WP118 | How to Create Benefits for both Clinicians and CEOs in Private Practice - Live Consulting with Dr. Rhonda Johnson
Are you ready to dive into the world of running a thriving group practice while balancing financial sustainability, team culture, and therapist retention? In today’s episode of the Wise Practice Podcast, we’re joined by the incredible Dr. Rhonda Johnson for a live consulting call. We’ll unpack the complexities of offering benefits that attract and retain therapists while maintaining the financial health of your business. Plus, Rhonda will share insights from her decades of experience, including how she built her practice into a thriving hub for trauma-informed care and family systems therapy. Stick around, because you’ll also hear about her amazing training programs and a special discount for Wise Practice members. This is a conversation packed with value for anyone looking to grow their practice and support their team. Let’s jump in!
The Benefits of the W2 Model
Transitioning to a W2 structure offers numerous advantages for group practices. Whitney’s practice has embraced this model to provide robust benefits such as health insurance, retirement matching, paid time off, and continuing education opportunities. By removing the administrative burden from therapists, this approach not only enhances job satisfaction but also significantly improves employee retention.
Community and Connection
Fostering a sense of community is essential in combating therapist isolation and building morale. Whitney emphasizes the importance of camaraderie through initiatives like case consultations, regular supervision, and team-building events. Holiday parties, improv nights, and fundraisers are just a few examples of how her practice cultivates connection and belonging among staff members.
Transparent Pay Practices
Open communication about the financial realities of running a group practice is a cornerstone of Whitney’s philosophy. She explains how operational costs such as liability insurance, supervision, and administrative expenses impact therapist pay. By addressing misconceptions about profit distribution, Whitney ensures her team understands the broader financial picture, fostering trust and transparency.
Flexible Compensation Structures
Whitney’s preference for an hourly pay model over percentages or fixed salaries allows for fair and consistent compensation aligned with therapists’ workloads. Associates start at a standard rate, with opportunities for raises based on performance and rate adjustments. This flexibility supports both the practice’s financial health and the therapists’ professional growth.
Empowerment Through Responsibility
Delegating leadership roles, such as site director positions, empowers team members to take initiative and fosters a sense of shared ownership. Whitney’s approach strengthens her team’s commitment to the practice and enhances overall workplace satisfaction.
Balancing Salaried Positions and Profitability
Offering salaried positions comes with its own set of challenges. Whitney highlights the need for careful financial planning to ensure profitability while providing stability for employees. Her philosophy includes capping compensation at 40% of revenue and keeping total costs, including benefits, below 50%. This strategic approach maintains the sustainability of the practice while supporting employee needs.
Managing Therapist Workloads
Dr. Rhonda Johnson sheds light on her team’s workload, which includes 32 clients per week for each therapist. Balancing high caseloads with client affordability, particularly in an insurance-heavy model, presents unique challenges. Both Whitney and Dr. Johnson stress the importance of fostering a supportive culture that retains employees and discourages them from starting their own practices.
Streamlining Administrative Processes
Efficient administrative processes are crucial for maintaining a professional and effective practice environment. Whitney shares insights into handling scheduling, payment issues, and client communications, ensuring operations run smoothly while prioritizing both staff and client needs.
Building a Supportive Workplace Culture
Ultimately, the success of a group practice hinges on creating a workplace culture that values both therapists and clients. By balancing financial realities, managing workloads, and fostering connection, Whitney and Dr. Johnson demonstrate how thoughtful leadership can lead to a thriving, sustainable practice.
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Dr. Rhonda Johnson’s Resources
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[00:00:00] Whitney Owens: What if you could save 10 hours a week and still have perfectly written clinical notes? With Berries, that's not just a dream, it is your new reality. Berries is a HIPAA compliant AI scribe trusted by thousands of therapists. It writes your clinical notes in your unique style, generates detailed treatment plans, drafts client summary emails with key takeaways, and even creates a prep summary to help you start sessions with confidence.
And it works well with any EHR, like therapy notes and many more. It takes the stress out of note taking so that you can focus on what really matters. Whether you're working solo or part of a group practice, Berries adapts to your needs and works seamlessly in any setting. In person, telehealth, virtual sessions with headphones.
It frees up your time to see more clients or simply do what you love. Getting started is easy. It only takes 30 seconds to create your first net. Ready to give it a try? Head to berries. icu and sign up for 20 free sessions. Plus, use the code WISE50, W I S E 5 0, to get 50 percent off your first month. 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. Want to grow your practice? Want to grow your faith? Want to 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 help you to have a successful faith based practice while also having a good time.
Now let's get started.
[00:01:34] Jingle: Where she grows your practice, she don't play. She does business with a twist of faith. It's Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast. Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast.
Yay!
[00:01:53] Whitney Owens: I am excited! The Wise Practice community opens tomorrow! Our membership community only opens twice a year, and I love all the new Christian therapist practice owners that join the community every single time. I get to connect with you. Help you grow your practice and see awesome things happen. And I just appreciate that you trust me to help you in this process.
So if you are a listener of the podcast, you want to get to know some other practice centers. Maybe you've been kind of uncertain how to take your next steps. Let me let you know the wise practice community is your next step. The doors are opening January 29th, which is tomorrow from the airing of this episode.
They will only be open for three days. And then they'll close and then we'll open one more time later in 2025. So what is the WISePractice membership community? It is a community of faith based practice owners growing and scaling their practices together. Within that online community, we meet every week to work on our practice.
I give you tips. I personally come to those meetings. We have open office hours where I answer your questions about your practice. You connect with other faith based practice centers in the process. We have experts that come in, in the field to help you in topics such as Google ads, SEO, accounting, finances, all of it within all of this.
There is a course catalog for you to take courses. There's paperwork for you to copy and use in your own practice, sending you hundreds of dollars on attorney fees for only 89 a month. And I don't want anyone joining this community that doesn't find it completely helpful. So if you get in there and you're like, this isn't for me, that is totally okay.
Shoot me an email and let me know. But I would love to be able to work with you in the Last Practice Membership community. So set an alarm for tomorrow, the 29th. Go to WisePracticeConsulting. com slash memberships, hit the button and join. I'm looking forward to hanging out with you within the community and helping you grow your practice and seeing all the cool stuff God does.
So let's get into some of the podcasts. I have Rhonda Johnson, who is a group practice owner located in Texas. We met at the Wise Practice Summit and then she joined the membership community and she's doing awesome things within her group practice. And she asks the question about. Having benefits within your practice.
I get this question a lot from group practice centers. How do we make that happen in a way that works financially in a way that works for our team members that keeps our culture? And honestly, I have found the benefits help retain therapists. So we're going to get into all of that today before we do Rhonda.
She not only runs a group practice, but she also helps in coaching and in consulting and helping people with their play therapy practice and offer supervision and courses for them. So I want to make sure she mentions in the end of the episode about the training programs that she offers, but I failed to mention that she's giving a discount to WISe practice members.
So if you go to CCFAM training and play therapy training resources, you can get 10 percent off of her courses. If you use the code WISE10, that's W I S E 1 0 for 10 percent off. So Rhonda, thank you. Thank you for that gift. Thank you for being a part of the community. Thank you for choosing to work with me.
You are a true pleasure and you're already making huge strides forward in your practice. So looking forward to sharing you with the audience today when we talk about the benefits for both clinicians and CEOs in private practice.
Today on the Watts Practice Podcast, I have Dr. Rhonda Johnson, who's the founder and owner of the Center for Counseling and Family Relationships, a large thriving group practice in Texas that was established in 2007 and specializes in family systems and trauma informed approaches. She's also the founder and owner of CCFAM Training, established in 2012, specializing in supervision and ethics trainings.
As well, she has Play Therapy Training Resources, which was established in 2021 for play therapy trainings and resources. Through these companies, Dr. Johnson provides continuing education, supervision, and consultation. She's also a teaching fellow at BH Carroll Seminary. Thank you for coming on the show, Rhonda.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for hosting me. Yeah, you have another great thing that wasn't in your bio is your book. That's true.
[00:06:23] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: That's true. That
[00:06:24] Whitney Owens: real quick.
[00:06:25] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Yes. So pace setter came out a couple of years ago, and we call it 15 years of all of my mistakes and learnings. So one of the best things I ever did is I went online.
under coaching from a pastor at my church who is seeking a coaching certification and needed someone who was not in ministry. So I was the guinea pig and it went so well that I stuck with it for a good seven or eight years until he became our senior pastor and we had to finish out. So that's part of how I found you.
So all the things of wanting to grow and learn, but yeah, so that's the book. It really helped us set our mission and values and strategy and who we became through the years. Thanks. Wonderful. Love
[00:07:06] Whitney Owens: it. So 1 thing I really love about how we met is I was in my office and you mailed me your book. I didn't know who you were.
And not only did you mail me your book, but you had such a thoughtful letter. I was like, I think it was just the letter. I don't think there was a car. I think it was a letter that you put in there. About who you were and how you knew who I was, because we've been connected during mutual acquaintance.
Someone I'd done consulting with, I think, was getting supervision from you, maybe, or something like that,
[00:07:39] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: that participant had come through a training, came through a supervisor training, flew into Texas from out of state. And ask for time with me and you never know what you're giving when you give time.
And sure enough, it was a gift for me because I helped her, but she told me about you. So here we are.
[00:07:55] Whitney Owens: Oh, I love it. I love it. And so your letter, it just really drew me in and I just loved the work you were doing. I was like, this will be a cool partnership. And so, yeah, and then it went from there and you were at the summit and you were a sponsor and now we're here doing podcasting.
So. I just appreciate your thoughtfulness there and the extra effort that you make. And I think that's so important, not only in life, but also in business.
[00:08:19] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Absolutely.
[00:08:20] Whitney Owens: Absolutely. Well, before we get into your question, I think it's always nice for people to kind of have a well rounded idea of who you are and a little bit about your practice before we jump in.
So, I know I read your bio, but anything I left out that you want to include about yourself also, Jacob, which what we kind of how y'all manage the practice together and then talk a little bit about your practice.
[00:08:41] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Sure. So I've had the practice for 17 years, and we do about 60 percent minors. So that's a huge chunk of what we do.
And it may even be a little bit higher than that now. And that's where the play therapy comes in. So of all of our rooms, we have about 10 play therapy rooms, and we're kids are here. Coming up and down the hallways all, all day long and all week long, which is a lot of fun. So we really do focus more on families.
And that means that we have lots of families that are shared. And so there may be five or six family members who are here and they all have a different counselor. And so that allows them to be able to have their person and be seen. And so I really appreciated God's kindness just in being able to be a hub, not just to help the client who's in front of us.
but to truly view them as a system and to see how we can bring hope and help to families and help them stay together and united in their relationships with each other in a world where a lot of unhealthiness and detachment happens a lot. So that brings a lot of joy just on a daily basis. So yes, so Jacob came in, that was God's kindness.
Right before COVID, there was a job transition for him and I was under coaching still at that time. And, you know, the suggestion came, can I talk to you just as a person, not as your pastor, not as coach, not as all those things. I was like, sure. You know, are you sure he's not supposed to be with you? And so that was a really scary transition.
That's a whole other conversation. But when you go from having a business that I had run, on my own as in them being with me, you know, for a good 13 years. And then you throw your spouse into the mix, you know, 19 years at that point, we've been together 23 years now and trying, you know, to see what that transition would be like.
And so we even got a friend from church to coach us through that just as a couple, you know, in that transition. So I'm a big believer, you know, in having people speak into your life and seeking wisdom from others and, And learning from those who've gone before who have lots of wisdom, too. So, so that's a little bit about the practice in a nutshell.
We see about 1400 clients a month and there's around 15 counselors and all. And so I think that's the big bulk and the continuing ed came about just to give our staff a continued path outside of. Yes, they could continue doing counseling as long as they wanted, but they could also start leading trainings.
So that used to just be me, but then four years ago, we launched. So now we're even launching it to providers outside of us that could train with us if they wanted to, where I built relationships through the years. So with those that we trust, so, so it's been a path that they can see to grow from a counselor to a leader to a trainer to lots of different things.
So in that show, that's us.
[00:11:30] Whitney Owens: That's great. I love it. And then your team members, are they contractors
[00:11:34] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: or employees? Yeah, so it's always been W 2 and that's what I experienced when I was in private practice. So I know a lot of that was coming up at the summit and just the discussions, but it was, I never had to fight through that transition.
We've had to fight through lots of other trials and percentage changes and all kinds of things, you know, with unforeseen circumstances. But yes, W 2.
[00:11:58] Whitney Owens: And then insurance based practice or private pay or both?
[00:12:02] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: It is a majority of insurance based. That's one thing I'm wanting to work on. I would say to meet our mission, you know, we have been more for the masses and take anything and everything.
So partnerships with churches, EAPs, insurance, um, you're just a little bit of Medicaid, a little bit of everything, you know, and I'm really trying to look at that right now, um, which is part of all, I'll ask the questions I'm asking today too. You know, it's trying to determine staff and clients and looking at it from different angles.
[00:12:36] Whitney Owens: Yeah. Wonderful. Well, this is helpful for people as they kind of hear your question, kind of understanding your practice. So why don't we jump into your consulting question and then we'll go from there.
[00:12:45] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Sure. I just really have a question about can be so easy to get isolated and you only know what, you know, and I feel like we're on that older end and I need to, you know, see what others are doing for sure and find out new ways of doing things.
I'm really wondering about what an experience of a staff member or counselor is like in your practice when it comes to percentages or benefits or support or hours required of working. Characteristics you're looking for in a person, like what makes this ideal person? And what are you offering that makes them want to be with you and stay with you?
[00:13:23] Whitney Owens: What a great question. And, and Rhonda, I think it also points to the fact that you want to care well for your team. Absolutely.
[00:13:31] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: I would hope our heart and our ministry behind what we're doing.
[00:13:35] Whitney Owens: Definitely. Definitely. I mean, I think so easily as we grow and you probably see this with people, it can become something else, you know, and it becomes, Um, something not as great.
So it's good that we're coming back to this really important component of how do we care better for our team members, you know, which really is going to care for us. Absolutely.
[00:13:54] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: It saves a lot of headaches along the way and stress. Yeah, for sure.
[00:14:00] Whitney Owens: Yeah, you know, there is an element of, yes, I offer certain things to everyone.
I also think that every staff member is a little unique in the sense of where they're at in their life and then doing things that meet their needs, you know, so we, we do have a lot of associate level therapists that work at water's edge. As well, as licensed people, so the experience for each of them is a little bit different because of where they're at.
But I can give you some pretty general statements as to what we do for our team. And we can go from there. I also am a W2 based practice made that transition about 5 years ago when I started with contractors. And so the 1st is what you're already doing is, you know, the W2 model, we give a lot to our team.
They don't have to think about managing their taxes, running a business liability insurance. So, a lot of the headache of running a business is gone. They get to come in, they get to see clients, usually their ideal clients. Because we're large enough that we can schedule them appropriately with their ideal clients.
And then they're able to leave their job and not have to work on the weekends and things like that. I think it's a big part of why people want to work at a group practice. In addition to that, we provide lots of supervision, not just for the associates, but for everyone. Case consultation is huge and people love it.
So some of the ways we do that are our associate level clinicians, and those can be social workers, LPCs, whatever, or working towards LPC. They get hourly supervision with their clinical supervisor. We also have staff meeting every other week. And do they get that camaraderie, but a lot of times if it's a clinically focused staff meeting, like, sometimes we have an expert come in.
Like, we had someone the other day coming to talk about medication management. As long as the clinical supervisor is there, we can count those hours. So, so we do a lot of meetings for trainings for case consultations. We have like a couples only once a month because we saw that there was a need to really focus on working with couples.
We have a licensed group therapist meeting. So that way, the associates kind of have their own supervision time, but the licensed people who have a little more experience feel like they have a separate time that they can talk about cases. So we do a lot of support surrounding case consultation and just support surrounding talking about the business or talking about what's going on in our lives.
So we're doing a lot of that. In conjunction with that, we do a lot of fun things. As a staff, which I think is super important and honestly, I pick out things that I want to do. In fact, I was just downstairs and I was running a little late getting up here for this podcast interview because I was reviewing prices for our Christmas party.
We always go to a really fun restaurant in town and have a really nice Christmas party. It's expensive, but they seem to really enjoy it. We do like a secret Santa and we laugh or white elephant is what we do. We laugh and it's so much fun. We do a murder mystery once a year, where we dress up like characters and do like a dinner.
We do a fundraiser dinner for a local organization. You have to dress up fun for that too. So we do kind of like fun things throughout the year. Oh, this year we did an improv comedy night. And that was really fun. They were all really nervous bunch of introverts, but once we got there, it was great team building made a good time.
So I think incorporating and really focusing on community is really helpful when you're growing, you know, because the therapist, what you said were lonely. And so we really have a strong focus on communication and community. Um, when it comes to the financial aspects of running the practice, and I think a lot of therapists and in a lot of jobs, we want to know why we're getting paid, what we're getting paid.
I try to be really transparent with them about that. And if they have concerns or they feel like what they'll say is, Oh, well, I charged the client a hundred dollars and you give me 35. I guess Whitney just pocket 65. It's one of my therapists evidently said that about me and I was like, and the office manager was able to kind of speak to it because I wasn't there and was able to clarify the conversation.
Everything was fine. But like, I'm very honest with them. Like, hey, yes, that's what you make. But I pay someone to do clinical supervision with you every single week. I spend time with you and my time is valuable. I pay your liability insurance, I pay for your space, I pay for your internet, I pay for the power, I pay for the, you know, all the things.
The EHR, the email, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I pay for part of your taxes. You know, like health insurance all these things. So I let them know. Hey, here's where all the money goes And I think what I'm trying to communicate here is the importance of candid conversations about money Because I think it's easy for people to start looking at the boss Especially the bigger you get.
Oh, well, you know, dr. Johnson just makes all this money. It's not really like that You know, we, we do make money because you know what, we worked hard to build this business and I deserve to be able to, you know, go on a vacation with my family, not be stressed or go out to eat and not be stressed, but it's not like I'm out buying a new Ferrari.
And
[00:19:16] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: there's a lot of risk, you know, that comes along with it too, because in the end, if people leave or if things happen, ultimately it's on us. You know, it's in our need. That's right.
[00:19:26] Whitney Owens: That's right. And as I've been opening the 2nd location, I've been very honest with them about that, too. And, like, I just offered somebody a position by the time this episode goes live.
They'll all know about it. No, 1 knows about it yet. But anyway, I offered somebody a site director position at the new location and gave them a salary. And I was like, It was like, I kind of would like to make more and I said, I hear you. I would like to pay you more, but I also want to emphasize here that this location, all it has done is taken my money thousands of dollars every month while we get this built and built out and pay the mortgage and all this.
And I said, this is a huge risk for me. I don't know if this is going to work. But I would rather take the grunt of that than you. So let's give you a salary so that you're able to feel comfortable growing this thing. And once I, like, laid all that out, he came right back and signed it. You know, and I was like, great.
Like, he understood. He actually said the kindest thing. He said, Anxiety. And excitement, our neighbors, that's that sheer sugar heard that before. I was like, oh, I love that. Okay. Also, another thing I'm going on so many tangents here. I do think ownership's important to that. People see where they're going in the company and they have the ownership of what they do.
And that was a good example of that. Because ever since he accepted that position. He has been on it, like checking in on me. How did these interviews go? What do you think about this? I'm like, wow, I love it. So to kind of empowering them and giving them more responsibility, they, they feel like more part of the company, right?
That's not just Whitney's business. It's our practice and having that language. This is our place to be right? Makes sense.
[00:21:13] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: So what's the differentiation between who is on percentage or who is salary? I think that's because there's I know at the summit, I was telling someone that we're talking about. Well, I probably need to transition to W2, but in their mind, that only meant salary.
And I was like, oh, well, we're percentage, but we're W2. So there was a lot of confusion about that. I think. The summit too. So you just mentioned that topic and it was making me think about it. How do you make that differentiation?
[00:21:41] Whitney Owens: Yes. Okay. I'm that's that's a really good question. I want to make sure I say 1 more thing about pay.
Yeah, I do offer benefits. And I do think that that is a big game changer for people, especially my full time people. It's being the W2 practice has really helped people want to be here full time and want to stay longer. We do tend to see that a 1099 model flips over faster. So I have health insurance. I pay half.
Of their health insurance, I started out paying 100%. That was a bad idea. Yeah, and if we got more and more team members, I was like, like, I got to go back to that. Yeah, we pay have to
[00:22:19] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: so and we do retirement. I don't know if you do that.
[00:22:22] Whitney Owens: Retirement matching up to 3 percent after they get PTO. Now that is an administrative rate.
We have an admin rate that we pay and a clinical rate that we pay. And they're getting different pay rates and so they get PTO on the admin rate. And then we also provide them bonus days. And these are just extra days unpaid. If something were to happen, you ran out of PTO, you know, and the full time people get 10 a year, the part time people get five.
[00:22:52] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: And how many hours are required from them a week? Like in seeing clients, is that their choice, your choice? How does that work?
[00:23:01] Whitney Owens: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. We also, one more thing that we offer is continuing education. We pay for it. They have to get it approved. So full time people are required to see at least 25 clients a week.
So most of them work five days a week and see five to six clients a day. Now they know they need to schedule 30 clients a week to see 25. So when I hire people, I ask them how many clients they want to see, or I tell them we're hiring for full time. I do try to always hire for full time because those people are more bought into the business, they want to be here, and they make more profit.
And I pay them more because they're making more profit. And I feel like they deserve to make more. If the business is making more people who see 10 clients a week. I mean, it's great that they're seeing clients, but it really doesn't do much for the business. I have made a requirement. You have to see at least 10 clients a week, because if you run those numbers, you're kind of losing money if they're seeing a lot less than that.
So here's my thoughts on this percentage based model. I think percentage points us to contractors. It's just the mindset of a contractor. You make a percentage of what you bring in. And so I feel like as a therapist, if I'm like, Oh, I'm only getting paid, you know, this percentage, it makes it seem lower in my mind.
Who knows? I suggest, I mean, this is what I do. I pay them a flat rate for the work they do. So, if you are a full time associate level therapist, you make 35 an hour, seeing clients and 12 an hour doing admin work. This is the starting rate across the board. If you're a fully licensed person, you make more per hour because you're fully licensed.
And then we have it structured in such a way that we raise rates. Over the years. And then the therapist get raises alongside those. Now, it's not the same because, like, for example, our rates will go up for our associates starting in December. I mean, starting in January, it'll go up, like, 5 dollars a client, some 10 dollars a client for new clients.
But the associate level therapist isn't going to get a 5 to 10 dollar raise, which makes sense because I got to allocate taxes and all this other kind of stuff. So they provide raises every year up to 3 percent depending on their performance review. That helpful?
[00:25:34] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: I do think it's helpful. Yes. So it's not a percentage.
It is a salary is what you've tended to lean towards. And I was, and then hourly. Yes.
[00:25:46] Whitney Owens: Yeah. Get the delineate, especially if someone else is listening, like, I do hourly. Hey, and I, I suggest everyone stick with hourly. Unless there's a really good reason to move someone to a salary, meaning they make a certain amount per year, regardless if they're at work or not.
[00:26:01] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Yeah, no, I think those things are all helpful.
[00:26:05] Whitney Owens: Yeah. So, you were asking about a salary position and why would you put someone like, kind of what's the difference there? I would put someone in a salaried position if it's a job that seems like it might go outside the hourly hours. Or it's a high level position.
I think a salary is a kind thing to give to someone. Not everyone thinks that way, but I do, because our work is so based on output that, you know, as a therapist, you go on vacation, it's a little stressful. Even though we have PTO, it's at a lower rate. If you give someone a salary, they get to make the same no matter what they're doing.
Guess what? We get a hurricane just about every year where the whole business shuts down for a week. And if you're on a salary, you don't have to be stressed about that, but again, as the business owner, you got to be super careful who you put on salary because I've made that mistake. And then the therapist doesn't see enough clients.
Losing money. I mean, with hurricanes come or peak to me people go on vacation. I'm the one who's suffering with my salary
[00:27:08] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: based
[00:27:09] Whitney Owens: on that.
[00:27:10] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Absolutely. As an owner, how do you come up because it's still a percentage to some degree when you're coming up with their hourly rate, you know, for us as a salary. So, in your mind, like, what is the ideal type percentage that you're trying for?
Great question.
[00:27:28] Whitney Owens: Okay. For W 2s, I shoot for 40%. So, if you pay them 40 percent of what you bring in off that person, you should be good and golden with no worries. We do not want to pay people so much that we're scared. Like, that's bad for everyone. If your business does not profit, everyone suffers. Period.
Do you know how many, I mean, you probably do, so many business owners People don't talk about this. They pull out loans to make payroll. I just talked to someone the other day who said I'm going to have to pull out a line to make payroll. Our, our team members don't know that and they don't necessarily need to.
Right. And I know another 1 that shut is shutting down because. It became too much. And there was no, the, the owner wasn't making anything. I was like, I can make more. Even someone I talked to yesterday, I can make more being a solo practice center than this business of five therapists that I run. It's true.
Because you're paying your therapist too much. They're going to ask for more. We all are going to ask for more. We worked hard, but the, but if you pay them more, you're going to be stuck. So the reason I do 40 percent is because I want to provide benefits. Okay. Well, if you take the benefits package and you add all that in, you're looking at more like 45 to 48%, just depending on correct.
So, then you're safe. If someone's full package hits 50 percent as a W2, you are not safe anymore. People argue with me about this all the time. It is so hands down true and I've never known anyone. Oh, I guess I've known one person that kind of did that. I won't go into what I think about how they ran their business, but that therapist also had to see a caseload of 20 to 25 clients a week.
I am not going to run this group practice and see 20 to 25 clients a week so that I can pay my therapists. Because I am basically making money to give to them and that's not, that's not sustainable for anybody. And I won't be able to move the business forward if I'm spending all my time seeing clients.
[00:29:39] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Right? Yeah,
[00:29:43] Whitney Owens: I like to think of it as as my business grows, the income that they're bringing in is actually paying me to run the business so that they can do their jobs. It's kind of like a symbiotic relationship in a weird way.
[00:29:54] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Well, I think it's helpful just in the mindset piece. Ours actually are seeing 32 a week.
So they see eight a day for four days. And that's how we have the 50 percent then. And we're still able to do the benefits, you know, with insurance and retirement and these different things and the retreats and, and the community things, all, all the things that we're doing, but it is because they're seeing more, but on the same side, you know, if you flip that over, they're not all self pay clients.
Because we do so much on the insurance end. So then you also have that a lot of that is sometimes paying at those lesser rates because it's the clients that we're wanting to serve. And I do feel like it's still their hearts, you know, are still in that too, for some of the relationships that we've built between Medicaid and the churches and other things.
But it's trying to determine what makes sense. But yes. So, I mean they, I saw your face. They are , they are seeing 30, there are 32 on the book. Let me restate that. So if there are cancellations and no shows and all those types of things, those happen on the regular as well, that they have availability and have hopefully booked 32 a week.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I think that's helpful just to think through, you know, as I feel like the, the landscape has definitely changed since COVID, especially around here with the number of practices that were purchased or bought or, you know, Associates a couple of years ago now in Texas can own their own practice, and so they just launched fresh out of school and just start one.
And so it's trying to determine, you know, I really haven't wanted to hire someone who started their own. They're just going to take the clients with them, you know, so you're, you're just trying to look at all the different pieces and. The landscape has changed so much that I'm trying to determine, like, where do we need to head next?
Because as the companies bought out counseling practices, they were going more corporate, like between benefits and PTO and yes, client scene and just. You know, all that, but they're, they're focused on money. I mean, they're not counselors. They're not mental health workers, but it definitely changed the hiring process around here and what people are looking for.
I think what jobs to has definitely changed. So it's been interesting.
[00:32:08] Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. So, in my mind, I think to myself, what can I do to create a culture and environment that makes them not want to start their own practice? So, this is fascinating. You'll appreciate this. 1 of my heavy hitters is, you know, what I call it.
I mean, she sees 30 clients a week. She's a fantastic therapist. Get so many, you know, people call and want to see her. She told me 1 time she said, hey, I thought I'd let, you know, I took a training on how to start my own practice. Of course, my, like, gut is falling out, you know, I'm like, oh, no, and she said, but Whitney.
I never want to do that because I see now what you go through. And how much money it is. She was like, I actually think I make more money working here than I would starting my own practice.
[00:32:56] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: It's like, exactly, well, and without the stress, I mean, it's, it's not even as much the money as the decision fatigue and the, the number of decisions and to build a healthy culture does take so much investment, you know, as well, just personally from you.
And when you do lose someone, you know, like we are this week, it's not just losing an employee. Like you're losing for us. We had built a family culture and you're losing a family member. You know, who's, who's been with you for long term time. So I'm, I'm grateful that like a church, we have planted, you know, seeds.
We've been around 17 years. I have had some launch off and they have all been successful, which is awesome. They obviously learned some things while they were here. My goal was to help them reach their fullest potential, whatever that might be, and they have done that, you know, but at the same time trying to look at.
Okay, we've got a new generation that needs to come up because some have been with me for a long time. And so what do I need to be considering? So I think it's been reassuring because a lot of things you're mentioning we're doing the supervision, the benefits, the time we do things a little different, obviously, with the number of clients and, um, And looking at the hourly pay versus percentage as a whole.
But I think all those things are, are super helpful just to get some insight into what others are doing. What does the level of support look like between admin support, you know, and scheduling cancer? I mean, all the things, you know, they're sick, they call in sick that morning, who's handling all that, who's scheduling all their new clients, who's, you know, moving people around if they need to be shifted, what does that look like on the admin side?
[00:34:38] Whitney Owens: Yeah, great question. So we have an intake coordinator. That's full time. And so that person, all they're doing is scheduling new clients and completing all the paperwork. So, when a therapist gets a new client, it should be just all the therapist is doing is walking into the lobby and welcoming them. That should be all they have to do.
I mean, well, they do need to make sure the paperwork's done and that they signed it. But so if they haven't signed it, but they got to get that signed when the client comes in, but that's supposed to all get done in advance. Um, once it becomes their client, they are in charge of rescheduling. So we do tell them to schedule them at the same time every week because we see that's best for consistency for everyone and for clinical work, but that doesn't always happen.
But if a client were to want to reschedule, They could reach out to the therapist and the therapist can reschedule them, or they can reach out to the front office and the front office can reschedule them. All the therapists are a little different on this. Some of them like to be the ones contact. And I think they say that to their clients.
Other ones are like, you can just contact the front office. So either 1, some of them, when I'm more control than others, and some of them are better at putting their people on the schedule than others. Yeah, so some of them need a little more hand holding. But that's what we do on that end. If a credit card falls through, which is pretty common, you know, especially, you know, private pay, we have to really be on it with cards getting denied or expired or whatever.
Our therapists should follow up with their clients because who wants to call somebody back and give their credit card? No one does. But if you walk into your session and your therapist says, Hey, your card declined last week. I can't see it till you give me a new one. You know, we don't know, we're not going to know all that.
And we can't possibly, I mean, when you get to the size, you know, that we are, you can't, my admin team can't possibly know every credit card that's getting declined. Therapists are going to know that better. Now, if a therapist is having a hard time getting in touch with somebody, or they have such a full caseload, they can't get, you know, they can talk to the admin and the admin will do it for them.
You always get a response. They cannot see a client for a 2nd session without payment to the 1 before without prior permission.
[00:36:50] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: We have followed. I don't know what you've done, but if, like, if a card has been declined, which we've had an outdated system, so we've been manually running things, but if it gets declined.
And they don't pay within a certain timeframe, we do go ahead and cancel all of their future appointments. So, once they owe something, they're not able to come back in until they paid that balance. So there wouldn't be coming in for another session. I guess I'm paying at that point. But, you know, that that's part of insurance and different things, you know, to because we've done things a little bit differently and just wanting to make sure we're being good stewards and not creating more debt for people as well.
You know, or just more difficulty at the window of, well, I don't have it, but I have what I need for today or whatever it might be. So it just became a policy. That was easy to uphold. And I think the clients have understood, you know, to. Yeah,
[00:37:43] Whitney Owens: definitely. Definitely. Well, I know before we kind of jumped on, you mentioned that a team member that had been there for a while was going to be leaving.
Is there any specific questions surrounding that that have come up for you that you wanted to ask?
[00:37:58] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: I think, you know, I think with that situation in particular, it goes into what you're talking about with, you started as we began and talking about sharing more about the finances, like with the salary person you were hiring, but do you actually go into like the nitty gritty of all the bills and how much all the costs are?
Or is it just the overview? Like I've heard some talk about in the accountability groups, which has been awesome of just like Here's what our actual profit is. You know, this is the percent of profit. Are you going into here? You know, here all the amounts if you want to know the real amounts. What does that look like?
[00:38:36] Whitney Owens: Yeah, if they were to ask me, I would share some of that. I probably wouldn't like pull up my QuickBooks and say, this is the specific number for this and the other. So I might say something like, hey, you know, I spend thousands of dollars every month on credit card fees. Or I have been honest to the point where I've said, Hey, you know what, when we took that hit at that hurricane, yeah, I actually didn't pay myself that week.
I have been that honest. And they are shocked when they hear that. And I said, the thing is you get to, you get to make money no matter what. And yeah, there are going to be times that I make more than y'all look, I own the business and I should, you know, like, but there are also gonna be times that actually make less than y'all.
And that's just the nature of running a practice to y'all share things like that. I might share the liability insurance, how much that is, or workman's comp, or like, have you looked at your pay stuff for what your employer's putting into it? You know, those kinds of things. Yeah.
[00:39:31] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Yeah. So with that one in particular, I think that's, you know, I know for that person, there's just a lack of yes, understanding probably in general and a lot of awakening that will come, you know, later on, but God is at work in all things, you know, and, and just like a church, you know, sometimes it is time for members to move on.
You know, to another spot, or maybe God has a plan to, for them to influence others or set an example. And I've got to be at peace with that either way, but it was raising a lot of these questions, you know, as we're hiring again, and as we're looking for people is just, what are the things I need to read, maybe reconsider, you know, that we're doing.
So, so today was really helpful, really grateful for your openness and honesty and vulnerability with us as always.
[00:40:18] Whitney Owens: Yeah, well, thank you. I appreciate that. And remember these therapists didn't go to business school. They haven't gotten coaching. They don't know the business side of things. I think when we educate them on that, it's helpful.
I do try to kind of go back to that like once a year. Like, Hey, here's. Here's what our money is like, here's what's happening in the practice and reminding them of that on a pretty regular basis, because I want them to have open conversations with me about money because it's an important part of their job and caring for their family.
[00:40:47] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: So absolutely.
[00:40:49] Whitney Owens: That's well, as we come to a close here, Rhonda, I know you're a member of the last practice membership community. So can you share just a little bit about what's been some of your favorite aspects of the community?
[00:41:00] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: Mm hmm. Yeah, I was thrown into your world at the summit of just finding out about all the things.
And so it has been super helpful. Just the accountability of being able to talk with other owners who are in the same like growth stage, you know that you're in however big or small or starting out or whatever that looks like. So that has been really helpful to hear how some others did it and just collaborate with each other.
I've enjoyed that. The Wednesday meetings when I've been able to hop in on those. You know, or listen to it afterwards or whatever it might be. Um, there's always just great guidance that comes from those. So it has been definitely a breath of fresh air, I would say, because it's been more than a minute.
I've had a lot of people look to me through the years. So I've helped coach a lot of others get started around here. And so I'm the one they're looking to, but I don't have anyone that, you know, has been able to pour into me in that way, who's also in my field. So it was fun to be coached and I grew so much in that seven years, but even that was not an owner and someone in the mental health field.
So all of those pieces, you know, and just being able to search, you know, is there paperwork? Is there this, is there something that could help me on this front? So there's so many questions that get asked and responses I see. And there's just a lot of support, not just from you, but just in what you've created.
And I know that that's, I'm sure your hope is it grows much bigger than just you, you know, having to respond to everything too big. And there is a lot of that going on. So that's awesome.
[00:42:30] Whitney Owens: Thank you. Well, I'm so glad that you're part of the community and that you feel that way. And yes, I think of it, not just the Whitney Owen show, but it is practice consulting.
We come together to help one another grow our practices and beautiful things. So I appreciate your involvement and for you coming on the show today and look forward to the changes and growth you're going to have in your practice. Thank you.
[00:42:51] Dr. Rhonda Johnson: I appreciate it.
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[00:43:13] 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 dot 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.
