One of the benefits of working for a group practice is access to the services of one or more people who handle your scheduling, billing and other practice administration needs. Having been one of these support people for the last 13 years, I can tell you that these services are invaluable for group practices that deal with a large number of current and incoming clients. But do you need an office manager, practice manager, or administrative assistant if you are in a solo private practice?

The short answer is probably not. If you plan to see fewer than 30 clients per week and you feel reasonably confident in your ability to handle scheduling and billing, then you probably do not need administrative support. Of course, you can’t know for sure how adept you will be at handling admin and therapist tasks until you’ve been practicing for at least a few months at a full schedule. 

So when should you consider hiring an office manager or administrative assistant for your private practice?

1. If you don’t feel confident in your ability to handle administrative tasks.

Maybe you have ADHD or some other obstacle that interferes with your organizational skills. If you think there is a chance that you might not return client calls or emails in a timely manner or that you might double-book clients, then you might want to hire someone at least part-time. One of the most important things you can do to put yourself ahead of your competition is to respond to clients within 24 hours. Believe it or not, most mental health professionals either do not return client contacts at all or they wait days or even weeks to get back to them. If this sounds like something you might be guilty of, hire some help!

2. If you don’t want to handle administrative tasks

Maybe seeing clients and writing notes takes all of your mental and physical energy, and you just don’t have much left to give to administrative tasks. Or maybe you just don’t like handling the scheduling and billing. That’s okay! There is no point in draining yourself when there are competent administrative professionals who can help you with your work. You need to make a decision about what is more valuable to you – time or money. If you would rather spend more time with your family or doing the things that you love, then spending money on a part-time or full-time assistant will be well worth it. 

3. If you plan to take insurance

Private pay practices are a lot simpler to handle. Most good EHRs will allow you to save client credit cards on file so that you can just bill them after each session. But if you plan to take insurance (and there are good reasons why you might want to take insurance), then you should consider hiring help. Insurance billing can be complicated and time-consuming if you don’t know what you are doing. However, if you are willing to invest the initial time into learning the ins and outs of insurance billing, then the workload will significantly decrease after some time. One option is hire a billing service that charges per claim or per month. Another option is to hire someone part-time who is experienced in billing insurance or to hire a consultant who can walk you through the process (shameless plug: contact me for a consultation). 

4. If you want to hire additional therapists

If you have plans to grow into a group practice, then you might want to hire an office manager who will be there to help you with hiring, onboarding new employees, credentialing and contracting new employees with insurance, and more. And unless you plan to cut down on your client load and focus on scheduling and billing for your new therapists, then you will want the services of an experienced officer manager who can take care of that for you.

Check back for my next post on how to find administrative help, the difference between an office manager and administrative assistant, how much to pay, whether to hire full- or part-time help, and more. 

If you would like more information about how to set up and manage your own therapy practice, you can get all of this and more by purchasing my Step-by-Step Program to Starting Your Own Therapy Practice (Coming Soon!). I am also available for hourly consulting services.

Hi. I’m Cindy Donley, a private practice consultant with over 20 years of experience helping businesses grow and succeed. I am the co-founder and director of operations for a group therapy practice established in 2011, which was started as a solo practice and now employs seven full-time therapists and has tons of referral sources and a constant influx of new clients. I now work helping therapists like you start up successful therapy practices. Contact me if you are ready to start your own practice!