How to Start an Online Business as a Mental Health Practitioner

Amparo Johnston

The beginning of private practice is a crucial milestone in the career of a mental health specialist or a psychologist. About 50% of psychologists in the US work in private practice. It’s not in vain. Working as a private psychologist brings a lot of benefits, however, at the same time it brings in extra responsibility.

Private practice mental health specialists don’t have a boss, can live according to their own schedule, and have more professional autonomy. However, they also encounter a lot more problems, because taking care of marketing and administration requires your time, money, and efforts. 

Today, we will give you some ideas on how to start working independently as a mental health specialist.

How to Start

Changing your life from an employee to an independent practitioner may seem scary. You need to master new skills, do a lot of research, and learn to plan and manage your time effectively. 

Take this checklist of the things to be done before starting: 

  • Come up with a business plan, 
  • Find a good workspace,
  • Create your practice’s policies,
  • Pick private practice software,
  • Establish a way of working with documents,
  • Market and sell your services.

Writing a Business Plan

Though you can think that writing a business plan is not important for a psychologist, it is not exactly true. 

Creating a business plan will help you to outline what your business does, how it does it, and why it does it. You will keep an eye on what is important to you and hence won’t lose anything vital. 

Crucial points to include in your business plan:

  • The minimum amount of money you need to make to keep living;
  • The amount of money you need to make per year to have the life that you want to have; 
  • Your goals that are related to finances (e.g. rent a better office);
  • Your marketing strategy;
  • Realistic goals for the first 3 months, first year, and first 5 years; 
  • Funding options (you have savings, can take a loan, etc.);
  • A loan repayment strategy (if you take one).

Picking Tools for Online Mental Health Treatment

A sound tool can make it much easier for a psychologist or a mental health specialist to do their job. 

It can help you organize your work, manage treatment plans, start working with new clients, deal with billing and invoicing, schedule appointments, and more. 

If you already have many clients and have your own effective way of organizing work, you can benefit even from custom software development. You can get a convenient custom tool developed exactly to suit your needs and even sell it in the future to other mental health practitioners. 

Otherwise, consider one of the existing solutions, such as Power Diary, Simple Practice, Quenza, TherapyNotes, and others. 

The key features to look for are: 

  • Appointment scheduling
  • SMS and email reminders
  • HIPAA compliant video calls
  • Records management
  • Progress monitoring
  • Online invoicing and payments
  • Integrated payments
  • Mobile app

Have a Good Marketing Strategy in Place

You are the Brand

Branding is often overlooked by psychologists. Yet, actually your band is the only way for your potential client to find you and evaluate your services. So, make sure that everything you post online about yourself or your services, be that your website, your social media accounts, your blog posts, comments, etc., create a clear and attractive image of you. 

Use the power of networking

The power of networking is incredible. You can meet valuable people and even stimulate word-of-mouth by visiting business events. If you are new to networking, start just by visiting events, describing what you do and giving your business cards. Also, find ways to make connections to doctors. People tend to consider doctors’ recommendations seriously, so it will be much easier for you to attract clients if some doctors can recommend you. 

Blog and use content marketing

Well, blogging for some popular websites and resources can help you to buld authority and show how good you are as a specialist. A potential client is likely to check you profile and read an article or two, so take content seriously. Though you are not likely to get a lot of traffic to your personal website, it still makes sense to blog there as well. First, your website will still get a better SEO raking, and, second, you will show yourself as a professional. 

Conclusion

Though starting your own business as a psychologist online can seem hard, you will definitely appreciate the rewards that come with it. With a sound business and marketing strategy in place, you will be able to develop a good online presence and build trustworthy relationships with your potential clients.