WP 45 | Onboarding New Therapists to your Practice with Nathan Hawkins and Aaron Potratz
Whether you're a seasoned practice owner with a growing team of therapists or a newcomer to the world of private practice, onboarding new therapists is a crucial process that sets the stage for success. In this blog post, we'll explore valuable insights shared by Nathan Hawkins and Aaron Potratz from their experience in group practice and their podcast, "Shrink Think," on the Wise Practice Podcast.
About Aaron
Aaron is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Clinical Supervisor in Oregon, the owner of Discover Counseling, and the co-owner of Life Discovery Counseling Services.
He maintains his own client caseload while managing his group practices and supervising his counseling staff. Aaron is also a private practice consultant and co-hosts the Shrink Think Podcast with Nathan Hawkins.
About Nathan
Nathan is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Clinical Supervisor in Oregon. He’s the owner of Life Encounter Counseling and co-owner of Life Discovery Counseling Services - a multi-site group practice. Nathan maintains his own client caseload while managing and supervising his counseling staff, and still finds time to teach on occasion as an adjunct professor at Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon.
Why Onboarding Matters
Onboarding therapists isn't just about paperwork and administrative tasks. It's an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition for new therapists and to align them with your practice's values and culture. As Nathan and Aaron highlight, therapists often come from various backgrounds, including community mental health or agency settings, and may be unfamiliar with the intricacies of private practice.
Key Considerations During Onboarding
Differentiating Between Employee and Contractor Models: Clarify the distinctions between employee (W-2) and contractor (1099) models. This includes understanding how taxes, benefits, and responsibilities differ for each category. Communicate this information clearly to new therapists to set expectations from the start.
Understanding the Private Practice Landscape: New therapists may be accustomed to the environment of agency work or community mental health. Introduce them to the unique aspects of private practice, including variations in client populations, paperwork requirements, and billing procedures.
Navigating Cash Pay and Insurance-Based Models: Explain the differences between cash pay and insurance-based practices. Ensure that therapists are well-informed about client payments, copays, insurance deductibles, and how to handle financial discussions professionally.
Client-Centered Onboarding: Equip therapists with essential skills to provide outstanding customer service to clients. This includes screening potential clients, scheduling, handling first sessions, effective communication, and maintaining appropriate documentation.
Imposter Syndrome and Provisional Licensure: Address challenges that provisionally licensed therapists might face, such as imposter syndrome and navigating the journey to full licensure. Encourage open conversations and provide support as they build their careers.
Building a Strong Practice Community: Emphasize the importance of therapists aligning with the practice's values and brand. This involves educating them on the practice's mission, policies, and expectations for maintaining a positive working environment.
Departure and Transition: Even when therapists leave the practice, the onboarding process continues. Inform therapists about what to expect when leaving the practice and how to handle transitions professionally, including clients, documentation, and ethical considerations.
Streamlining the Onboarding Process
Nathan and Aaron's podcast, "Shrink Think," offers an online platform called "Shrink Think Product" that provides digital resources for effective therapist onboarding. This platform offers video modules covering the essential topics and challenges discussed above. By utilizing these resources, practice owners can save time, ensure consistent training, and foster a knowledgeable team of therapists.
Conclusion
Onboarding new therapists to your group practice is an opportunity to set clear expectations, foster a positive work environment, and equip therapists with the knowledge they need to thrive. By addressing key considerations and leveraging resources like the "Shrink Think Product," practice owners can streamline the onboarding process and create a foundation for successful and sustainable growth.
Remember, each therapist brings a unique perspective and set of experiences, making open communication and ongoing support essential components of the onboarding journey.
Show Sponsors
Check the podcasts on the PsychCraft Network: PsychCraftnetwork.com
Shrink Think - Digital Resources to Build Effective client-therapist relationships
Links and Resources Mentioned:
Shrink Think on Instagram: @shrink.think
Shrink Think on Facebook: @shrinkthink
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WP 45 | Onboarding New Therapists to your Practice with Nathan Hawkins and Aaron Potratz
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Whitney Owens:
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Whitney Owens: Hello friends, and thanks for hanging out with me today on The Wise Practice Podcast. In today's episode, we're gonna chat about onboarding new therapists to your private practice. Before we get into that interview, which was with Shrink Think, um, which is a company that helps with videos and tools for therapists that are onboarding clients.
Whitney Owens: And clinicians to the practice, as well as teaching tools about couples therapy and working with clients. So you're gonna learn more about their company in just a few minutes. Before we get into that, I thought I'd share a little bit about my experience as a group practice owner with the onboarding phases of private practice.
Whitney Owens: And we kind of talked about this a little in the episode, but the first thing I want you to hear from me is it's so important that you figure out what process works best for you. I have found some group practices that wanna do all their onboarding in-house, and there are other practices that are looking for.
Whitney Owens: Outsourcing that to a company such as shrink think. Um, and then as you're starting out in your practice and you're just hiring your first therapists, maybe you're not really sure what you wanna do. Um, so some of the things that I have found helpful in the onboarding process for myself is, number one, figuring out your culture for your practice.
Whitney Owens: And I say this because onboarding is gonna be the first experience that a new therapist has when you hire them. So you might decide that you wanna do videos, you might decide that you want to do something in person. You might decide that you want them to read through a manual and know what to do, and not that one is better than another.
Whitney Owens: But understanding what your company is about will help dictate the type of way that you want to onboard. That being said, my practice is very community oriented, that we are very relational. We spend good amount of time together. And when I'm looking at hiring, that is something I'm always thinking about.
Whitney Owens: And so when I think about our onboarding process, that was an important step for me is that the clinician feels that personal touch through the onboarding experience. And so, At my practice, I first was doing the onboarding when I would hire my first therapist, and as the practice has grown, I've really incorporated other people into that process because it can be taxing as the business owner to do that.
Whitney Owens: I have my office manager and my clinical director involved in that process of meeting with a therapist that's being onboarded. I do typically try to hire two or three at a time, 'cause it does make that onboarding, prac onboarding experience go a little easier. Now, there are other practice owners that do use videos for their onboarding experience, or they're using kind of a set curriculum, which goes really well.
Whitney Owens: Regardless of which one you do, making sure that you're writing every step down in your process. Now, a lot of people push back on this because it is pretty time consuming, but I wanna encourage you that you are writing everything down. So if that's an onboarding manual, if that's your handbook, whatever that looks like, that you have a process and that you have a schedule when you do your onboarding, that you're not just willy-nilly, here, read this, do this, but hey.
Whitney Owens: You need to have these videos completed by this date, or we're gonna talk about using the E H R from this time to this time. We're gonna talk about our practice and company culture from this time to this time, making everything structured and oriented towards the goals of the onboarding, but also towards the culture of your practice.
Whitney Owens: So I really enjoy the onboarding process. I've enjoyed it even more as I've gotten more people involved in the process. My clinical director does an excellent job in putting a whole agenda together, and then we always have lunch together as part of the process as well. And so it's always a lot of. Fun when I'm bringing on new therapists.
Whitney Owens: So I hope that is helpful to you as you, um, think about the onboarding process as you're kind of listening to the interview today and thinking about how you want that to look for you and your practice. And if you're needing help with, um, onboarding, obviously you can check out the videos with strength think, and then if you're wanting a little bit more, Step-by-step guidance in starting a group practice or maybe onboarding therapist to a growing group practice.
Whitney Owens: Feel free to reach out to me, whitney@whitneyowens.com. So I'm looking forward to sharing this episode with you and it's episode number 45 about onboarding new therapists to your private practice.
Whitney Owens: Welcome back to The Wise Practice Podcast, and I have my friends, Nate and Erin here with me today looking forward to talking about onboarding therapist to your group practice. Both of them have group practices and they have a shared group practice, so they have a lot of experience on onboarding therapist to your practice.
Whitney Owens: But before we jump in the episode, I'd love for you guys to just share a little bit about yourself, your background, anything you wanna share so that people can
Nathan Hawkins: get to know you. Here, uh, Nathan Hawkins. We're out here in Tigard, uh, Portland Metro area, Oregon. And, uh, I have a license. Um, I was gonna say I have a license, of course, I have a license, but I own life encounter counseling on my own, and I've been doing that since 2004.
Nathan Hawkins: And, uh, met Aaron over the course of actually kind of like peer supervision talking together. And, uh, we ended up. It's the long story short is now we're together at last. Just kidding. So we started working side by side and then we ended up also starting a, uh, what for both of us is a second business called Life Discovery Counseling, which is another group practice and that has two locations in the Portland Metro area on the opposite sides of the metro.
Nathan Hawkins: Um, and then later. We did shrink Think podcast and um, that's still going and going and going and going like an energizer bunny. Anyway, I'll turn it over to Aaron.
Aaron Potratz: Yeah, and I'm Aaron RAs. I am a an L P C here, like Nate, Nathan said, uh, in the Tagard area. Portland Metro and uh, yeah, Oregon. It's the west coast.
Aaron Potratz: It's interesting. Um, Being out here on the West Coast, we're like one of the few people that's like representing the left half of the country. Most everybody else, oh, there's a few Californians, I guess. Um, but most everybody seems like they're on the East Coast, so, um, we're proud to represent the West Coast.
Aaron Potratz: I've got Discover Counseling is what I've, uh, built up. It's my group practice. I've got seven or eight clinicians out here. Working for me and, um, a couple of admin staff. And then, like Nathan said, uh, we share life discovery counseling services. We just manage that one kind of remotely, um, supervise those folks there.
Aaron Potratz: And, uh, shrink Think podcast kind of came out of, um, I really actually, it's when we met you, Whitney, um, we decided to start a podcast like. Probably right after that, um, took a while before we started our podcast, and then out of that idea came our actual shrink think product, which we'll talk about later on the show with onboarding.
Aaron Potratz: Perfect.
Whitney Owens: Thank you. So y'all basically have four practices together amongst the two of you. Am I saying that right? Four
Aaron Potratz: Four businesses. Yeah. Four businesses, Uhhuh. Four businesses. Okay. I know, I, I always joke with, um, with my friend Don Gabriel, she's also a fellow Enneagram three. It's like whenever I'm bored or I'm like, oh, I need, I have a little bit of time, like start a new business.
Aaron Potratz: Mm-hmm. Instead of rest. That's right. Wonderful.
Whitney Owens: Great. Okay, well, we're gonna talk about onboarding very common topic for people, especially when they're starting group practices. So, I'm not sure where we wanna start here. If we wanna start with what's it like when you first hire people or if we wanna talk about larger group practices, the onboarding experience, um, you know, how do you kind of go through these
Aaron Potratz: steps?
Aaron Potratz: Well, actually, maybe it would be good to start with, um, like how this kind of came about and why we, I think, got into the onboarding business, if you will. I think it's essentially clients would come to us and they, and even our clinicians, and they would not really know a whole lot about what they're supposed to do.
Aaron Potratz: Um, You know, they get the intake paperwork and we send it to them electronically, or it's, if it's in the waiting room, it's like, okay, can you fill this out? In some ways that's kind of like, okay, you go to the doctor, you fill out some paperwork and then you're seen. But with therapy it's actually quite a bit different 'cause it's not just some of your medical background.
Aaron Potratz: It's like a lot of info. Information about you to help us to know you and understand what's been going on for you so that we can work on your goals and treat these kind of symptoms that are going on for you so that you can feel better. Well, the general population doesn't really know much about that.
Aaron Potratz: They sort of show up at therapy and they're like, okay, now what? You know, do you want me to like lay down on the couch? And I'm not kidding, people would actually say that 'cause they don't really know what they're supposed to do. Could just be a West Coast thing. That's true. They're still back in the Freudian days.
Aaron Potratz: That's things take a little while to travel from the east coast to the west coast. Right. Um, but so we just were kind of looking at what was going on and, and realizing that people didn't really know what to do when they were coming to therapy. So we started this podcast to start talking about, uh, here's what you can do to prepare yourself, to prepare your therapist, how you guys can get on the same page.
Aaron Potratz: And it seemed like the more we were. Investigating that and talking about it, the more we realize, wow, people really don't know what to do. And especially clinicians don't really know what to do or how to do that whole process well. Well, and
Nathan Hawkins: I think, so I wanna qualify that what you're saying that the clinicians saying, because I think a lot of us probably listening on the show, uh, on your show, Whitney, they probably do know.
Nathan Hawkins: But part of the light bulb moment for me was realizing, and when I hired other people, they don't. They're not, um, the people, there's a different type of, I don't know, personality or pers client or clinician that comes in that is, that goes, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm not, I'm not really entrepreneurial. I just want to do my job and go home.
Nathan Hawkins: And then those folks come in and now they're working for you. And then you start getting questions like, well, I don't, I mean, do I send, what do I send to them? Like, and when they come in, what, wait, what's our policy on blah, blah, blah, all these kinds of things. And, and all of a sudden now you're, you're, you're doing in a way more than you knew that you thought you were doing.
Nathan Hawkins: And it's like, so when we were talking, we were, we were sitting there going, okay, so there actually is quite a bit of information that some people just, some clinicians just don't think about because they don't really care about the business side at all. They just wanna do therapy, which is completely appropriate.
Nathan Hawkins: Then there's some stuff as business owners that I don't wanna keep repeating. I remember the second person that I hired is when I woke up to that, because I was saying the exact same thing. And so the excitement of the first person I hired had wore off. I was spending four hours going over the exact same freaking information with this other person and then trying to remember like, what did I tell the other?
Nathan Hawkins: Like, I should have wrote this down like in a, a list or something,
or
Aaron Potratz: why For me it's like, why didn't I just record this? Right. You know, and then like replay it for the other person. So, Yeah, I mean, so I guess we're talking orienting to therapy and onboarding clinicians. Kind of two different, different things.
Aaron Potratz: Different things, but they kind of were born out of the same idea. When people are coming to our practices, whether they're clients or whether they're clinicians wanting to work for us, it's like people just kind of want to show up and be like told what to do and they, and they're sort of expected to know what to do, but.
Aaron Potratz: There's not really a whole lot of informed consent or like informing, guiding, training, uh, to that process. So that's where we come in. Well, and
Nathan Hawkins: let me be honest, I mean, and this is, I some of the, I don't know how some people might not want to hear this, but the reality is, is that some of these clin clinical employees that you folks have are simply not good at it.
Nathan Hawkins: They're just not, they're, they do therapy fine. Like, you know, like hopefully better than fine. Right? They're a great clinician. Right? But they don't know, they don't really know like, how to move people. Like, like when we did the, the, uh, the onboarding for clients, when that goes out, it's, it's got a whole bunch of information in there for the, for the oncoming client, incoming client of questions they did not even know they had.
Nathan Hawkins: And, and quite frankly, you probably don't want your, your employee clinicians or contracted clinicians speaking all the way for you in those matters because we don't know. Like there's some of those questions will come up, you know, like, Five or six sessions in, because the client just realizes like, oh, like, um, what's the, what's with child therapy?
Nathan Hawkins: I was thinking, I'm bringing my kid in. Like, and I don't know, like, who do I send those people? Like what's the, you know, and they start asking, can you give me an opinion? I want my lawyer to talk to you about, um, my kids. And I want them to say like, what if, if you're, I want you to tell them if I'm a good parent, you know, like, wait, whoa.
Nathan Hawkins: Yeah, we don't want you answering that. Like, don't, that's a whole different thing. So, Anyway, that's kind of my passion about why I think it's really important and super helpful. Yeah.
Whitney Owens: All right, so we've got videos for lots of great things, and we were talking about kind of onboarding with your clients.
Whitney Owens: Let's focus on the onboarding of your therapist and your practice. So if somebody, let's just start with a new group practice owner. Maybe they've hired their first therapist or two and they're like, oh my gosh, I have no idea how to onboard these people. What would be some advice or tips that you would start
Aaron Potratz: out with?
Aaron Potratz: There's a, yeah, that's a great question. Um, I do this when I, so I, I'm a consultant as well. I work with people, um, helping them start and grow their businesses. And usually when, especially for people who have not done this before, I. Um, they're like, is there some sort of a script or a like a legal thing I'm supposed to follow?
Aaron Potratz: And it's like, no, not really. It's kind of like, how do you do things because this is your business, this is your practice. How do you do things? And then, Tell people to do that. Like write down or think about all the things that you think are good, or maybe even like when you're at your best deal, how do you do things?
Aaron Potratz: And it forces people to actually kind of think through like, oh yeah, what are all the steps that I take? So, um, for example, um, private practice is very different from community mental health and working for any other agency or organization. Um, you're dealing with money, um, finances, you're talking to, uh, clients about.
Aaron Potratz: You know, copays or insurance deductibles, those kinds of things. If you're an insurance-based practice. So these are some things that you're gonna have to tell your employee or your contractor, how do I actually talk to clients about this if they've just worked for an organization where the billing department held
that?
Nathan Hawkins: Yeah, and I think the second part to that, as you're thinking through it, is you, you're gonna need to decide. The difference between how you do it and how you feel like you are comfortable with all of your employees doing it. Because the reality is, is I think, you know, you get to a point because you have quite a bit of experience and you know when, how and why you're gonna compromise your, you know, maybe a way that you would normally do it and you're like, yeah, in this situation I think I can probably do it this way.
Nathan Hawkins: Okay, great. And it goes fine, but do you want your employee doing that? Um, so how maybe you don't, maybe some people you're kind of okay with it, and other people you're really like, I really need them to just do therapy. Like they're, and so when you're thinking through the process of what it is that you do, you also need to ask yourself, okay, do I want everyone to do that exact same thing
Aaron Potratz: in a certain sense?
Aaron Potratz: These are like your standard operating procedures, right? Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, sometimes I want 'em to do it just like me, and sometimes I want 'em to not do it like me. Right. Exactly. Right. And that's when I'm, that's when I'm like, oh, another policy has to be written on this. You know, when we have all these mistakes that come up.
Whitney Owens: But I think y'all are making some good points on writing down the way that you do it, teaching that to them, and then watching them, seeing how they're doing it. Are you comfortable? Are you not? You know, and, and really it's a. It's a process like you're not gonna, you know, I think you were saying Erin, it's not like it's a script or something that you are given, it's something that you figure out over time and every practice center's gonna do it different.
Whitney Owens: And it's gonna be different in every state, you know, depending on what your laws and HR and all this kind of stuff.
Aaron Potratz: It's like, yeah, there are certain things that really need to be covered that need to be said and discussed. Right? So that's kind of like your, your policy and procedure, but each person is gonna go about that or they're gonna talk about it differently.
Aaron Potratz: You know, Shrink Think is an online platform that provides digital resources to cultivate successful therapeutic relationships. With courses geared towards educating and empowering clients, as well as effective training and onboarding new clinicians, shrink Think supports private practices to achieve better outcomes across the board.
Whitney Owens: To learn more about Shrink Think today. Visit shrink think.com.
Nathan Hawkins: One difference between us is that, um, that that shows itself up in the shared business we have. So I, I. And I don't know if you do this or not, so we'll see if you correct me.
Nathan Hawkins: But I want my clinicians to know, for example, a a bit about insurance. They need to know like what insurances they take, and I want them to understand the process of how insurance works. Uh, I don't want them calling insurance companies, um, because that's too complicated and too, too much, uh, stuff to do.
Nathan Hawkins: But I think they, I, so I spend time trying to get them to know and, and handle some of that. We went through a situation, This last few months where we, we had, uh, our great admin go on maternity leave and some stuff blew up with some of the insurance stuff. And so there, I'm bringing this up 'cause some folks want the perspective of pipe, and I'm not saying that you do this, by the way, Aaron.
Nathan Hawkins: 'cause I set that up to make it sound, sounds like I'm saying this, but I can imagine there's situations in which, um, you may have an out, an outsourced scenario with insurance, right. And you. Farm the entire thing out. I would say even in that situation, I want my clinicians to understand the process of what's going on.
Nathan Hawkins: So I'll spend extra time onboarding them, uh, when maybe, if they're community mental health or whatever they're coming from, they don't really deal with it whatsoever. Mm-hmm. Um, when you're in private practice, There's just a bunch of little questions and details that you can just fend off everything and help your client to feel comfortable that everything's safe and okay, and professional, rather than, um, hoping that, you know, your admin will catch it.
Nathan Hawkins: So, just as something that, um, kind of came up more recently, not between Aaron and I, by the way, just between this whole insurance debacle that happened in the last few months, which is now fixed.
Whitney Owens: Well, I think you're making a good point in the things that you find important as a business owner that you take the time to really teach that.
Whitney Owens: You know, and I, I think sometimes we're not sure how to say it or we're scared to talk about something, so we don't focus enough on it. And if it's something that's important to you in your business that you're taking the time and the onboarding to really hit it hard.
Aaron Potratz: Absolutely. And I, I would say, I think this onboarding stuff that we're doing, it's not just that this is important, absolutely it is, but it's also thought through like, we wanna help.
Aaron Potratz: You guys, your listeners, your businesses, your, um, your clinicians that, uh, are getting onboarded, prevent problems. We want to address things, we wanna talk about things. We wanna put things on the table or, um, make them aware of things that are potentially gonna be, things are gonna run into. We want them to know about them and to be informed about them ahead of time so that when they pop up it's like, oh, I've been trained on this, or, oh, I know a little bit about this and maybe I don't remember fully all of the things, but I can go back, you know, to our strength, think videos.
Aaron Potratz: Or I can go back to my training and I can get some more information about it. So it's not just a total surprise. So that goes over your head. From that standpoint, it's kinda like all the eyes are open and aware in your practice so that everybody's kind of on the same page about how things are supposed to be run.
Aaron Potratz: Yeah,
Whitney Owens: yeah. And so even if they can't remember, there's a place for it and they know where to go get it. Yeah. Um, all right, so let's talk a little bit about larger group practices. Um, I don't know, maybe 10 therapists, 15 therapists. I mean, obviously there's larger than that, but at that size, as you're growing.
Whitney Owens: Any extra challenges or tips that you have with onboarding?
Nathan Hawkins: I think well, and to be honest, I, that that's where the, the product that we have, I think is, would excel kind of the most. Mm-hmm. Because what it does is it streamlines everything for the, it takes a bunch of things off the table and then highlights.
Nathan Hawkins: It will inevitably highlight questions that are specific to the practice that the group practitioner's running, because it'll go through all the general things and weeded out, um, stuff that. Kind of everybody needs to know in private practice, and it's not a lot of time, by the way. There's not, it's not a, a huge time commitment for the clinician that's watching the video, but then whoever's going to be helping onboard that person, maybe it's not the owner, maybe it's a supervisor or something, they.
Nathan Hawkins: For them, the supervisor or the owner is just going through a, a smaller checklist. Really. It's a shorter checklist of, okay, what, what questions do you have now that you've watched these? And there probably will be questions that are specific because we entertain the idea that of an employee versus contractor model as we're trying to.
Nathan Hawkins: You know, go through those. So some people might be like, well, I know that I'm a contractor, so how do, how do you want me to communicate about money in this situation? We do go over some ideas about that. Um, but those are where the specific, the specifics of the, of the practice would come forward. And I think it would make the questions a lot more, um, for lack of a better word, smart.
Nathan Hawkins: And, um, on behalf of the, the clinician that's been hired. Yeah. So
Aaron Potratz: essentially for the, the group practitioner you've got. You've got a lot of things that you're, you're trying to manage and you're in essence, hopefully trying to systematize, automate a lot of your processes so that everything is kind of running smoothly.
Aaron Potratz: Everything is done pretty consistently across the board. You know, when you've got one or two, uh, clinicians working for you, you're kind of like, You're talking about this and you're saying probably mostly the same things, but it's pretty casual. But when you've got a larger group practice, you kind of need things to be run a little bit more systematized.
Aaron Potratz: And that's where these videos that we have are great because every single one of your clinicians can watch the same videos, learn the same information, the same way from the same people, you know, it's the same information. Um, and. The group practice owner knows that every single clinician is getting the same training.
Aaron Potratz: So it's like, I can put people through this. I know the outcome that it's gonna create. And like Nathan said, there are some questions that will come out out of that, that maybe they can develop more consistently, you know, within their own training, um, outside of our videos. So that. Essentially their whole onboarding process can get streamlined.
Aaron Potratz: We're taking some of the work out of those practice owners or the administration, the trainer's hands, and we're doing it for them and we're also taking it off the clock, um, to where instead of them spending their time, you know, and which is money doing it and we're doing it. So that these clinicians can watch these videos on their own time, whether they're in the car listening to it, or they're at home, you know, whatever.
Aaron Potratz: They can do it kind of on their own time, and that's just saving everybody time and money.
Nathan Hawkins: Yeah, I mean the, I mean, the truth is, this is, I, when I, going back to the beginning before, as I was kind of mentioning earlier, um, you go, you bring on the next person, the next employee, and you start. Like me, I'm trying to remember like, man, I should have done a stupid checklist.
Nathan Hawkins: I mean, the truth is, if I would've had our videos for the very first employee I hired, I mean I probably would've saved three. I'm realistically like lit legitimately three hours as I'm trying to like ask all these specific questions and all those kind of things, and then the next time I know I'm doing the same thing.
Nathan Hawkins: So, um, and it's, and then everybody's not going, you know, like where you hear like somebody comes up to you and goes, um, yeah, I was talking to Sarah and, um, you told her blah, blah, blah. Um, and I didn't realize, you know, and I'm realizing like, oh, I guess I did tell them more information. I. It was a question that they asked.
Nathan Hawkins: You know, that kind of thing. So that streamline, I feel like is honestly really helpful. My personality actually reacts against streamline to some extent. 'cause I wanna be like, Hey man, special individual, let's deal with it. But we need streamline. All right. So
Whitney Owens: can you walk through some of these steps that are in the video so that we kind of know what the onboarding process is like?
Aaron Potratz: Okay, so we've got a bunch of modules. Um, as we were kind of thinking this through, these were like things that uh, we, in talking with a bunch of colleagues, you know, um, people that we knew that had practices, got a bunch of feedback of things like common things that everybody's kind of facing.
Aaron Potratz: So, Um, we talk about, so we give like an intro or like a welcome to private practice, the differences between contractors, 10 99, uh, workers and, uh, employee or W two, uh, models of, um, of group practices. We talk about the differences between community mental health and private practice, both in kind of how they function and a lot of the client populations, and then the issues that people might be dealing with.
Aaron Potratz: 'cause that's a, that's a surprise for a lot of people, honestly, that are coming from those organizations. You know, one that the populations are different. Um, it's like, oh, you don't have all these same kinds of like, mental illness or you don't have the same severity of issues that you're dealing with, or also you don't have the massive amounts of paperwork that you have to do.
Aaron Potratz: That's one thing that people just don't realize, like, okay, so I did my notes and I did this, you know, the treatment plan or whatever, and now what, what other things do I have to do? And you're like, that's it. And they're like, wait. Normally at my job we have to deal with this and this and this and this, and it's like, nope, that's when you're dealing with community mental health agencies.
Aaron Potratz: So we kind of talk through some of that stuff. We talk through the differences between cash paying practices and insurance-based practices, what that looks like for the clinicians so they can be informed. Um, depending on which kind of a practice you have, it's good for your clinicians to know which one they're at and what the differences are.
Aaron Potratz: And even frankly, some. Practices have switched over. So knowing both of those can be really helpful. And then working with clients, um, the clinicians generally it's, it's kind of a mini onboarding. It's, it's not really actually, um, orienting clients to therapy, but it's a bit of like, what do your clinicians need to know in order to provide like good customer service essentially with their clients to your practice.
Aaron Potratz: So things like screening clients before they take 'em on. Um, Talking about scheduling, what to do in the first session, how to communicate well and uh, appropriately with clients, documentation, discussing finances, things like that. Um, and then we have some things about like being a good employee or a contractor.
Aaron Potratz: Like what does it mean for these clinicians to, uh, essentially be a part of this organization? What responsibilities do they have to be a good employee so that the group practice owner, um, How would you say
Nathan Hawkins: that is? Well, they're, they're a part of owning the movement. Owning the brand. Mm-hmm. That type of thing.
Nathan Hawkins: Yeah. Yeah,
Aaron Potratz: exactly. And then, um, just two more here. We've got, um, a little section for provisionally or pre-licensed clinicians, um, for people that are, I. Uh, newer to the field maybe that have not been, you know, a lot of the, the licensed folks that have been around a long time, maybe they've been in other practices, they're kind of a little bit more familiar with things.
Aaron Potratz: Um, so for people that are pre-licensed or more provisional, uh, in their process, I. We talk through some things that are good for them to know, um, in their journey. And then like things like imposter syndrome, like these are inevitably things that they're gonna face and they can spark good conversations with their supervisors later on.
Aaron Potratz: And then lastly, if somebody's gonna leave the practice, things that are good for them to know. And it's not that we want people to leave practice, uh, leave your practice. We just know that it's going to happen at some point with some people. We want them to be informed about the things that they, um, can and probably cannot do, or should not do, should not expect and shouldn't, yeah, should not expect.
Aaron Potratz: So hopefully we're kind of protecting both the group practice owner and the, the clinician from any potential problem so that if there is some sort of separation, that it can happen really
Nathan Hawkins: well. It's one of the things I would add on the last part there with, um, for the licensed experienced people coming in, we try to, uh, one of the points we make is like, you, you do have experience.
Nathan Hawkins: You, you were hired because you are seasons and also be open to the fact that some of the habits that you have, Are not going to work in the practice that you just got hired in. Um, that's right. So we're, we're the maybe the group practitioner's hoping to get that season this, um, but you're gonna end up being in different conversations that maybe you're potentially not used to.
Nathan Hawkins: So it's kind of like trying to o open it up for the idea that there won't be surprises, um, for, for how things move forward. Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: Yeah. Well, thanks for walking through those steps. There were several of them. I was thinking about problems I've had onboarding that if my therapist had heard that in advance, especially, I think one of the first ones was kind of that difference in the cash pay model and coming from agency work and understanding mental health and severity.
Whitney Owens: Like my agency, people would just be like, oh, they're fine when I'm like, no, they need weekly therapy, you know? But they're used to seeing something different. So even that content right there, The way we talk about a cash pay practice and insurance, like so many things you said I think would be helpful, um, for people.
Whitney Owens: And I could see it being helpful for my therapist as well. Yeah. Great. Okay, well, um, anything else about onboarding that we need to address?
Nathan Hawkins: I mean, I feel more details I could probably say in stories, but I don't wanna drone on.
Whitney Owens: Well, we can save those for the summit, right?
Aaron Potratz: Yeah, yeah. I've come out to the Wise Practice Summit in Savannah, Georgia, and uh, we will definitely have some more information and, um, some sweet swag and so pumped about this swag.
Aaron Potratz: You'll
Nathan Hawkins: also have swag, dude, you're gonna love it.
Aaron Potratz: Um, yeah, but come seriously, come out this to the summit and we'll, um, we'll have like a table and we'll be talking more about this stuff. Um, so yeah, come out in person. It's just different when you're in person.
Whitney Owens: Totally. Alright, well y'all have a great offer for listeners today and, um, so Shrink Think is offering $200 off the onboarding clinicians to your practice training videos, um, which are typically a $600 lifetime access value.
Whitney Owens: Um, so if you head to their website, shrink think.com and use the code wise, practice 200, you'll get. $200 off the videos that we're talking about today. So that's a incredible deal. So thank you for offering that. Um, and yep, we'll be hanging out at the summit in October, so just a few weeks away now. And I appreciate you guys coming on the show.
Whitney Owens: It was
Nathan Hawkins: fun.
Aaron Potratz: It always is. Always. Thanks for having us again, Whitney.
