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In this episode, I discuss the speech therapy private practice mindset and how it’s important for private practice success. I also list strategies that help you acquire and maintain this mindset so that you can start, grow or scale your business.
In this episode:
01:59 – One space available for the Perfect Student
02:51 – Need billing and credentialing help?
03:12 – Private Practice Mindset
04:46 – Pushing Boundaries
06:36 – Risk versus Benefit
07:56 – Learning from your mistakes
08:56 – Curiosity and a hunger for more
09:47 – Recognizing others and helping others
11:00 – Staying Positive
12:15 – Physical health
Again you’ve got to be prepared and have funds for a rainy day so to speak. So again taking healthy risks, pushing the envelope and making things happen.
[Commercial]Hello everyone you’re listening to the Speech Therapy Private Practice StartUp Podcast. This is episode number 38. My name is Kyle Meades and I’m a speech pathologist since 1993. And these podcasts are designed to help you improve your business and your life one Podcast at a time.
Welcome back to the show everyone. Thanks again for all the emails, questions and comments. And as of today, today is Saturday, May 12 2018. We have well over 32,674 listeners to the show. And I’m super glad you guys are out there getting good valuable information and you know me every single episode, I say value is what you get in the absence of money and these podcasts are free for you so I would appreciate if you just go to the iOS or Android platform of your choice and please leave some good 5 Star feedback. That way other people just like you can get the same valuable information that you’re receiving. And if this is your first episode welcome to the podcast and I hope you find everything that you’re looking for here and if there’s something that you are looking for and you’re not finding it. All you have to do, the solution is simple, shoot me an email kyle@privateslp.com and I’ll help you. I mean it can’t get any easier than that but you have to do one thing and that is get into action and send me that email.
Also too, I wanted to say we have one space available for the perfect student and I get a lot of requests for the perfect student. You can find that at privateslp.com/coaching and you’ll find two different types of coaching that I offer at the moment. One is the all access community that’s where you can have access to me online and we have monthly webinars, we have an online community of people that we help each other out, we answer questions, there’s forums systems, training, everything is on that platform. If you’re looking for something more in-depth and something a little bit quicker pace, then you can fly into Tucson and work with me hand in hand. That’s called the perfect student. I have one space available. And again you can find this information at privateslp.com/coaching.
Also too, if you are looking for help with your billing or you need some help with credentialing, for instance taking Insurance’s. If you’re just starting out and you need help. All you have to do is reach out to me at kyle@privateslp.com. Or just go to privateslp.com/billing and there’s help there as well.
Now today I wanted to talk to you about the Private Practice Mindset. What is the Private Practice Mindset? So when you start a Private practice or grow or scale your own Speech Therapy Private Practice, there is a certain mindset that one has to have in order to achieve certain goals and it’s not the same type of mindset. Like an employee, I remember when I worked at the nursing home I had to be there pretty early so we could work with the dysphagia patients at 06:30-07:00 in the morning. We had to do our breakfast and get all that stuff taken care of and we had to be there early and I have to clock him. Got to see all my patients, figure out how many patients I had for the day. Trying to roll that documentation time in so we could meet our Rug levels and get off the clock. So you don’t want your productivity drops because you didn’t want to get in trouble by the manager. I mean that was my mindset when I was working for the nursing home. And I’m sure a lot of you guys out there what I just said you totally get. That is a different mindset compared to Private practice where when you have your own Private Practice you see what you want to accomplish and you can project it out into the universe and not get on hippie here. I’m just saying you have to be able to visualize this stuff and so when you can see your building or your employees are helping patients I mean that’s when you get into this mindset.
And I’ve kind of broken this thing down into seven parts so you have to have a mind set for growth. Number one – you’ve got to be able to push boundaries and you’ve got to dream larger than large and you’ve got to have a vision. Again you’ve got to see this thing. You have to know deep down in your soul beyond that deeper than that, that this thing that you want to create will work.
And for those of you who are listening right now to what I just said deep down if it’s going to work or not because some people they want it and they want it badly. I’ve talked to a lot of people and they want this thing they can taste it. They want this Private Practice but they’re not ready for. They’ve got tons of debt tons of debt. Because when I speak to people when people reach out to me on the Contact page privateslp.com/contact people e-mail me all the time and I surprise people because I pick up the phone and call them and ask them these questions, what kind of debt do you have? And some people say, “I’ve got ten fifteen-twenty thousand dollars.” and they’re not ready yet because what happens if they get a bump in the road and they need more money. And people say my credit lines maxed out.
I always say to someone if they’re high in debt, “Get out of debt first” because again Private practice, you want to work for yourself. You don’t want to work for the bank. So that’s something you’ve got to be able to do. You’ve got to push boundaries. Dream larger than large and have that vision but you can’t be in debt.
Another thing I’ve talked to people who have substance abuse problems. Those things will stop you dead in your tracks debt substance abuse people. It’s just very real. Some people won’t say it but I’m going to say it it’s very real. And you have to take care of that before you start out. So you got to get your own house in order if you know what I mean.
Number two Risk versus Benefit. I mean you’ve got to take healthy risks. You’ve gotta push the envelope you’ve gotta make things happen. But just like I said for number one you don’t want to borrow a ton of money because then you’re working for the bank. But let me say this there’s nothing wrong with borrowing a little money. I had a 10,000 dollar line of credit that I used to jack up and then pay it off and jack it up and pay it off but never went over that ten grand threshold because when I started out with my own Speech Therapy Private Practice I had some money saved up it wasn’t a ton of money but it wasn’t cheap to start out. I mean I’ve seen people say you can do it for this amount and that amount. I think there’s any set way to start that Private Practice. I don’t think there’s a dollar sign out there but for me I know that I just didn’t want to assume a bunch of rent.
I recently spoke to a private practice owner who had to shut their doors because they had high dollar rent and they had some patients but little to no reimbursement. And a big staff of people this is going quickly belly up floating to the top. And now the person is in serious debt, repeat to step number one is what we’re just saying again, you’ve got to be prepared and have funds for a rainy day so to speak. So again taking healthy risks, pushing the envelope and making things happen.
Number three – Learning from your mistakes. Well we’ve all heard that right but also learning from things that work successfully. As a private practice owner, I can only push so much. I can only make things happen so quickly. So when things work well I want to do that over and over and over rinse and repeat. But when things don’t work I don’t want to do that ever again. I’ve had many conversations with Esther, she’s our office manager and for those of you in the All Access Community you’ve probably heard Esther’s voice on the videos. Because we do a lot of the webinars together because they have to do with billing and collection and credentialing. And you’ll hear Esther and I talk about we don’t want to do this ever again. We tried this once and it didn’t work. So again you have to learn from your mistakes and also learn from your successful parts of your private practice too.
Number four – Curiosity and a hunger for more. That’s a big quality and that’s a big mind set that you just have to have. You want to stay curious and you want to stay hungry for more. For example, if you’re curious about more Speech therapy patients, what about maybe adding another discipline like Occupational therapy. Did you know a certain percentage of Occupational therapy patients need Speech therapy as well or what about moving into a whole different branch of services that help your patients. So again this doesn’t have to be disciplined specific. It just doesn’t have to be Speech therapy over time. As you grow and as you save your revenue you can move into other disciplines and help more people. So that’s a mindset that you definitely have to have. Being curious and hunger for more.
Also number five – Recognizing others and helping others. This is a really big part of this I really believe deep down that when I recognize other people and the more people that I help the better off the business will be. It’s kind of throwing things out there to the universe. Some people call it Karma. I’m not getting all hippie but it’s a big part of it, it’s called energy and it moves. It’s just like money when you take money out of your wallet and you spend it, It helps everybody. When you go out to eat. You want a tip and you want to tip well even if somebody says oh that was the worst service in the world I’m not going to tip. Why? I mean waiters and waitresses in this country in the United States they work for tips and you can’t just stiff people. When you vote with your wallet it still helps everybody. You’re getting a service. The person who waited on you gets the tip. It just makes the whole economy move. You don’t want that money energy to stop with you. It’s the same with recognizing and helping others. The more that I can help other people the more the business will be helped and the better off everybody will be. So just think about that.
Number six – Staying Positive. I can’t tell you how often I speak to private practice owners and they’re down because things aren’t going their way or they didn’t get what they wanted or the rates weren’t good enough in Speech therapy or people say how am I supposed to survive on these reimbursement rates. I mean you’ve gotta stay positive. You have to look at the big picture because staying positive is going to ooze out of me and ooze out to other people. That doesn’t mean that I’m just going to be up 100 percent of the time. No I mean this time of the year right now in Tucson it’s hard. It’s over 100 degrees. We’re in late May moving into June. There’s tons of allergies out there. People are sick and everybody kind of grows walking around in Tucson but you have to stay healthy and maintain a positive attitude because again you can’t show fear. You can’t do that in a private practice. You can’t show that. Because when people see the owner is scared and frail that’s going to ooze out into the business and also ooze out into the patients as well. Everybody picks up on that. So you’ve got to stay positive. That’s one of the biggest Private Practice mindsets to remember staying positive.
And lastly something that I think is very important is Physical health and I touched on this. And number one, Physical health exercising taking care of your own house, not drinking too much alcohol and not using prescription medication too much. I’m not sure I don’t take medications I don’t drink alcohol. I actually have been on a Vegan diet now for over 12 months I feel great.
My cholesterol went from 215 to 170. The reason I did it was because my doctor. It’s a long story about the vegan thing but I lost a bet with my other half and she said you gotta eat Vegan. And it’s a long story but I made that decision I made that choice it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But my health is a lot better for because of the vegan lifestyle. The plan based diet and I’m on I feel better my cholesterol went from 215 to 171. My doctor said you’re going to have to understand medication one day. Now here I am 47-46 when he told me that I’m like I don’t want to take these pills.
So I exercise every single day, I eat the right foods with the exception of Coca-Cola and Oreo cookies. I mean hey Oreo cookies are vegan too. Don’t forget. But I love my Coca-Cola and I love my Oreo cookies so that’s two things that I will never go without. I don’t drink too much coke and I don’t eat too many cookies. But I exercise every day I go to the JCC I hit the treadmill. I do my steam room. I got my jacuzzi on. I feel good about it and I’m able to be a better person. I can joke a little bit more. People want to be around me when I’m happier right. So exercise take care of my body, take care of my mind, take care of my spirituality all that stuff goes hand in hand.
So again the Private Practice mindset. Number one, pushing the boundaries. You know dreaming larger than large and having a vision. Number two, Risk versus Benefit. Taking healthy risk pushing that envelope and making things happen. Number three, learning from the mistakes and successes. Also number four, being curious and having a hunger for more. Number five, recognizing others and helping others. Number Six, staying positive. And number seven, physical health. So I hope you guys get some really good information in today’s podcast, and if you need help with your private practice, go to privateslp.com/coaching and I’ll help you there. And as always thank you for listening.
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