[00:00:00] Dr. Anahita Banoo: Welcome to the Therapist Business Growth Podcast, the podcast for therapists who want to grow and scale a group practice [00:00:10] that runs itself so you can make more money, work less, and actually live the life you’re dreaming of. I’m your host, Dr. Anahita, and I am so glad you’re here. Let’s dive in. [00:00:20] Welcome back to another episode of the Therapist Business Growth Podcast.

[00:00:24] In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the topic that so many people [00:00:30] love to bring up about group practices. Are therapy group practices just inherently unethical? So I get DMs all the time, [00:00:40] t- I get comments all the time telling me how the way that I structure my business is just inherently unethical.

[00:00:46] It’s predatory. It’s exploitative. In fact, let’s [00:00:50] pull up the last DM that I got, um, or comment rather. “So why wouldn’t you just hire them as W-2s?” Now, if you listened to my [00:01:00] episode two weeks ago, you’ll know I actually do encourage everybody to hire people as W-2s, but that’s neither here nor th- nor there.

[00:01:08] “Anything more than 80/20 split [00:01:10] in favor of the provider is predatory… and weird.” Let’s talk about this because, listen, [00:01:20] there are gonna be people out there who h- who believe this, all right? Who think that if you are taking more than 20% of a therapist’s [00:01:30] revenue who’s working for you, that you are predatory, all right?

[00:01:32] That you’re taking advantage of someone’s, someone’s work that they’re doing, that they’re doing the clinical work, so they should be getting 100% of the session [00:01:40] fee. Th- this is in Facebook groups. This is in comments. This is in DMs. This is– this narrative is everywhere. It’s really such a bummer because I really think that it [00:01:50] divides therapists, which there are so many other things out there that are dividing therapists these days.

[00:01:55] But it makes it so that group practice owners sit there in this place [00:02:00] of questioning themselves. Am I doing something that is unethical? Because there are all these, honestly, solo therapists out there telling group practices that what they’re doing is unethical. Now, if [00:02:10] you’ve never walked in somebody else’s shoes, why are you judging them?

[00:02:13] And that’s, that’s kinda my takeaway with all of this. If you are not a group practice owner, stop telling group practice owners that what they’re doing is [00:02:20] unethical. Um, now, I will sit here and I will tell you, there are unethical group practices. 100%, hands down, I’ve seen them. I’ve employed people who came [00:02:30] from them.

[00:02:30] All right? I’m not just gonna sit here and tell you that group practices are inherently ethical either. But we have to talk about it because it is such a [00:02:40] nuanced conversation, and there is so much more beyond this, and it’s something that gets brought up in coaching often. I have people inside of my s- particularly my Freedom First Group [00:02:50] Practice Accelerator program, so that’s for when people already have an established practice, and they’re just optimizing their systems and getting their time back, scaling, um, those types of things.

[00:02:58] But I– last [00:03:00] week, we were having this conversation because someone was like, “How do you manage when people are telling you that your business model is inherently unethical?” All right? Now, this isn’t just me saying [00:03:10] this to entice you to scale to a group practice or to tell you that, um, no, they’re all– it’s totally fine.

[00:03:16] Just do it. Just do it. Okay? Because, again, there are [00:03:20] practices that are unethical. All right? And so this episode, it is not going to argue that every single group practice is totally fine, and it’s doing what it needs to do. It’s not going to [00:03:30] argue either that solo practice is somehow more ethical than a group practice.

[00:03:34] All right? But we are going to talk about the separation between these two types of group practices, the ones that are [00:03:40] ethical and the ones that are unethical. Now, let’s talk about the core argument here. And I’m not gonna lie to you, I felt this way. When I first started my group practice, I worried about this.[00:03:50] 

[00:03:50] I was like, “Am I taking advantage of people? Like, they’re the ones sitting in the therapist chair. They’re the ones doing the clinical work, and I’m profiting off of that. Is that somehow inherently unethical?” All [00:04:00] right? The owner takes a cut of every single session that the therapist provides, right?

[00:04:04] Sometimes 40, 50. In my practice, at certain points, we were taking 55% of [00:04:10] our therapist’s work. While doing none of the clinical work in that room, right? That’s not partnership, that’s extraction. All right? It’s a business model built on the [00:04:20] labor of therapists who often can’t do these things on their own because they require supervision and they are not fully licensed yet, so they can’t even start their own, their own business [00:04:30] anyway.

[00:04:30] All right? There’s all this imbalance between the new therapists who they need, they need your support. They need referrals. They need the infrastructure. It’s not a choice to come work for you. They need [00:04:40] this, right? Or let’s talk about the math of it all, that you’re charging 150 per session and you’re, you’re paying your therapist [00:04:50] 65, $75 per session.

[00:04:51] That’s terrible. How could you profit that much off of the work that they’re doing, right? Or the passive income– Oh, this is– The passive income [00:05:00] claim, right? That the owner is just making all of this money passively. They’re not doing any of the work, they’re just profiting off of the backs of, of their workers, right?

[00:05:09] [00:05:10] I hear these arguments so often, and I get it because on the surface level, from people looking from the outside, it might seem like that’s what’s going on. [00:05:20] All right? And here’s what I’ll tell you. The goal of a group practice is to get to a place– when we talk about the passive income piece of it, is to get to a place where it is [00:05:30] more passive income.

[00:05:31] But does it start there? 100% no. It takes grind, work, so much capital investment in order to [00:05:40] build the practice that we see that people are having, right? For me, I will tell you, it took, took a shit ton of money to, to scale my business [00:05:50] to where I wanted it to be. And not all of that I saw a return on It took so much time, so much energy, all right?

[00:05:58] And so I [00:06:00] understand this, this criticism that people have out there. I, I get it. And a lot of times people are doing it from this perspective of like almost like savior complex, right? Of like, [00:06:10] we shouldn’t be like new therapists. We shouldn’t be paying them so little. They deserve to be paid so much more, and we shouldn’t be profiting off of them.

[00:06:18] And so they think that by saying that, that they’re [00:06:20] somehow like coming and saving these people. But I will die on this hill. If you overpay your therapists to the point where you don’t have money [00:06:30] to pour into the business or where you don’t have money to pay yourself, I’m gonna guess that your business is not going to last very long.

[00:06:37] You are driving yourself [00:06:40] into collapsing the business. And is that doing right by your therapists who are working for you? To have them established in a practice where they have clients that they love, where they [00:06:50] have a community of other coworkers that they love, and then to drive this business into the ground to the point where they don’t have a job anymore.

[00:06:57] No. That to me is more [00:07:00] unethical than taking a cut out of the work that your therapists are doing. All right. So let’s talk about why a group practice actually might [00:07:10] be unethical. All right? And so when we talk about like the percentage pay, right? When we talk about how much the owner is taking, the cut that they’re [00:07:20] taking.

[00:07:20] If they’re taking, I don’t know, 40 to 50%, but providing no support, no benefit to the therapist, they’re making their therapist do the [00:07:30] marketing, do their own admin, pay for supervision. You guys, I see this. I do see this. Making them pay for supervision. There’s no support in like consultation [00:07:40] or group supervision.

[00:07:41] There’s no camaraderie. There’s no group feel of this practice. All right? Then it’s basically, yeah, I would call that unethical. You [00:07:50] should not be taking 40 to 50% of your therapist’s work and not providing any support back to them. Because the whole reason that somebody wants to come work for a group practice [00:08:00] is because of all of the business side of things that you take on, right?

[00:08:04] Most therapists who work for a group practice, they come and they say, “I want to show [00:08:10] up, do my therapy, write my note, and leave. I don’t want to manage a business. Please manage the business for me and I will show up and I will just do the work, the clinical work that I got [00:08:20] trained that I love to do.”

[00:08:21] That’s usually why somebody wants to work for a practice. And so if you are not providing any of the infrastructure of the business, yes, then I think it’s pretty unethical if you are [00:08:30] taking a large cut of their work. And what I will tell you with this is– and I have therapists in my program who are hiring other therapists to come work for them, [00:08:40] and those therapists are sharing about their previous work experiences.

[00:08:43] And I have– Somebody told me that their, uh, the practice was making them pay for their Gusto, which is the payroll [00:08:50] software. I’m like, that is insane to me. Like, why? You should never have to pay for somebody to pay you. That is crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy. [00:09:00] That is unethical 100% at its core. If you are making your therapist pay for their psychology today, I’m not gonna say your entire practice is unethical, but I would argue [00:09:10] that’s a benefit that you should be paying for for your therapist.

[00:09:13] All right? If you’re making them do marketing, some enjoy it. I had some therapists who genuinely loved marketing. They would love to come to, [00:09:20] you know, networking meetings with me, or when we were, you know, setting up booths, we would– we set up a booth at Pride. I had some therapists who really loved it.

[00:09:27] They loved connecting with the community. I would pay [00:09:30] them to be there. All right? I never would expect somebody to do any of the marketing, A, for free, let alone even needing required to [00:09:40] do it within the practice. Because that I viewed as the practice owner, that is my role, is to ensure that they are– that the marketing is so covered that they are getting referrals as they need them.[00:09:50] 

[00:09:50] All right? So that is one, one area where I’m like, yeah, okay. Maybe your practice is unethical if you’re taking u- taking all this money from your therapist [00:10:00] and you’re not providing them any benefit. All right? Another area, ugh, and I know that some people are gonna have certain feelings around this, and that’s fine.

[00:10:08] I get it. But [00:10:10] if you have a non-compete in your employment contract, and it’s basically telling your therapist that they cannot take their clients with them if they were to [00:10:20] ever leave, ugh It just– like, listen, I understand why people would have a non-compete. I, I understand it from the business [00:10:30] perspective.

[00:10:30] Everything we’re gonna be talking about, right? Is it’s business versus, like, the compassionate side, and you have to manage both. Again, I think I said this in last week’s episode when we’re talking about, like, [00:10:40] DBT, right? And there’s like, uh, rational mind, emotional mind, wise mind. Same thing in business.

[00:10:45] All right? There’s business mind, there’s overly compassionate emotional mind, and then we [00:10:50] meet in the middle, and I’m gonna coin some phrase for this at some point. If you have a good idea, please, please DM it to me. But we have to manage both. And I understand from the business [00:11:00] perspective, non-competes, I get it.

[00:11:01] But from the– like, honestly, from the middle ground, every single client should have choice in who they are seeing for [00:11:10] therapy. Also, side note, non-competes don’t typically stand up in court. So I highly recommend not putting them in your employment contract. I consulted with my [00:11:20] lawyer here in Colorado. She said the same thing, and I told– I was like, “I don’t even want a non-compete in my, my employment contract.”

[00:11:26] Um, we have a non-solicitation clause in [00:11:30] ours, so they can’t just be actively trying to, like, recruit clients to come with them. But I am so fine if you are leaving my practice to start [00:11:40] your own, your own practice or anything that your clients can follow you. They can know where you’re going, and they can follow you because they have choice in who their therapist is.[00:11:50] 

[00:11:50] And if you are working at a practice or if you are a practice owner and you have a non-compete in your employment contract, I would argue that is not, that is not ethical. All [00:12:00] right? Then we have the type of owner who just is hiring very quickly, and you are just kind of burning through therapists, especially when we talk [00:12:10] about interns and associates.

[00:12:11] All right? I see a lot of practice owners who love hiring interns and associates. Listen, so did I because I loved getting to pour into the next generation of [00:12:20] therapists. Um, but I see people who love doing it because of how profitable it is. And listen, it is profitable, and that’s great. And I’m not saying don’t do it for that reason, but ensure that you have the [00:12:30] infrastructure and you have the support to care for those people, especially early on in their careers.

[00:12:36] That is such a determining point for them. [00:12:40] Think about your time in internship or, um, you know, pre-licensure asso- when you were an associate. Think about what were those defining moments for you. [00:12:50] Why were they defining? Mine, unfortunately, were pretty negative. I never had a s- like a very positive supervisor.

[00:12:57] Um, I never had somebody who [00:13:00] really gave me the support I was looking for in supervision, which honestly motivated me to create this practice to ensure that my therapists had really strong [00:13:10] clinical supervision in, in the practice. All right? But there are practice owners who are just hiring and they are not providing the support that those people [00:13:20] need.

[00:13:20] Um, if you listen to one of the first episodes, I talked about one of my experiences with my supervisor and my postdoc. Um, she was barely there. She was barely there, okay? [00:13:30] And that took a toll on me, and that made it really hard for me to ensure that I was giving the right care for my clients. It all filters down, okay?

[00:13:39] That was [00:13:40] unethical to me. A lot of my supervision experiences were pretty unethical because they did not give me the support that they signed up to give me, truly. Like, you took me on as [00:13:50] an extern, as an intern, as a practicum student, as a postdoc. That is coming with a level of responsibility. And if you are not sitting there saying, [00:14:00] “I am ready to give you that level of responsibility Unethical to me.

[00:14:06] All right? Then we just talk about transparency, and I- this one [00:14:10] I think is a little bit more nuanced because do we have to be transparent with every single piece of our business? Do we have to be tran- if you’re not paying people based off of a split and you’re paying them a flat amount, do you have to tell them, [00:14:20] you know, like how much insurance is reimbursing?

[00:14:22] I don’t think you have to. Obviously, if you’re private pay they’re gonna know. Um, but I do think that there is just a level of [00:14:30] transparency that is so important. You know, for us and I, again, I value transparency, so I’m gonna be transparent with you guys that for our, um, [00:14:40] pre-licensed therapists, we paid them a forty-five percent split.

[00:14:42] So forty-five percent went to them, fifty-five percent came to the practice. And honestly, I would have a transparent conversation with them of [00:14:50] here’s what that fifty-five percent is going towards. Ten percent is going to taxes, all right? I’m paying employment taxes for you on your behalf. Part of it is going to [00:15:00] supervision.

[00:15:01] And then of course we talk about, you know, the operation expenses, the office space, the admin support, the materials that they’re using, the EHR, the phone, like all of those things that are [00:15:10] coming into play. I was having those conversations with people so they understood you’re not just getting forty-five percent, and I specifically as the owner am not getting fifty-five percent of your, [00:15:20] your split, all right?

[00:15:22] So I think that transparency is so, so incredibly important. And when we’re not transparent with our therapists, when we’re not transparent about what some of that money is going [00:15:30] towards, that I think is an issue. All right? And then the last one where I’m like, “Yeah, this is unethical,” is when you advertise your practice as a [00:15:40] certain way, but you don’t execute that way, right?

[00:15:43] So one that I see often, we– I know that a lot of practice owners want to have this collaborative, [00:15:50] familial feel to their practice. But when you don’t actually show up and follow through on that intention, that is unethical. Don’t advertise your cert- [00:16:00] yourself a certain way if that’s not what it is. And listen, there are probably people out there who wanna work for a practice that does not necessarily have that like community feel, where they’re like, “I, I just wanna show up.

[00:16:09] I [00:16:10] just wanna do my work. I don’t wanna have to talk to anybody outside of the sessions that I’m hol- holding, and I just wanna leave at the end of the day, and I don’t wanna feel like I have to contribute to this business or to this practice [00:16:20] or to this community.” That’s fine. Okay? So I, I think that these are the main ways that I usually see practices being unethical [00:16:30] But I’m gonna guess, especially if you’re listening to this podcast, that you don’t vibe with any of those.

[00:16:36] And thank you and welcome, and you are so in such good [00:16:40] community here. So thank you so much for being here because you are the people that I actually want to go and create these practices because you are doing it in an ethical [00:16:50] way that is treating your therapist so incredibly well. All right, so let’s talk about this line between ethical and, you know, exploitative, predatory, whatever you wanna call it, whatever [00:17:00] these people in my DMs wanna be saying my practice was, who, again, there’s so much nuance.

[00:17:04] I think that’s what really irritates me the most with this conversation is I can make a post on social [00:17:10] media. It’s specifically a post that I have that is talking about how you can make $200,000 as a solo provider versus as a group practice owner. And I have not [00:17:20] said one word about operation expenses, about if they’re W2 or contractors.

[00:17:23] Like, I haven’t said anything about the support that’s being offered. Literally just broke it down in, in [00:17:30] numbers. Did, did a math equation. All right? And the number of people coming for me, and I just wanna be like, “Guys, it’s social media. Like, not every single part of this equation is [00:17:40] posted in this one single post.

[00:17:42] Go to my page. You’re gonna see all of the other information that I’m providing about this, this scenario.” Okay? Anyway, gosh, I could go on [00:17:50] about that. I won’t. I’m not gonna waste your time here. But here’s what I want you to think about as you’re scaling, whether you’re hiring your very first therapist or you have a team of [00:18:00] 20 and you’re continuing to scale.

[00:18:01] Here are the five things that I really want you to look at as you’re making th- these decisions as to whether or not your practice is ethical or not. [00:18:10] Okay? So the first is kind of like the value for the pay, right? So what value are you providing to your therapist for the amount [00:18:20] that you– and I want you to think about for the amount that you are taking from them, right?

[00:18:24] So just for ease of math, let’s say your sessions get reimbursed at $100 per hour [00:18:30] and you’re paying your therapist $50 per hour. When you take that $50 that you’re getting from those sessions, what is it going towards? And there’s no perfect [00:18:40] math equation. I’m not gonna sit here and say you have to meet these four out of five requirements for that to be worth it.

[00:18:45] You have to know your numbers, and that’s a, again, a conversation for another [00:18:50] time of actually knowing your numbers. But you have to know your numbers to know, like, how much is going to profit, how much is going to operation expenses, how much is going to taxes, how much is going to, like, I’m [00:19:00] paying my therapist e- even though insurance didn’t pay.

[00:19:03] Those types of situations, that is the value. That is the benefit that you are providing to these people. All right? What are the things that you’re [00:19:10] taking off their plate, the benefit of them wanting to work for a group practice? Okay? Then we’re gonna talk about transparency. All right? Are you [00:19:20] transparent with your therapists about what you’re paying them, about the, the terms of the contract, right?

[00:19:25] About what, how can they start making more money? Are there options for [00:19:30] increase in pay? They, they need to know those things upfront too so that they know whether or not this is gonna be a situation that works for them. I think about it [00:19:40] for our pre-licensed and associate therapists, they all knew that as soon as they got licensed, that came with an increase in pay.

[00:19:45] All right? And then from there, every single year, we would circle back, look at pay structures, and [00:19:50] talk about pay. They knew that upfront. So they knew whether this was gonna work for them, and they also knew, oh, you know, I’m coming in as, as an associate therapist. I’m getting paid X amount, [00:20:00] and I really wanna be making this amount.

[00:20:02] Oh, when I’m, when I’m fully licensed, that’s gonna increase. That’s gonna get me to this point. All right? So transparency, absolutely key. [00:20:10] All right. Then we’re gonna talk about these non-competes. And I’m use– I’m putting this one in its own bucket because I do think that this is so important. You… Yes, you are a [00:20:20] practice and you are providing these referrals for your therapist, and I– trust me, especially with private pay clients, I know that it’s hard.

[00:20:27] I know that it’s hard to invest all this time, all this [00:20:30] marketing, all this money into generating these referrals for your practice, and then somebody leaves, and they take those with them. All right? But if you are– Th- this kind of [00:20:40] circles back to, like, the value that we talk about. Um, if you are providing enough value, people won’t want to leave.

[00:20:47] They’ll want to stay even though they’re not getting paid [00:20:50] the full, full rate. All right? But there will be therapists who leave. And you– that is like the mental, um, work that you [00:21:00] have to do, the mindset work that you have to do, where you have to know I’m building this practice, I’m building this, um, brand.

[00:21:06] We talk about this in, in coaching often. I’m building this [00:21:10] brand that is going to last regardless of if one therapist leaves and takes their full caseload of [00:21:20] twenty clients with them. All right? You are not building this practice to just get those twenty clients for that one therapist. You are building this practice to get daily referrals [00:21:30] into your practice, fill therapists’ caseloads, and continue to hire therapists.

[00:21:35] Even if you get– if you’re like, “I don’t want more than five therapists working for me,” that’s fine. [00:21:40] Not all five therapists are gonna stay with you for the duration of your career. So you are building something that can last even as a therapist leaves or as clients leave as well. [00:21:50] Then we’re gonna talk about the, the growth potential, essentially.

[00:21:54] What growth potential do your therapists have within your practice? And this is important. And this is– I mean, [00:22:00] honestly, this is a big reason why I actually sold the practice, because I didn’t want to stay and invest more time to continue scaling the [00:22:10] practice, but I knew that my therapists who had been there for a long time, they deserved people who were going to do that so that they had paths towards [00:22:20] growth, towards development within the practice.

[00:22:22] Right? Like when I left, when I sold the practice, the therapist who had been there the longest, she was offered a [00:22:30] supervisor role, and she became kind of the backup clinical director. So if our clinical director was ever out for vacation or anything, that person stepped into that [00:22:40] role. All right? And that, that is growth.

[00:22:43] That is something that you want to be able to offer your therapist and ensure that they have a space if they want it, that they can [00:22:50] continue to, to develop and to grow. And then the last piece that I want you to think about, and this one is– I keep saying, using the word nuanced. This one is very nuanced, right?

[00:22:59] [00:23:00] Because again, we’re scaling a practice to get your time back, to not have to sit in all these one-on-one sessions, but also to not have to be working in the business twenty-four seven. [00:23:10] But I also do want you to think about, am I putting in the work needed to scale this business? If I’m not willing to do that, am I [00:23:20] hiring somebody else to?

[00:23:22] Okay? To build the referral pipelines, to market the business, to turn your business into a brand, not just a business, but you [00:23:30] need a brand behind your name, behind your practice name. All right? To developing the therapists, to keeping up with what’s happening in the therapy [00:23:40] space and ensuring that you are moving the needle constantly to keep up, right?

[00:23:45] We talk about AI. Are you just sitting here being like, “Nope, everybody has to still handwrite their [00:23:50] notes,” or are you taking the time and investing your time into the business to figure out how do we use AI in our business so that we can stay one step ahead? All right. So these [00:24:00] are the five, five components that I really want you to think about as you’re scaling your practice to determine if it is an ethical practice or not.

[00:24:08] So first we’re gonna talk about the value. [00:24:10] What is the value that you’re offering for the, for the pay that you’re, um, that you’re taking, essentially, the pay you’re offering them, but also the amount you’re taking. Then we’re gonna talk about transparency. How [00:24:20] transparent are you about pay structures and when pay increases and those types of things?

[00:24:24] Um, what about non-competes? Do you have non-competes in your, in your practice, or do [00:24:30] you allow clients to, to move with their therapists? All right. Then we’re gonna talk about what is the pathway for therapists to grow and to develop. And then the last thing we’re gonna talk about is [00:24:40] the work you’re putting in.

[00:24:41] Okay? Are you staying up to, to date with what’s happening in this industry within this business? All right. You need to be able to [00:24:50] answer these five questions to be able to decide if your practice is ethical or not. And that’s how you’re gonna be able to stand on your own two feet when somebody comes to you and is like, “Ugh, gosh, you’re running such a predatory [00:25:00] practice.”

[00:25:00] You can sit here and be like, “Actually, let me answer these five questions for you, and that’s how I’ll tell you that my practice is not unethical, that it’s not predatory.” So [00:25:10] as a group practice owners, you need to be able to answer those questions for yourself. You need to be able to tell yourself that wholeheartedly you believe that your [00:25:20] practice is run in an ethical fashion.

[00:25:23] And here’s what I’ll say to you, too, and I tell people this in my practice, um, in my coaching program all the time. There’s [00:25:30] a range, okay? And I’m gonna share this full transparency with you guys. There was a range for me in my own practice. I had a range of what felt ethical, all right? [00:25:40] There were times where I was maybe down here at the bottom, and it was still within my, um, my zone of, of ethics, [00:25:50] but it was maybe not as– I wasn’t providing as much as I wanted to for my team.

[00:25:53] So times like when I was on maternity leave, I couldn’t be there as much as I wanted to be. Um, [00:26:00] I shouldn’t say as much as I wanted to be. I couldn’t be there to the degree that I had been previously. Did I have people in place of me to support my therapist? Yes. All right? But [00:26:10] I needed that time to be with my baby, and that maybe didn’t feel as ethical as it did when I was, like, in it and I was, you know, responding to people and being the– [00:26:20] their supervisor and things like that, but I was doing what I needed to do, and so I was kind of at the bottom of that range.

[00:26:25] Or before I offered health insurance, before I offered retirement. [00:26:30] I was still within the range that I felt ethical about, but I wasn’t at the top of it. And there was a– there came a time where I could be at the top of it. That’s when I was offering [00:26:40] health insurance. I was offering retirement benefits. I was paying for people’s CEUs, things like that, right?

[00:26:45] So when you think about this, I want you to have a range, and I want you to… You, you might not [00:26:50] have, like, a hard and fast way of knowing whether or not you’re within that range, but you need to check in with yourself often, and you need to say, “Do I feel ethical about the way that I’m treating [00:27:00] my people right now?”

[00:27:01] And if the answer is no, check in with those five areas. Which of those five areas is not as ethically sound as I want it to be? [00:27:10] What am I gonna do about it? That’s how we start really ensuring that your practice is f- is, is ethical, that it’s not predatory, that you’re not taking advantage [00:27:20] of your therapists, and you’re creating something for therapists where they really genuinely want to be.

[00:27:26] And if you don’t know, check in with them. Ask them how they’re doing. You [00:27:30] should be doing that anyway. But I know a lot of practice owners who don’t. So make sure that you’re checking in with your therapists and know what’s going on for them. All right? This is a [00:27:40] continued conversation. I’m sure this topic will come up again in future episodes.

[00:27:44] Um, but for now, I hope that that’s helpful for you to figure out how to determine whether or not your practice is, [00:27:50] is ethical. And honestly, my biggest advice to you about how to navigate this when people bring it up or when you see comments about it or if you hang out in the [00:28:00] toxic Facebook groups that love to, to talk about how predatory f- uh, group practices are, get out of them.

[00:28:06] Stop making that be a narrative that you see. [00:28:10] You need to be in different rooms with different people who feel differently about group practices because there are a lot of us out there who know the benefit that we provide to our therapists, [00:28:20] um, and to our whole team in general. And so get in those circles.

[00:28:24] Get in those circles. Surround yourself by other people who feel similarly to how you at your [00:28:30] core feel, and just ignore the noise out there. I know it’s easier said than done, but if you can at least avoid it as much as possible, avoid seeing those people talking about the [00:28:40] negativities, it’s going to be so much better for the, honestly, for the growth of your business.

[00:28:46] Because if you constantly have in the back of your head that what you’re doing is [00:28:50] unethical, that is an uphill battle the entire time you’re gonna be scaling. And there’s g- you’re gonna be met with resistance, and that resistance is ultimately gonna be coming from inside of you [00:29:00] and not from anywhere out, out there.

[00:29:01] It’s internal resistance, and that is the hardest resistance to push against. All right? Thank you so much for being here. Let me know what [00:29:10] resonated. Let me know what people are saying to you, and you tell me, how are you responding to these people when they say that your practice is unethical? I would love, love, love to hear it.

[00:29:19] All right, y’all, I’ll [00:29:20] see you in the next one. That is a wrap on today’s episode. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. If you connected with what we talked about today, the best thing you can do right now is hit [00:29:30] subscribe, so you never miss an episode. Leave a review to let other therapists know how this was helpful, and share this with a therapist friend who needs to hear it.

[00:29:37] Come find me on Instagram at dranahitabanoo. [00:29:40] That’s where I hang out the most, and I genuinely love connecting with therapists there. If you have a question, a win to share, or you just wanna say hi, my DMs are always open. And if you’re ready to [00:29:50] actually take the next step in building your group practice, head to www.dranahitabanoo.com.

[00:29:55] There you can learn about my group practice accelerator programs or grab my free marketing quiz [00:30:00] to get started filling caseloads. See you next week. Over and out.