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    The Graduate Course You Never Had
    The Graduate Course You Never Had
    The Graduate Course You Never Had
    Ebook173 pages2 hours

    The Graduate Course You Never Had

    By Larry Waldman

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    About this ebook

    Neither at collegiate or post-graduate levels are future and current mental health care professionals given guidelines on how to effectively – and profitably – run a successful practice using proven business principles. Highly-successful psychologist Dr. Larry Waldman’s latest book, The Graduate Course You Never Had, fills that void. He covers all aspects of growing a profitable business.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUCS PRESS
    Release dateNov 22, 2010
    ISBN9780943247946
    The Graduate Course You Never Had
    Author

    Larry Waldman

    Dr. Waldman has lived in the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona) for nearly 40 years with his wife, Nan, who recently retired after 30 years of teaching fourth grade in the public schools. They have two sons, Josh, an attorney in southern California, and Chad, who is completing his training in school psychology in Portland, Oregon.He started his private practice in 1979 after working for seven years as a school psychologist for Scottsdale Public Schools. Over the next 31 years he developed his private practice into one of the most successful practices in Arizona.In addition to his clinical practice he does forensic work, consults to Social Security and to a private school, teaches for Northern Arizona University, sells his books, and speaks professionally.He’s written four books:Who’s Raising Whom?: A Parent’s Guide to Effective Child Discipline, published in 1987, is aimed at helping parents learn why their children misbehave then how to correct that misbehavior with techniques that work.Coping With Your Adolescent, published in 1994, is designed to help parents appropriately cope and shape their adolescent’s behavior.How come I love him but can’t live with him? published in 2004, teaches couples, using a behavioral model, to better understand their relationship and to behave toward each other in a more mutually-rewarding fashion.The Graduate Course You Never Had was published in 2010. It's focus is on helping professional counselors learn how to better manage the business aspect of their practice.Over 24,000 copies of the print edition of Who’s Raising Whom? are in circulation.Dr. Waldman speaks professionally to the community, to educators, and to other mental health professionals. Topics include:parenting and managing children’s behavior; dealing with teens, marriage, stress management, understanding and treating ADHD; dealing with the difficult child in the classroom, solution-focused treatment; and private practice management and marketing.Print editions of Dr. Waldman’s books may be purchased at http://www.the-relationship-doctor.com and at http://www.marjimbooks.com.Look for e-book editions of all of his books at Smashwords.To arrange for Dr. Waldman to speak, please contact publisher @ marjimbooks.com. Remember to delete the spaces around @ so that your e-mail goes through.

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      Book preview

      The Graduate Course You Never Had - Larry Waldman

      Memo to the author from Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D.; President, Cummings Foundation for Behavioral Health; Former President, American Psychological Association:

      Larry,

      Your new book is an excellent read, very timely and aptly named. Sadly none of this is taught in our programs, and so many of our colleagues and students are anti-business, stupidly not realizing that practice is a business. All the right info is there in your book, engagingly written so that even the most resistant reader can not help but appreciate it. You nicely wove personal experience into it, making it very much alive and showing that set-backs should not deter.

      Thanks for the privilege of reading your fine book.

      Nick Cummings

      The Graduate Course You Never Had

      How to develop, manage and market a flourishing

      mental health practice—with or without managed care

      Dr. Larry Waldman, Ph.D., ABPP

      Copyright 2010 by Larry Waldman

      UCS PRESS

      PO Box 12735

      Prescott, AZ 86304-2735

      Cover design by Andy Renk

      ISBN: 978-0-943247-94-6

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Author’s Note

      Chapter One: My Story

      Chapter Two: Private Practice as a Business

      Chapter Three: Getting Started

      Chapter Four: Practice Management Concepts

      Chapter Five: Practicing With Managed Care (MC)

      Chapter Six: Problems with Managed Care

      Chapter Seven: Developing a Cash-Pay, Fee-For-Service Practice

      Chapter Eight: Soliciting Physicians and other Professionals

      Chapter Nine: Non-Traditional ways to earn income as a mental health provider

      Chapter Ten: Marketing Your Practice Online

      Bibliography

      About Dr. Larry Waldman

      Author’s Note

      It is said that if you want to be a millionaire you can accelerate the process by associating with millionaires, getting inside their heads, and learning how to think the way they do.

      Although this book is not about becoming a millionaire, I think the same learning process can be applied to becoming the best mental health care provider you can be—and do so by running your practice following a proven business model.

      You might have heard the old adage that a bird in the hand is worth two birds in the bush.

      Well, in this course that you never had in school, consider me your bird in the hand. This is your opportunity to get inside my head, learn how I think, and learn how to develop and maintain a quality, profitable practice just as I have done.

      I’m in the twilight of a career that has spanned over 30 years of mental health care practice that—yes—I run effectively using proven business principles that really do work for those who are willing to apply them.

      No matter what stage you are in as a mental health care provider – still in school, just out of school, being client-fed by a Managed Care company, or have an independent practice with primarily cash-pay clientele – you will find nuggets on these pages that will help you build, increase, and maintain a more profitable business.

      Dig in. Learn. Apply.

      Larry Waldman

      To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,

      To weep is to risk appearing sentimental

      To reach out to another is to risk involvement

      To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self

      To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss

      To love is to risk not being loved in return

      To hope is to risk despair

      To try is to risk to failure.

      But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

      The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

      He may avoid suffering and sorrow,

      But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.

      Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.

      Only a person who risks is free.

      Anon

      (seen variously attributed with slight variations to William Arthur Ward, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leo Buscaglia, and anonymous)

      Chapter One: My Story

      I knew very early on in my training that I wanted to develop and run a private psychological practice. Nevertheless, I never had the opportunity to take a course or as much as a seminar on the basics of developing, running and growing a private mental health practice. In the 1970’s there was little literature available on the subject. For that matter, not much has changed in the ensuing three decades.

      Initially, I began working in the field of psychology as a school psychologist. After I obtained my Ph.D. I continued to work for the school for a time but also did evaluations on the side for another psychologist in private practice located on the opposite end of town. This psychologist, more or less, began to mentor me in the business of private practice.

      Since my mentor was planning to retire around the time I intended to leave my school psychology job and go into private practice, it was agreed that I would buy his practice. Thus, in January 1980 I went into private practice. My mentor stayed several months afterward to ease the transition.

      I was glad I bought the practice (it was not much money because I had little at the time) because I instantly had an office, furniture, file cabinets, test kits and forms, a phone system, and a trained receptionist/secretary/biller. The only thing I did not have, of course, were clients/patients.

      Because there were two other suites in the office, I took on two other psychologists—who happened to be husband and wife—and had just come to Phoenix. We had a handshake agreement on an arrangement where I supplied everything and received a percent of their receivables.

      For the first six months or so, I spent more time out of the office than in it, as I very actively marketed our group. I also rented some office space and services to a psychiatrist—who sent us referrals.

      For the first year I barely earned enough to cover expenses. My family and I lived off savings and the State retirement reimbursement I took when I left the School District as a school psychologist.

      By year two I was beginning to make some money. I continued to add some part-time people, like a tutor, speech and language therapist, and a counselor.

      By year three the office was coming along, and I was making two to three times more than I did as a school psychologist. I was enjoying the fruits of my labor and I was about to ask the two psychologists to become full-partners in the practice for a small fee, since I had done all the work putting the practice together. We agreed to discuss terms after I got back from my first vacation in three years—in the summer of 1983.

      When I returned from vacation I learned that my prospective partners, instead of aligning with me, had decided to set up in another office in the same complex—and the secretary and counselor were going with them, as well. What I realized then was that my prospective partners initially were accepting of our business relationship when there was little income and I was paying the bills. However, when the practice began to make money they became resentful of the income I was making from their labor—forgetting about my initial investment. Hence, I inadvertently fostered a classic hostile-dependent relationship.

      Since my lease on the suite was nearly up, and I did not feel like starting completely over, I closed my practice and joined the largest private mental health group in Phoenix at the time, which was based in a hospital with several different psychiatric programs. The group consisted of four psychiatrists, one nurse practitioner, eight psychologists, and two or three therapists. The practice essentially owned the various psychiatric units, and very quickly I was extremely busy doing inpatient as well as outpatient work. Twelve-hour days, six days per week, was the norm.

      After about six months of working 60-70 hours per week, my wife began to complain that if I was going to be gone working so much, where was all the money? My response was that I had to build up accounts receivable and then the money would begin to flow. Unfortunately, by the end of the first year or so, I was earning about half as much as I had earned in my own little practice before—but was working twice as much.

      After a few more months the financial situation for me was still no better. A client I was seeing for several months happened to note to me that he was wondering when I was going to bill him and his insurance company, since he had received no paperwork of any sort related to his treatment with me. With that information I left a message with the office manager asking why this client and his insurance had not been billed. When I did not get an answer after a few days, I met with her and demanded an answer. I requested that she explain, in detail, how the billing procedure worked.

      What very quickly became apparent is that the office manager had no idea how the billing process, from the beginning to the end, actually worked. Moreover, when I met with the back office staff, they, too, were quite unclear about the entire process.

      I reviewed the problem at the next partners’ meeting but, surprisingly, the partners’ response was essentially to leave the situation alone. To make my point I proceeded to train one of the more enthusiastic back office staff persons in the process of insurance verification, billing, and re-contacting. In three months my accounts receivable was the highest in the group; I was earning more than psychiatrists who were billing more than $350,000.00 per year—and had been doing so for years! Again, amazingly, the partners’ reaction was that I was meddling where I didn’t belong.

      I left that large group in 1983 and took my accounts receivable with me. I set up another practice with another therapist from the group who was also frustrated by the lack of income despite working very hard. We hired a secretary who worked for the two of us—whom I trained. Within three months she collected 90

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