Balancing your time as a group practice business owner and a clinician can be tough. I’ve heard so many times, “how do you balance your time as a business owner and seeing clients? What are the things that you are doing, and what do you hand off?”
It took me a long time to learn how to balance all the aspects of group practice ownership, and I still refine and fine-tune my role often.
Take a look at what hats you currently wear. For me, I am a wife, mother, daughter, friend, group practice owner, boss, group practice consultant, home decorator (not professionally 🙂 ), writer of things, educator, to name a few. Before I fine-tuned my group practice, I was also wearing these hats: scheduler/intake person, accounting person to my accountant, payroll person, HR, supervisor, billing person, and marketer, to name a few. Now I have delegated most of these things to other people, which allows me to focus on counseling and OWNING my business.
Are there any things you can let go of? Give to someone else? Each group practice is different in their philosophy and goals, so do what works for you. Is there something you hate doing? I hated doing intakes, and finally let go of the idea that I am wasting money paying someone else to do it. The moment I gave it away, I felt a huge relief and haven’t felt better about it! Now I have more time to blog, see clients, and relax when I am at home.
The biggest problem I hear people say is that they have a hard time setting boundaries for work and home life. It’s easy to be “on call” all the time, and for this reason I hired a clinical director to offset this. She does the supervision with the clinicians, takes the intake calls when the intake person is on vacation, and helps keep me sane when I am busy. Although this may not be what everyone practice owner needs, if this would benefit you, do it!
The more you invest in your practice, the more you will grow. This is something I live by and find to be so true.
Things to look at in your practice: Who is doing intake? marketing? billing? hiring staff? supervision or case consultation? keeping the business organized? accounting? networking? managing staff? blogging?
Take a look at how you see yourself as a business owner in 5 years. What does this look like? Are you working more or less, are you seeing clients or managing your business more? Do you have one practice or multiple? All of this plays a role in what you can do now to make that happen.
At this point in my practice ownership, I am seeing 10-12 clients a week and I spend 5 hours talking with my clinicians, doing payroll, marketing, and other small things to keep my practice growing. The rest of my time is spent writing my book and growing this business!
Action item: What can you let go of, what do you want to do more of? Make it happen!
Maureen Werrbach is a psychotherapist, group practice owner and group practice coach. Learn more about her coaching services here: LEARN MORE HERE
