7 Management Principles That Excellent, But Untrained, Managers Know
Most business owners learn essential management principles on the job, often after making many mistakes, each with a degree of pain. That is how I did it over my 35 […]
Practice owners ask: Is this all worth it?
As a consultant to mental health practice owners, eventually, fundamental existential questions come into the conversation: Is this worth doing? Am I suited for this job? Do I like this? Are […]
How to overcome employee betrayal: 5 steps to love resiliently
One does not need to be in practice long to discover a need to overcome employee betrayal and recover from injuries. Unfortunately, every practice owner accumulates stories of hurt and […]
Reducing In-the-trench Psychotherapy To Focus On Practice Management
As a therapist/owner, it is difficult to know when to reduce one’s in-the-trench psychotherapy to focus on practice management. After all, you were the first producer of your primary service, […]
How To Run A Practice: 40 Years Of Emerging Roles
I did not have a master plan for learning to run a practice. Certainly, nothing in my training gave me a clue about how the mental health system worked. And […]
Essential qualities for excellent managers
Excellent managers are not born. Instead, developing first-rate management skills, attitudes, and abilities requires an intentional self-improvement project. Here is a start. 1. Prompt responsiveness The first attribute every manager should […]
How to master the unrelenting business demands of practice
Some start a mental health business to avoid having a boss. They want to answer to no one. This is a myth. In truth, every owner must make peace with […]
The ultimate guide to stimulate growth
This guide provides an outline for how to stimulate growth. If we are fortunate enough to experience growth, we face many new issues. We will discuss four major areas that […]
Staff development: How to build excellence into your current staff
Staff development should also be at the forefront of our minds as we hire, train, and manage staff. A robust staff development program benefits our clients, communities, teammates, leadership team, […]
Successful Practice Management that leaves you sane
Managing a practice is difficult to do well. And doing the right sort of successful practice management is challenging. There are so many things to juggle, each with a level […]
Starting a new business? The start-up blues
Every one underestimates the challenges of starting a new business. Starting a new business is hard. It is hard even after you read everything you can find and done tons […]
Wealth in mental health–Why isn’t there more?
Perhaps one of the more shocking secrets in our mental health field is how little profit is in the profession. There is not much wealth in mental health. The whole […]
Selling a practice: How they become assets and how to maximize their value
When a practice owner plans on selling a practice, there may be a bit of a shock. Practice owners are often surprised at how accountants and potential purchasers determine a monetary […]
Addition by subtraction: Types of difficult, disastrous employees
Over the 38 years of owning a practice, we hired over 100 employees. They came in all sorts. Some fit well. Others did not. And some were disastrous employees. Dealing […]
Our Philosophy for Working in Community
As an organization we first tried to outline the matrix of values that guide decision making in a document. We created it in 2007. We named it CCC’s Philosophy of […]
How to think about the basics of managing leaders
I remember the moment when I realized that I needed to learn how to manage leaders. We had grown to a second location in a different community fifty minutes away […]
Matching one’s leadership style to the environment
One’s leadership style many seem relatively unchangeable. It should not be. David Maister wrote a short but insightful chapter on “Partnership Governance.” He sets up the discussion about one’s leadership […]
Why join insurance panels
Should I become a provider on all the insurance panels in my area? One can find many practice management consultants promoting the “cash only” model of outpatient psychotherapy. There are […]
Daily business demand #1: Scheduling
For the client who is scheduling an appointment, the process of therapy begins with a phone call. The client begins to learn about the therapy process from how the first […]
Learning to manage myself: Solving my self-imposed roller coaster
One of my larger challenges was learning how to manage myself. Before I could find sustainable growth, I had to get out of my own way. As you will see, […]
Daily business demand #3: Billing
When I was a solo practitioner, there were times when my insurance billing got months behind. Doing therapy was my focus. I ignored my paperwork until I was in a […]
Weekly business demand #4: Collecting
Collecting our fees comes before we can pay our bills. Practices of all sizes require efficient and consistent methods for collecting the money owed to the practice. With few exceptions, […]
Weekly business demand #5: Planning marketing
Marketing does not need to be done every day. . . but therein lies the trouble. We cannot ignore daily chores like scheduling, doing therapy, billing, and collecting. We know […]
Walking our staff through a crisis
A case example We moved into crisis management mode really fast. In 2011 Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBS) cut the fees they paid us. It was significant. For doctoral-level […]
How to estimate your private practice income
Estimating your private practice income can help define where to focus attention. The basic financial formulas are pretty simple. And even those with a math phobia can grasp the concepts […]