettling or uncomfortable conversation, but I just like lean right into that because I think there, there is an expectation when you are.
A private pay practitioner that you're gonna show up and that you're gonna do the work with them. You're gonna get in the trenches with them and. Fortunately, I think a lot of clients want that challenge. They're up for it, but it is a hard conversation because it's, it's a little bit more tricky to demonstrate that value by having an excellent website, a really strong new client onboarding system, you know, there are certain things that you need to do if you want to have a successful private pay practice that you can get by not really focusing so much on.
If you want to just take insurance.
[00:26:29] Whitney Owens: Yeah, that's such a good point. It's, it's one headache for another in a way. Mm-hmm. Because it's, you're getting rid of the headache of your insurance, but you're taking on the headache of marketing and growth. But it's like once you get that stuff in place mm-hmm. It feeds itself.
Yeah. And it keeps growing and growing and, and then you don't have to worry about it so much anymore. It's just figuring out that messaging, figuring out where to market.
[00:26:52] Laura Long: And it does allow you to serve those who you do your best work with. That's right. So remembering that as well, that moving from a, an insurance based practice to a private pay practice gives you so much more leverage and freedom.
To show up to work and be excited. You know, looking at your calendar for the week and actually looking forward to every single client that you are going to see that week. Having the extra time outside of sessions to read, to do research on behalf of your clients, anything that they need so that you feel like you're doing your best work.
That's what we want, isn't it? So just remembering that it isn't. It isn't just about making more money, which I don't have any qualms about that because it's not about, you know, we're, we're, it's okay to talk about money as long as we are not idealizing wealth, so it's okay to talk about the money. And also it's important to recognize that operating a private pay practice gives you so much more freedom that you can leverage in other ways to also serve others.
Mm-hmm. Also, let's not, let's not pretend just for a second that insurance companies are out here doing the Lord's work, Whitney. You know, like if anyone should be accused of being greedy or being hypocritical, it's probably the insurance companies, not the clinicians who are trying to run a sustainable ethical practice.
Reach just my mic drop moment, you know?
[00:28:22] Whitney Owens: Yeah. It's so true. Okay, so I know you've been doing this for a very long time. You consult practice owners probably on this very topic, how to move from insurance to private pay. Mm-hmm. Have you ever had a practice owner come back to you and go, Laura, why don't you tell me to do that?
And now I don't have any clients and now I hate my life and I really wish that I'd just stayed on insurance.
[00:28:42] Laura Long: Yeah. That has literally never happened. 100% of the time they come back, it might be six months, it might be a year later, and they go, why didn't I do this sooner?
[00:28:50] Jingle: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:51] Laura Long: I was so afraid that none of my clients were gonna stay, and 89% of them stayed.
Yeah. And then also the, the doing the math and realizing that even if 10 to 15% of their caseloads had to be transferred somewhere else. The need to see as many clients as they used to. So they actually don't even need to see more clients. They, they trans transferred everyone to a private pay model and all the remaining clients that maybe weren't able to do that, whether that was just a, a couple of clients or five clients, they transferred them over and then realized, oh my gosh, I don't even have to do much marketing because the clients that are remaining are more than making up for the ones that left.
Exactly. So it wasn't as scary as I thought it was. That's usually what they say. It was not as scary. It was so scary when I did it. And now looking back, why didn't I do it sooner?
[00:29:40] Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. Totally. I hear the exact same thing from people. Mm-hmm. And so some therapists will say, okay, I hear you, Laura. I could do that, but new people aren't gonna wanna schedule with me.
Why not? Why wouldn't they? Well, I guess they wanna use their insurance is what they think.
[00:29:57] Laura Long: Yeah. Well, and I think it's important to provide some education on your website, first and foremost, about what that would look like. I. Because I do want people to feel educated and if it's really, really important to someone to be able to use their insurance, I also want them to be able to use their insurance.
It's not my job to. Strong arm somebody into using or to not use their insurance if that's what they really want. So yeah, I'm never gonna come from this place of, well, you need to work with me. That's, that's really not how I work, but I am going to highlight and demonstrate the value that they're going to receive.
If they work with me, and I think that that's my duty on my website to do that, to help them understand this is the value that you're getting from working with me, and this is how I feel like I can be helpful. And because I keep a small caseload and because I'm able to offer more of a high touch situation for them, an experience, there're more likely to reach their goals quicker.
So. It all comes out in the wash anyway, but there are options for people you know, especially if you're in the States, you can use an HSA or an FSA card. You can potentially talk to your CPA. This would be for the client side about even writing off some of these expenses. So there are ways that you can go about.
Still helping them, you know, providing them with what's called a super bill if you're an out of network provider, so that they can potentially receive some sort of out of network partial or even full reimbursement from their insurance company. So it is important to me that I empower and educate prospective clients on what their options are.
And what I've found is that by the time a client reaches out to me and we're on the phone doing a consultation, they've already done their homework, they've done their research, and they're ready to move forward, they're motivated, and then we get really great work done. Mm-hmm.
[00:31:44] Whitney Owens: Such good points and that educational piece.
Yeah. And in the intake call, and I know that, that you teach therapists about this, there's mm-hmm. There's kind of a science behind it to help people understand, you know, a lot of times they ask about that right up front, what insurance you take. Okay, well, we're not really here to talk about just insurance.
I'm here to help you. Mm-hmm. You know, and being able to do that. And I know you train people, train people on that process and that educational piece. And I, I wanna go back to the percentage you used earlier where you said, really. You know, 85 to 90% of clients will go with you.
[00:32:17] Laura Long: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:17] Whitney Owens: And of course I haven't, I actually never have been an insurance based practice, always been cash pay.
So I have never had that exact experience personally. But when I look at the numbers of my practice, we lose about 10 to 15% of our new client calls due to insurance. And when I tell people that, they're like, what? You know, they, they're shocked, you know? But it's true. It's like, if you can learn how to do this the right way.
All of our clients have insurance. They choose not to use it. Mm-hmm.
[00:32:49] Laura Long: Yeah. That's something that I have often found myself reminding clinicians, is that if you take insurance, all of your clients, for the most part will be insurance based. But if you move to a private pay model, most of your insurance or most of your clients will also have insurance.
So really the person who wants to use their insurance. And the person who pays privately are not all that different. Their mindsets might be slightly different, but every single person on my caseload has insurance. Therefore, if I was an insurance-based provider, they would all want to use their insurance.
Why wouldn't they? They just elect not to use their insurance because the value that they're getting from the work that we're doing, they believe that they're going to receive exactly what it is that I say I'm going to help them with. And so then of course it's up to me. To really work hard with them.
You know, I don't falsely advertise that I'm gonna help them get to some sort of outcome and then not do the work on my end. And so that's what I was saying earlier, that you know, you're really on the hook as a private pay clinician because clients who come to you. Do expect that you're going to be effective, and so then it's up to you.
You have that charge to say, okay, what do I need to do maybe even outside of session to be the best clinician I can be? Because no amount of marketing is going to help you have a sustainable practice if you are not a great clinician. On the other side, you can be an excellent clinician and not really have a whole lot of of business or marketing experience and still have an excellent practice.
So this all boils down to feeling really confident in your clinical skills. And if you're not, that's great. You have so many opportunities. There are so many ways that you can improve your clinical skills too. So it's not as easy as just saying, I'm gonna get off insurance. You also have to take a very honest look at yourself as a clinician and say, you know, do I have any blind spots or are there areas where I wanna receive some extra training or supervision around so that I can be the best clinician?
Which fortunately is what most of us want for ourselves. You know, we want to be really great clinicians. You just don't have the time, bandwidth, energy, or financial resources to do that. If you're seeing 35 plus clients a week. Definitely, but you can, if you're private pay and you're only seeing maybe 10 to 15 clients a week, you can devote an entire day every single week where you are just learning and growing and trying to be a better clinician.
Mm-hmm.
[00:35:22] Whitney Owens: I
[00:35:22] Laura Long: love
[00:35:23] Whitney Owens: this. Yeah. So if somebody's listening or watching us and they're thinking, gosh, Laura knows her stuff and I really want to go private pay, what would you suggest for them?
[00:35:33] Laura Long: Probably two things. One, you know, just for more of a, a practical step by step, I would want them to really think more about.
They're, they're a niche or ideal client. Who is it that if, if they could look at their caseload and be so excited to see everyone that they're seeing in a week's time, what would that look like? Who, who are those kinds of people that they might be serving and then going on their own website to see?
Does my message reflect that? And perhaps even updating your website to better reflect the kinds of people with whom you do your best work. You may also want to do a financial review of your practice and see, okay, on average over the last six months, how many clients am I seeing per week and what is the average reimbursement rate of all the insurance companies that I'm working with?
Like, what do my numbers actually tell me? What is the story that my numbers are telling me? And. Are these numbers reflective or aligned with the goals that I have for myself and for my life? If the answer is yes, then you really don't need to do anything differently. Mm-hmm. But if the answer is no, then you have some work to do to figure out, okay.
Where even if I leave one panel, what kind of difference might that make if I were to. Really focus on attracting people who are ready, motivated, and, and willing and happy to pay more for therapy because they trust and believe in the work that we would do together. But also, Whitney, if this conversation that you and I are having has stirred up something in a clinician who's listening, if they are tired of feeling overworked and underpaid.
Or if they're just ready to run their practice in a way that aligns with them and their faith and honors their time, then I'd love for them to join me in my masterclass this summer. Can we talk about that? Yes, please. Yeah, so this summer 2025, I'll be leading a three month masterclass that is designed specifically for solo and group practice owners who are ready to transition away from insurance.
We're gonna be covering everything from marketing and money mindset, which you know, is 80% of it. And we're also gonna be talking about systems and client communication, niche, ideal client websites. And we're all gonna be doing this from a place of stewardship.
[00:37:57] Whitney Owens: Sounds pretty great, huh? Yeah, it does sound pretty great.
And so you're saying that someone who takes the class will have the steps that they need to go private pay?
[00:38:06] Laura Long: Oh yeah. I'm gonna be pro providing the entire roadmap for how they can go about doing it. Soup to nuts. We're gonna meet six times for learning. I'm gonna be providing actual lectures and slides and showing them, walking them through exactly the steps that they need to take.
In order to transition their practices from insurance based to private pay. And then also I'm gonna be offering once a month q and a office hours where people can just come and rapid fire, ask me anything specific to their situation. I'm gonna help them so that by the end of the summer they are completely armed and ready to transition their practices to private pay models.
[00:38:44] Whitney Owens: Fantastic. Alright, so what is the price point on this, Laura?
[00:38:49] Laura Long: Oh man. People are like, is this gonna be $5,000? So Whitney and I actually talked about this at Link, didn't we, Whitney? And we decided that we wanted to offer something that felt so accessible that it's not even. A consideration. If you are someone ready to move away from insurance and go into a private pay model, you shouldn't also have to be worried that you can't afford the training.
Mm-hmm. So for three months of support, which equates to nine live hours of Zoom calls with me, it's gonna be $249 a month for three months, and we also have a special promo code. Am I allowed to share? Yeah, the early bird special. So if you join by May 16th and use the promo code early master, you'll get 30, I'm sorry, $50 off per month.
So it ends up only being $199 a month for three months.
[00:39:47] Whitney Owens: Wow. So $199, that's like the total I charge a client. I know one, so Yeah. Yeah. Choose one. So really you're gonna pay for yourself within a very short amount of time.
[00:40:02] Laura Long: Yeah. And think about that as you transition away from insurance, you know, because $199 a month is probably, maybe two client hours if you're taking insurance.
But once you actually do transition to that private pay model, that class is gonna pay for itself in one actual session per month. Yeah.
[00:40:21] Whitney Owens: Great.
[00:40:21] Laura Long: Pretty incredible.
[00:40:22] Whitney Owens: Then what if I am traveling one of the weeks of the course or I can't make it for some reason? Is there a recording?
[00:40:29] Laura Long: Yep. Every single call will be recorded and available to you whether you attend live or not.
Although I would love for you to attend live.
[00:40:36] Whitney Owens: Yes, definitely. And I just wanna make sure for anyone who's in the Wise Practice membership community, you know who you are, you receive a special discount, so you'll be able to get the course for even less. Go to the deals and discount space in our membership community, and you'll be able to snag that at a really low rate.
So, boom. That's right, girl. Well, I'm excited. If people are interested, they can go to wise practice consulting.com. There's a banner there that gives them more information. Or you can go to masterminds and the dropdown, there's the Private Pay Masterclass where you can learn more. You can see all the dates, the time, and the meetings.
If you have questions, you can reach out to Laura at Wise Practice Consulting and she'll answer all your questions. Please make sure you grab the early discount 'cause it's totally worth it and all that will be in the show notes. Laura, I'm really excited about this class 'cause I'm excited about therapists enjoying their lives more and making more money.
Yeah. And serving more.
[00:41:33] Laura Long: Serving more and operating practices that are sustainable and joyful. We all benefit from that, don't we? Definitely. It's gonna be a great time.
[00:41:43] Whitney Owens: Well, thank you so much for taking the time, your expertise. I just love this and I'm really excited about this class.
[00:41:52] Jingle: So click on follow and leave a review and keep on loving this work we do with Whitney Owen and Wise Practice Podcast, Whitney Owen and Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:42:10] Whitney Owens: Special thanks to Marty Altman for the music in this podcast. The Wise Practice Podcast is part of the Site Craft Podcast Network. A collaboration of independent podcasters focused on helping people live more meaningful and productive lives.
To learn more about the other amazing podcasts in the network, head on over to site craft network.com. The Wise Practice podcast represents the opinions of Whitney Owens and her guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and the content should not be taken as legal advice. If you have legal questions, please consult an attorney.
