This is a transcript from our podcast episode published May 2nd, 2022. The podcast episode is offered for .1 ASHA CEU (introductory level, professional area). This transcript is made available as a course accommodation for and is supplementary to this episode / course. This transcript is not intended to be used in place of the podcast episode with the exception of course accommodation. Please note: This transcript was created by robots. We do our best to proof read but there is always a chance we miss something. Find a typo? Email us anytime.
A special thanks to our Contributing Editor, Caitlin Akier, for reviewing and editing drafts of our transcripts. Her work helps keep our material accessible.
[00:01:41] Kate Grandbois: We are so excited for today's episode. We are going to cover a topic that we have covered before. But today we get to welcome a guest who has this in their area of expertise and is going to teach us so much.
Welcome Krista Covell-Pierson.
[00:01:56] Krista Covell-Pierson: Thank you. It's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
[00:02:00] Amy Wonkka: Thank you for [00:02:00] joining us, and Krista, you're here to discuss private practice, which is an area I know just smidge over, nothing about, um, before we get started, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
[00:02:13] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. Um, I, my name is Krista.
You already said that I live in Colorado, born and raised, and I've been an occupational therapist for 20 years, which I always remember meeting people that would say that. And I'd be like, that's never going to be me, but it's me now. And I've had a private practice for about 14 years and we service all of Colorado and Wyoming and we do mostly older adults.
And, but we do do some pediatrics too. And I live in Northern Colorado with my husband and two three-year-old twins and a six month old baby. So it's very busy if you hear them. I apologize. Um, hopefully everybody's following directions and they're not going to bother us.
[00:02:56] Kate Grandbois: That's okay. Our young ones and pets and things [00:03:00] bother us on the podcast all the time.
So don't worry about that.
Krista Covell-Pierson: In good company.
Kate Grandbois:Yes, exactly. You also do some business coaching in your, in your work. Isn't that right? I know we've talked about this leading up to the podcast. I wanted to make sure I mentioned that.
[00:03:12] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah, I, that I have just come by, honestly, just out of my own personal experience. And when I became somebody in business, I mean, I was a therapist through and through, so I didn't know what I was doing at all, but there was really nobody for me to reach out to at the time.
There's definitely a lot more resources now for therapists than when I started, which is great. But I do do business coaching where people can hire me from across the country. And we can talk about things from, if you're just thinking about starting a business or you're maybe in the first couple of years, or maybe you have an established business and you want to talk about making changes or all different kinds of things can come up as a business owner.
We also offer some business coaching opportunities for specific things like marketing, um, recruitment. And that is one of my colleagues that works with [00:04:00] me at the practice. And then we have somebody there too that specializes in billing. Cause there's always a ton of questions. Billing and insurance credentialing and how do I do it?
And what does this mean? So that's available as well, but we do do that. And it's a very customized thing that people can just hire us for exactly. Maybe they just want to do two hours with me to ask questions. Other people want my support, you know, every two weeks, it just depends on what the person is looking for.
[00:04:24] Kate Grandbois: Well, as a fellow business owner, I'm very selfishly excited to absorb this knowledge because you're right as clinicians, we don't get training in this area. And when you go into private practice and you go into business for yourself, you're left with Google, and maybe some bad advice from other colleagues or people in other industries who don't quite understand the nuance of billing and funding and marketing.
And some of all, all of these things in the healthcare space, which is such a, uh, such a niche, but we're like a niche within a niche. You know, it's not just healthcare. It's, you know, it's it's interventions [00:05:00] and supports it's, it's rehab, all those kinds of things. So I'm really excited selfishly to have this conversation.
And before we get into the learning objectives, I also wanted to mention that you've been incredibly generous and offered to do a Q and a as part of this podcast for our subscribers. For those of you who are listening, we offer, um, a monthly Q&A to our subscribers. It's the first Tuesday of every month at 4:30 PM Eastern standard time.
And we record it for our members who aren't able to attend. Um, so people can come and ask questions live. So if you're a subscriber and you're interested, stay tuned for an announcement on a specific date coming up, you can find that date out through our email and our social media channels. And Krista, thank you so much for being so generous with your time for that.
And I can't wait to pepper you with all the questions more after we're done with this conversation.
[00:05:50] Krista Covell-Pierson: No, absolutely. And one of the things I love to do is help other therapists become successful in business because the more of us that are successful, the easier it's going to be for [00:06:00] everybody. And the more people we can reach and make an impact with.
So if I have a nugget of information that I can give to somebody else, I'm more than happy to do that because I've had people do the same thing for me. So I'm excited that you've included me in this and the Q&A. It’ll be fun.
[00:06:16] Kate Grandbois: Well, like I said, selfishly motivated. So I'm excited. I'm excited to learn from you. It's going to be exactly right.
Okay. So, um, first before we get into it, I have to read learning objectives and disclosures. For those of you who write in and ask me to skip this part, I can't ASHA makes me read it so we will try to get through it as quickly as possible. Uh, learning objectives, learning objective number one, participants will be able to identify three marketing strategies used in private practice. Learning objective number two. Participants will be able to identify two strategies for maintaining HIPAA compliance and private practice. Learning objective number three, describe benefits and limitations of both private pay and insurance funding and learning objective number four participants will be able to [00:07:00] describe the importance of personal development in private practice. Disclosure.
Krista Covell-Pierson's financial disclosures. Krista is the owner of Covell care and rehabilitation that offers rehabilitative services and business coaching for private practices, billing and business development. Krista Covell-Pierson's nonfinancial disclosures. Krista has no nonfinancial relationships to disclose
Kate that's me, my financial disclosures. I'm the owner and founder of Grandbois therapy and consulting LLC. And co-founder of SLP nerd cast my nonfinancial disclosures. I'm a member of ASHA SIG 12 and serve on the AAC advisory group for Massachusetts advocates for children. I'm also a member of the Berkshire association for behavior analysis and therapy mass ABA, the association for behavior analysis international and the corresponding speech pathology and applied behavior analysis specialist.
[00:07:48] Amy Wonkka: Amy's financial disclosures. I am an employee of a public school system and I receive compensation as co-founder of SLP nerd cast. And my nonfinancial disclosures are that I'm a member of ASHA, SIG 12, and I also [00:08:00] serve on the AAC advisory group from Massachusets advocates for children. All right.
We've made it, the dull bits are done. Krista, why don't you start us off by talking to us a bit about the basics? What is marketing and why is marketing so important when you're opening or running a private practice?
[00:08:14] Krista Covell-Pierson: Sure. Marketing is hugely important. And when I first started in private practice, I had actually, I had worked as an OT in skilled nursing and home care and a couple of different settings, hospital settings and stuff.
And I actually had also worked as a director of marketing for a skilled nursing facility. And that was sort of a weird thing that came about. I wanted to be in rehab, but there were no jobs available. And so I took the social work position. And then, I mean, I was really young and this older gentlemen that worked high up in corporate with his big suit on who kind of intimidated me was like, you should be the marketer.
And I think he just saw somebody that was eager to learn, not afraid, but pretty [00:09:00] naive about going out and like just talking to people. I didn't think it was a big deal, you know? And so I think when we talk about marketing, we have different perceptions of what we think that is. And I said to that gentleman, well, that sounds great.
I'll do the job, director of marketing, what's marketing. And he looked at me and was like, Uh, maybe I made a mistake, but then he ended up training me on marketing of all different types. So you can look at things from online marketing, you can do magazine articles, you can do radio shows, you can do networking events, whatever it is that you're going to be marketing your services, your name, your company, or product, you have to get it out there.
And we spend a lot of times doing the things that we know how to do and as therapists, or maybe, maybe product development, depending on where the therapist focuses. We're really good at those things. We're not always great about getting that information out to the general public or to other professionals in a way that [00:10:00] they can understand.
So it's growing that arm of your business. It can feel really uncomfortable. Like you're wearing somebody else's clothes, you know, it's like this doesn't feel like me, but it's really important in order to get your business to actually become a business and pay you otherwise, it's really just a hobby and that's where marketing can make the difference between a successful business and a non-successful business.
So that's really where somebody has to start.
[00:10:27] Kate Grandbois: So this was one of my first lessons in private practice. And I, I learned this from my husband who works in business and this sort of always, you know, hi Gill, I love you. You're a wonderful human being, but he's always sort of yelling at me and giving me the critical feedback that I need and reminding me that you don't have a business without a customer. And I get so distracted by what he calls the shiny penny. So business cards, a website, all of these bells and whistles, but you don't have a, a business without a customer. And I have learned that you don't have a customer [00:11:00] unless you have put it to market, unless you have basically told people that you exist.
[00:11:05] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. And it can be, that's sometimes the scariest piece. Cause it's like, we have this big idea of, well, this is my company and it's going to be so awesome. And it's so important. And look at these, you know, people I've helped at my regular job and now I'm going to go out into the world. I'm going to do this, but we don't really want to go out in the world because it's scary.
We don't want to have our dreams and things crushed because it's, you know, we have to tell people what we're all about. And somebody might say, well, we don't need that. We don't like that when you don't know what you're doing, I've been there. And even in the beginning, because we're a mobile, outpatient practice.
That really didn't exist when I was first starting out, except for maybe a few sprinklings across the country. And I, for years had people ask me like, oh, well, what you're doing really isn't legal. And I was like, really? Okay, well maybe you're not my people, but it's like, I'm not going to market to you, or I'm going to market to you a lot and change your mind.
But it's just, it it's exactly that you can't get [00:12:00] any forward momentum if you're not doing marketing. And it's really easy to get caught by that shiny penny. I went to a mastermind group and Kate, I think I shared this with you, but we were all different industries. And one of the ladies that was in the group with me had started an event planning business, and she's awesome.
I've known her for years. She had left the nonprofit industry and she started this company. She had reprinted her business cards because the pineapple wasn't quite in the center, she had this lovely website that she had spent thousands of dollars on and all this stuff. And then I said, well, that's awesome.
You know, how many clients are you seeing a month? And she's like, well, none. And she said, I really, you know, I haven't really started marketing yet. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you're already like five grand in the hole. And so she eventually, actually never got her business off the ground. And she went back to her regular job and a big piece of that was because she just did not feel comfortable doing the marketing piece and didn't, and I see a lot of therapists get bogged down on what their practice is going to look like someday.
And it's a [00:13:00] dream, but you have to get out there and do the hustle.
[00:13:03] Kate Grandbois: And I also want to say that for a lot of us, doing the marketing. We think of it as like a gross salesy kind of experience, right. And we're clinicians were not necessarily trained to be putting ourselves out there in that capacity. And it does have a bit of a public feel to it.
So I have learned that it doesn't have to be that way. It can be still uncomfortable and very much outside your comfort zone, but can still be done and be effective without feeling so uncomfortable that you never want to do it again. And I'm wondering if you could walk us through some strategies that, you know, just thinking about our first learning objective, what strategies have you used or would you recommend that you find are successful for people who are starting a practice?
[00:13:46] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah, I'm happy to go through some of those. And before I do that, I do want to say this, this sort of changed my perspective about marketing a little bit, because I felt that way too, that I was too salesy or pushy, or they, you [00:14:00] know, people were too busy for me, but this is what changed for me as when I had a paradigm shift that people need this information, because if they don't have it, they can't make the best decision for their loved one.
And that changed things. So then I was just, I literally walked by somebody at pumpkin patch yesterday and I overheard her say to her friend, I wish our occupational therapist didn't do just exercise stuff, but I don't think we need OT. Cause I can exercise all the time. And I looked at my husband and he was like, oh great.
You know, and I was like, I’m gonna talk to that girl, she doesn't know what we can really do. You know? So there's just that time that we're doing like a public surface and there's lots of different ways to do that and get good information out there about how to help. So some of the things that I recommend and there's people have to weigh out the pros and cons of each one based on what their [00:15:00] market is.
And if you need to figure out who your market is, then who are your clients, but also who's your referral source. So for me in the beginning, especially were older adults. A lot of my older adult clients had dementia. So they were my client, but not really the best person to market to because they're not going to remember me in five minutes.
And so their spouses, their adult children, their physicians, their neurologist, those that was more where I needed to spend some of my marketing time. So figuring out that client versus, um, referral sources is also important, um, if you're online a lot, then you do want to develop that online platform. If you are in your community, like I am, you gotta get off the computer and people get really stuck in the computer and, you know, sending emails, we do it all the time, but you gotta get up and you got to go out into the world.
And one of the best ways to do that to start out is to just volunteer. You can find a bazillion different organizations that are looking for [00:16:00] volunteers, find something you're interested in, find something that might connect you to people that you want to meet, whether it's physicians, or maybe you want to go see what's happening with rotary, because a lot of older adults are there and maybe they have friends and neighbors and family members that need to talk to you, but get involved and volunteering is really fun.
It's a way to give back. And then you're going to learn a little bit more about your community and your organizations that you work with when you go behind the scenes as a volunteer too. So there's a little bit of strategy there, but it's a great way for people to get to know who you are and what your heart is, and just get out there and volunteer.
So I've done, I don't even know thousands of hours of volunteership. And then eventually you can take on more leadership roles in those volunteer organizations too, and then grow your skillset in that way, which definitely benefits your business. I definitely recommend joining your state board. Um, I was the OT association of Colorado's president for a couple of years, learned more than I ever thought I could ever learn by being [00:17:00] serving on the board.
And I never, in a million years thought I would do that, but I learned a lot, you know, with the lobbying piece, getting involved in that way, which is definitely helpful for my company, because I want to know if our types of services are on the chopping block and I can advocate for that. And then maybe coming a little bit more of a leader, then draws other therapists to the company to also want to work with us, which is helpful.
And then they also can help us with networking and marketing. Giving presentations. This is a big one. To other companies like therapy teams, home health agencies. That's huge. So figure out what you do and what you do well. So for example, I am board certified in pelvic muscle dysfunction. And if you're whatever told me that I'm like going into people's, you know, groups that are total strangers to me, and I'm like, let me talk about pee and poop and you know, your rectum and all this other stuff.
I mean, people are like, I was
[00:17:52] Kate Grandbois:I’m five years old. You can't say rectum and not expect some sort of a giggle. I'm just saying,
[00:17:56] Krista Covell-Pierson: I know, I know. And that's how I felt for the longest time. [00:18:00] But then I got really passionate about it and people started raising their hand and the group saying, well, I've got this going on.
And sometimes even then I was like, Ooh, it's a little much for me, but it works, you know? And then you also stand out as a leader. And even if you're not board certified in something, even if you're a speech therapist, a general practitioner, guess what you were extremely skilled, you might compare yourself to somebody that, oh, they've been in the business a bazillion years.
This, that the other thing, you have a skillset in your back pocket, very highly educated people. So go out there and do some marketing in that way. Do you want me to keep going? I have some more to talk about too.
[00:18:38] Kate Grandbois: And I had one question, I wondered about the power of screening. So I've seen some practices in our area offer free screenings for preschools, which is a great referral source, but also doing a service to your community as well.
When you talked about volunteering, it's sort of, you know, it's a free service that you're giving, but you're also establishing yourself as a resource in the community [00:19:00] for people who may need your services.
[00:19:02] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. And I can testify to that for sure. So we did, um, let's see, it was last week we did two screenings, one for the hospital.
We did some balance screenings and then we did another one at an independent living facility and did balance and fall screenings. And we walked away from, with eight referrals from one group and six from the other, I mean, that's awesome.
[00:19:27] Amy Wonkka: And when you're trying to coordinate these relationships with the community where you're setting up these screenings, what are some techniques that you have used, or some strategies that you've used to form that relationship initially with the setting and maintain it over time?
[00:19:42] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. So that's a great question. And I don't think there's like a big science to it, but there's this: be genuine, be consistent, be kind and continue to educate. People are very busy. We all are. And we forget about things. So if somebody said [00:20:00] that sounds like a great idea, let's set it up next month and then they don't call you and you think, oh, what a flake, no, go back.
You know, and just make that call say, Hey, it's me again. Don't mean to bug you. But you know, we talked about this next month. Can we set it up for this and just to keep coming back to it. And I don't give up on people. I mean, if they're, obviously you have to go with your gut. I mean, if you, you know, when you're getting the cold shoulder, you don't just, don't, don't be irritating.
Kate Grandbois: Right, right, right.
Amy Wonkka: Don't be, don't be that one.
Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. But to be honest, and you can even tell people say, Hey, you know, we're looking to grow our business. And we think that we could offer some screenings to your organization. Maybe one time or maybe monthly. And a lot of times people are also looking to kind of beef up what they can do or what they can offer.
And that independent living facility that we were at, they're always looking for ways to tell families, you know, that we're here, we're independent living, but we're also here trying to look out for your older adult, loved one. And you know, Covell care is here doing, [00:21:00] um, fall prevention screenings every month.
And we can sign up your mom before she even moves in, you know, blah, blah, blah. So they're jazzed about it too, because it makes them look good. And really, if you can get to the point where when you're marketing with people. If you know them by their first name and you feel like you could not even that you will, but that you feel like you could ask them to go get a cup of coffee with you.
And it wouldn't be weird. That's when you know, you're kind of on the in and maybe you don't even like that person at all, but that doesn't matter. You just want to have a good, solid relationship with people.
Amy Wonkka:That’s such a good barometer.
[00:21:37] Kate Grandbois: I was just to have to say that exact sentence, that's a good barometer for so many things. I love that.
[00:21:44] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. Cause you don't want to, I mean, you wouldn't just be like, Hey stranger, you want to go to coffee? They'd be like, no, I don't, I don't know you. But if you're like, you know, able to joke around, you know, about their family or, you know, look for things to, if they have, you know, a new. You know, [00:22:00] cast on their arm, ask them what happened, you know, or talk to them, get to know them.
It's just like your patients. You want to get to know them on a personal level because you want to work together. And same thing if you work in a team in a skilled nursing facility or a hospital, you're going to get to know your colleagues. Don't let those barriers of the fact that they work for other organizations get in your way of growing great friendships, truly friendships with people in your communities.
[00:22:23] Kate Grandbois: I think that's a great suggestion. And I'm wondering, did you have other ones that you wanted to say?
[00:22:28] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah, I have a handful. Um, so one place to that is out and about a lot in the world are home care agencies and you can do that for peds. You can do that for adults and there's all different types of home care.
So you've got your skilled home care and your non-medical home care. They're going to want different things from you, depending on what you provide, but if you can give them tools that they can use in the field and do an in-service in that way too, and then always tell people how they can interface with [00:23:00] you or ask them.
What is the best way that we can interface with your organization? How do we make referrals to you? Because you're also building your toolbox. So you're the best practitioner in your community to make recommendations. Like I know there's a skilled nursing facility in Fort Collins. I'm not going to steer people towards that one.
I'm going to steer people towards ones that I know with confidence that are doing a good job, but I don't know that unless i’m in it. So go out and meet those home care agencies and find out who's doing what, and then you'll find people that have specialties in those organizations that can benefit the patients that you have as well.
You brought up a great thing about screenings. So your local hospitals you can look at anything like that, that they can offer. Sometimes that like ours has something called the Aspen club. You can get involved with them. That's all older adults membership-based but they have tens of thousands of people and you can ask them, Hey, could we come in and present to you?
Could we do some clinics? [00:24:00] And again, they may say no. And there's a lot of red tape about around those big organizations, but just get to know those organizations more and more. And I can tell you, we just kind of stuck with it. Met some people at the hospital here and there. We still maintain those same relationships, 14 years later.
And now we're actually in their computer system at the hospital in the emergency room. So if somebody has a fall and comes to the ER, we're buried in there somewhere that the ER doctor can make a recommendation to us, but we wouldn't have gotten there if we didn't just kind of follow those breadcrumbs.
And even though it wasn't like the first time we went to them and they were like, come in and do a clinic, we'll give you 15 referrals. They just, you know, we just kind of were like, well, what do you do is what we do? And we kept that relationship going. So reach out to your hospitals. I like to say, make a chicken list and make a list of, the chicken list is make a list of a hundred people.
And then look at that and think who's the most intimidating [00:25:00] call those people first.
Kate Grandbois:Oh no. Don't call them at all. That's scary, right?
Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. I was, we have a big hospital up here. They have like, like they're like the rehab team. That's like, we are the best rehab professionals and I'm like, I can't call them. Once I called them, I'm like, they're just like me, you know? And we became friends and stuff, but, oh man. I mean, I was like, Sweating to call them.
Kate Grandbois: I was nervous and now I don't want to how the people on my chicken list.
Krista Covell-Pierson: Great. But make a chicken list. And even if you just chip away at it. But interestingly now the rehab director that was there for years and years now, she works for me.
So there you go. There you go. There you go organizing events in your community. Again, this goes along with, um, volunteering, but maybe make it a little more skilled depending on what you can do. Maybe it's, you know, you can just say, we're going to set up our own group of that. We did a big Tai-Chi class in the park and started inviting people to come, you know, after [00:26:00] COVID started opening back up, uh, sending report cards to physicians.
That's a good one, too. They get a lot of paperwork. So get permission from your patients and their families. Take some pictures, get you in there. Show the before and after say, you know, even if you can't see it, take a picture before, and then, you know, you guys all smiling together at the end saying these are the successes we've had because stories paint a beautiful picture, and everybody wants to see their patients doing well.
And that gets through to the physicians a little bit better than sometimes just another report. I can't even imagine how much paperwork they have to sign off on.
[00:26:38] Kate Grandbois: I love that idea. Yeah, because you're right. A picture. Well, I mean a story paints, what's the, what's the, what's the expression picture, right? The storytelling component I mean, we are working in therapy and rehab. These are human experiences. So being able to share the human experiences that you've had with your patients or clients I think is, is a great thing to highlight.
[00:26:59] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. [00:27:00] And when you're presenting share those stories, because there'll be people out there in the world that are going to say, that sounds like me, you know, or that sounds like something I'd want to be part of, instead of just saying there's 74,000 people in the country that have this disorder, that's just less relatable at the other thing I was going to say too, is reach out to specialists too, like neurologists and psychologists, because we tend to think of PCPs as where we're going to go.
You know, if you've been in healthcare for a nanosecond, you know that everybody's got this special doctor and that special doctor doesn't talk to this doctor. So make sure you're reaching out to those folks. I noticed that they don't get quite as inundated as the PCPs. So I think that's important. And then reaching out to support groups.
That's another big one and talking to them and, um, coming in, maybe once, once a month you can offer things. You can drop stuff off for them, or you can take it one step further and be a support group facilitator. I did [00:28:00] that for three years, I think at the Alzheimer's association. And it was once a month and it was at night, it was humbling to say the least.
And it made it challenged me as a therapist in so many ways because the people that were coming were telling me things that I was like, this is, this is like the really hard stuff, but it kept me in check with what people were really going through at home instead of just coming in as an OT sometimes, and seeing a snapshot of things, but just the grief that went with it and the problem solving.
And sometimes literally as a therapist being like, I got nothing, I don't know what to tell you to do. And so that was really helpful too. And, you know, made great contacts there. And then again, you know, families get to trust you. So they want you to come out and see your loved ones. Those are some of the strategies that I have for marketing that don't have anything to do with like going out and putting up a billboard, you know, you can still do that stuff, but this is [00:29:00] a little more boots on the ground.
[00:29:02] Amy Wonkka: I feel like a lot of the things that you've talked about related to marketing also have a lot of benefit as a clinician and probably also as a business owner, like they sit like, they sound like a lot of these things are personal challenge and, and growth areas, right? Like call the scary people, get a better appreciation of, you know, what your clients are or their caregivers are experiencing.
Like all of these pieces are not only. Challenging in one way, you know, they're, they're stretching you in a couple of different ways that can have payoff across like multiple domains.
[00:29:35] Kate Grandbois: Not only that, but what resonated with me about a lot of what you were saying is how relationship-focused this is. Um, and I think that benefits you in, in a variety of ways as well.
So not only like Amy’s saying, does it inform you as a human and as a clinician, but also what I've learned is people buy things from companies and other people that they know like and trust. So if [00:30:00] you don't have a relationship with someone where they know you, they like you and they trust you, or they you've established yourself as a, as a content expert, or maybe, you know, at least a specialist, even if you're general practice, I'm using that term.
As, as you know, you obviously have a master's degree in something, then, you know, they may not send you those referrals. I think the cornerstone of what you're saying, being relationships is it's so important and something that we don't think of, we think of like paid ads on Facebook or the website, you know,
[00:30:34] Krista Covell-Pierson: and the interesting thing about therapists, that's what we're good at.
We are relational. We know how to ask the questions. We know how to talk to the crabby people. You know, we know all that stuff. It's what we do. So if you look at it, as it really is going out and assessing your community who needs speech therapy, who needs this, who needs me, it's much different. Where as, when it, even when I [00:31:00] talk to the people that market Covell Care, when they're nonclinical, they have a different approach.
It's, you know, we'd like to donate and have our, our plaque put up with a Christmas tree and I'm like, yeah, that's great. Where's the people. And so I'm like, is that really, that it's important. You want people to recognize your logo and your name, but as therapists, we really are marketing by doing what we do and that's connecting with other people.
So if you think about it that way too, I mean, it's, you have more marketing skills than you probably think you do in the beginning.
[00:31:39] Amy Wonkka: It's just like ripping off that uncomfortable chicken list band-aid
[00:31:44] Kate Grandbois: Chicken list bandaid
[00:31:45] Amy Wonkka: self promotion or what have you, but there's a, but there's a whole other side to this private practice bit too.
Right? Because in addition to being a business, we're talking about being an allied health care business. And when we talk about health care, we need [00:32:00] to talk about HIPAA and all of those rules that go along with it. So I wonder if we could move into our second learning objective and just talk a little bit about that and the HIPAA compliance piece.
[00:32:10] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. So this is where some therapists then are like, you lost me there. Like I'm not interested. It's just too much.
Amy Wonkka: Yeah, pointing right at myself right now.
Krista Covell-Pierson: It honestly it's me too, but it is a necessity, like you said, and you do have to look at all these different pieces of having a business and learn it.
I think we tend to think we know about things because we've been told about it from other employers or even our own experience. We've all been, we've all signed a HIPAA thing when we go to the doctor and we don't read it, you know, we don't, but you don't know. So this is what I recommend for all practitioners that have to comply with HIPAA.
And if you are billing insurance, then you have to comply with HIPAA. [00:33:00] My personal recommendation is even if you're not doing anything with insurance, I would just go on the safe side and follow the HIPAA guidelines. They're there to protect people. And there's really nothing wrong with that, is it a little bit of a pain?
Sure. But it is just kind of the way it is now. So it's better to just get over the fact that you may not want to do it, just do it anyway. So it's just, you know, you're protecting your patients' identities and that's an important piece of that. And we have to remember too that with HIPAA, it's not just that, you know, Krista Covell Pierson is what you're protecting and maybe my birthday is.
You can't be sitting at a coffee shop together like Amy and Kate sitting around saying, you know, oh, I just saw that patient earlier. And she's just, she's really struggling because her mom passed away from Lou Gehrig's disease. And then she had to put her poodle down. You've just given, identifying information out at a coffee shop and we can't do that.
And I think people forget like, oh yeah, that does identify people. Cause if her daughter was sitting at the next [00:34:00] table. She would probably be like, are you talking about my family member? So we have to just remember that that's what we need to do. So in order to be HIPAA compliant for all practitioners, I recommend start at HIPAA 101.
Even if you feel like, you know what it is, take a class, there's great webinars about it, but go to a reputable source, don't go to your Facebook groups and ask, you need to find out what the laws are and you need to learn them. And that goes for lots of things. But, um, I would recommend taking a HIPAA class even annually if you can.
And definitely every other year. Because laws change, rules change. And if you don't know about it, you're not going to be compliant and you could really get yourself in some hot water. So that's where I would start with the education piece. And then as you're building your business or combing over your business, you just have to remember that everything about your business has to be HIPAA compliant.
So for example, like who are some professionals that you might work with in your businesses, [00:35:00] that aren't speech therapists?
[00:35:02] Kate Grandbois: You mean they are employed within the business?
[00:35:04] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. Or maybe contractors you use for different things, like maybe billing person, a billing person, your CPA, somebody that does payroll, maybe your website designer.
And what we know is they may see some HIPAA information. And then all of a sudden they need to be HIPAA compliant as well. So there's something called a business associate agreement and they have to sign that. So you have to make sure that you have that. So if you have a fax machine that's virtual, your Google or whatever you use, everything has to be HIPAA compliant.
If you don't have that BAA you can't really get their buy-in to say, yes, we are HIPAA compliant with your stuff as well. So those BAA's are important if you've never heard about that, don't worry. I think that's the other thing. Private practice therapist. So I was like, oh my God, like, I've been in bad practice five years. I don't have any of that. It's like, it's okay. Just start. And so plug it [00:36:00] into Google. It will come up. They'll, there's lots of forums out there that you could get where you can sign it. The other person signs it. Um, it's a pretty simple thing to do, but that's important to have those on file and get those updated every once in a while because the requirements for the BAAs do change.
So some things that you have to think about, like I mentioned, the fax email, if you're using EMR, any billing software that you use, um, your landlord, potentially your CPA, any contractors, anything like that? Everybody has to be HIPAA compliant if they're tethered to you in any way.
[00:36:32] Kate Grandbois: I think that's great advice.
I think this is one of the areas of private practice that's very intimidating. Because like you said you could get in hot water. And when I say hot water, I mean like, you know, you could get sued, you could lose your business, you could lose an asset, the personal asset. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a heavy risk there.
And another thing that we don't necessarily get educated on in graduate school, you know, we leave graduate school, knowing that patient privacy is important. We leave graduate school knowing that HIPAA is a [00:37:00] thing. But when it, you know, when you're working in most work settings, you get to pass the buck to your supervisor.
You're covered under the entity of your employer. But when you are the employer or you become an entity on your own. The bucks stops there. I mean, you, you have to, you have to know these things. It's so important.
[00:37:17] Krista Covell-Pierson: And then in addition to doing your education every year, it's also important that a business owner does an audit on their business every year.
So you look at things and you're going to maybe mark it as like a tiered system. So for example, I'll look at things at Covell Care and I'll say, okay, email, are we HIPAA compliant here? And then as we got bigger, even though we had the HIPAA compliance agreement and everything like that with Google, I thought, you know what, we're going to take this a little step further.
And we added something called pobox, which, um, further encrypts our, our emails going in or out and, you know, Because we, our risk became bigger as we got bigger. [00:38:00] So it's important to look at those things and then like text messages. We had to convert over to a HIPAA compliant app or make sure when tele-health came out, especially got so big with COVID.
We had to make sure everybody was using a compliant tele-health program. So those are the things that you just go through. You know, maybe it is a moderate risk. So you have minimal risks, like no risk, minimal risk, really nothing's no risklet's be honest, but minimal, moderate, and high risk, anything that's in high risk, get that down to at least moderate. Then when it gets into moderate way out, what those risks look like. And then if you say we scored this as a moderate risk, and this is why it also shows somebody that is maybe auditing you later. If you got in trouble for something with HIPAA, or you need to present something that it shows that you weren't just lackadaisical with the whole thing, but that there was a rationale behind it.
So keep track of those things and do it every year. I do it and it usually takes me a couple of [00:39:00] days.
[00:39:00] Kate Grandbois: I love that suggestion. I know that there are, you know, everybody's personal threshold of risk is very different. So some people are really comfortable. With high levels of risk, ahh it’s fine, it’s never going to happen to me, .I'm not going to get sued. You know, other people, myself and Amy are very risk averse and don't like any of them. And then there's everything in between. But I love your suggestion of at least documenting the fact that you've acknowledged the risk and that, and what steps you've gone through to mediate those risks and how important just that one step is.
So even if you feel like you have a high risk tolerance and you're comfortable with X, Y, or Z decisions that you've made, I still think it's a critical step to, to evaluate those things on paper, create permanent products that are related to them and a paper trail for your thought process, so that you can show that you acknowledge the risk and that you're not, as you said, what did you say?
Lackadaisical, Willy nilly. You're just not, you know, you know, you're not just like [00:40:00] not caring and just going about your business flaunting it everywhere.
[00:40:02] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. And taking that class also shows too that you, you know, that you care that you're entering.
[00:40:12] Amy Wonkka: I think there must be a piece that sort of spins off of this, depending on the size of your business, to that, that addresses your, how, how you manage your employees and how you make sure that you're not the only person who's aware of these rules.
You know, you're not the only one who knows not to have that conversation in the coffee shop, but everybody knows it and you have a plan to make sure that everybody knows it. But yeah, there are, there are a lot of different moving parts and I'd imagine it depends on the type of business that you're doing as well.
Are you doing, are you in a facility and you've rented a space and you're doing a lot of direct service. Are you doing mostly remote service? Are you leasing a space somewhere? So all of those variables in terms of like how you're storing your files and what that looks like,
[00:40:54] Krista Covell-Pierson: and you have to talk about what happens in an emergency situation.
So if you're mobile like me [00:41:00] and you leave your computer in your car and your car gets stolen well, oh, now, you know, it's bad news, but if you have a policy in place that you hope people will follow, that you never leave your computer in your car, ever, you take it in with you or you carry it in your bag.
If he's got to stop at target, you know, that's what we tell people. I did have an employee once that literally at the facility that we work at, she just left her computer. In the, like the family room, she went to go talk to a patient and left it there and then somebody moved it. So it shouldn't have been left there and she freaked out.
Luckily it was just placed like next to the couch and everything needs to be password protected. So that's another thing, but it could have been a really bad deal. And luckily for us, it wasn't, but it was literally a mistake and those things happen. So then you'd have to know that mistakes do happen.
What's your plan if you have a privacy breach? So if somebody would have taken her computer, what do we do? Who do we notify and how do we notify [00:42:00] them and who needs to be, when, how do we call the clients? How do we tell them that it is protected or it is at risk or things like that. So, and it's really easy to go in the rabbit hole and it makes people get really afraid, but just can't
[00:42:13] Kate Grandbois: I have no tolerance.
[00:42:16] Krista Covell-Pierson: It is, it all is. And then we talk about insurance and every, I mean, it's just the thing, all the horrible things can happen, but if you put those pieces in place and then every year you're going to be going over that again, it's going to get better and better and better. So, you know, I mean, we hear about, you know, some of the most secure agencies in the world having breaches, it does happen.
So you have to be smart.
[00:42:40] Amy Wonkka: Yeah. If it can happen to the credit agency.
[00:42:43] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. Right. So you just want to do your best and then have a plan in place. Like what would you do if, and sometimes it's a nice, it's just sort of like a conversation, like who could freak each other out more. So, you know, like, well, what would you do if this happened to you?
And it's like, you know, it'd be like, oh my God, I [00:43:00] never thought about that. But it just gets the wheels turning a little bit. So you can put some safety measures in place.
[00:43:06] Kate Grandbois: So now that we've talked, I'm just thinking about people who are listening. Presumably they're interested in, you know, they're learning more about this.
They know how to talk to people, create relationships for marketing. They have a list, a to-do list in front of them to make sure that they're compliant. But again, you don't have a business without a customer and you don't have a business without, because we're in healthcare funding for that customer. So what can I want to spend the next couple of minutes unpacking the cost and benefit of private pay and insurance funding in my practice, I've done both. And I know that there are a lot of, this is a, a very commonly asked question because a lot of people feel like they have to have insurance. And that comes with this whole additional burden of paperwork and billing and knowing the codes.
And it's like a whole, a whole other world. And I, I’d love to talk a little bit more about that because [00:44:00] this is another burden that clinicians feel that they have to carry. When they're thinking about opening a practice that can be really intimidating and sort of a non-starter.
[00:44:09] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. And it is, it is a really tough question.
I think everybody leans towards, oh, I'll just, I'll do private pay because it's just like, then that whole crazy box of insurance I don't have to deal with. And then you kind of have to weigh those things out. So with private pay, yes, you get to set your own fees, but they do need to be, you know, reasonable and.
The thing that drawback though with private pay is there are some clients that you won't be able to take either because they don't have the funding themselves to pay for private pay, or you're just not going to have access to them at all, because they're only going to go to people that are their providers.
So you might be dealing with maybe a smaller amount of people in the beginning. You can certainly grow that, but you're not going to be able to kind of go around and say, okay, well you're blue cross blue shield [00:45:00] and your Anthem and this and that. Like, you're going to just start with those private pay people.
So it's a smaller amount of people, but maybe that's fine. And that's, you don't want to deal with all the other stuff. So there's that piece of things, the part where it gets a little sticky, depending on where you work and what you do. So for example, I'm a Medicare provider. I take Medicaid too. So for Medicare.
Let's say I never became a Medicare contractor, so I'm on my own. And I meet somebody they're 70 years old. They say, I want to pay you privately for my services. Okay. There are some legal issues that come around that, that they actually have to be presented with the opportunity to go to a Medicare provider.
So there's just a lot of you. Can't just be like, why don't I don't do anything like that. So you're still gonna have to keep notes as if you're a Medicare provider. You're still going to have to give them the opportunity to bill. So guess what? Now you're generating a bill for them. You're not submitting it.
They [00:46:00] are, but it just, it can create kind of a headache. So there are things that you need to investigate about the insurances and different states have different stipulations around their Medicaid programs to that at least educate yourself on those things first so that you can give patients the correct information.
Cause you can't say, oh, sorry, I can't, I'm not going to give you a bill. You have to. So there's some things around that that can be kind of tough when it comes to insurance. Of course, then if somebody just looks on their list of providers and it says Covell care rehab, maybe they'll just call because we're an in network with their.
But I think just for folks that might be on the call that may not really even understand like the Medicare Medicaid difference. Do you want me to just cover that and share
[00:46:44] Kate Grandbois: that would be really helpful. '
[00:46:46] Krista Covell-Pierson: cause I'm amazed at how many people don't really know, but why would they, because when you work for somebody else, you don't care, you don't think about it.
So Medicare is your big federal program. So everybody in the United States can have access to that. You have to be of a [00:47:00] certain age, usually over 65, you have, or have a disability. There's different things that you can tap into Medicare. So it's federal dollars. Then you have Medicaid and Medicaid is your state funding.
So each state gets money from the feds and then they have money from their state. And then that state can decide how they want to spend that money. So in the state of Colorado, for example, we can do home modifications. So. People that have Medicaid and are in a certain program. They get $14,000 a year to modify their house.
But if I drive up to Wyoming, they don't have that benefit. So your Medicaid benefits are going to be different state to state. So people have to know that too, because I meet people all the time. They're like, oh, I came from Kentucky. We can do this. I'm like, no, that's in Kentucky, not here. So you've got Medicare is kind of the big dog and then Medicaid.
You've got 50 Medicaid, little puppies running around, spending money. I picture it that way. And then within Medicare. So I like to tell people it's like a big umbrella and then underneath are a [00:48:00] series of other little umbrellas and those little umbrellas cover jurisdictions within the United States.
So you have all your Medicare rules and regulations. Then for example, there's Novitas or Noridian, they're big insurance companies. They oversee the states and they decide they kind of interpret the Medicare rules and regulations for themselves. They put out the billing manual and the, their own manual about that.
You have to follow within your state. And then we answer to that fiscal intermediary. So for example, we just got audited by Medicare, but that actually means that Novitas is auditing us. So that's who we deal with. So if you want to become a medical provider, you have to find out who your insurance contract is for your state and that's who you're going to get credentialed with.
And that's the information that you want to read as far as being compliant. That being said, still read the big umbrellas information, then read your [00:49:00] fiscal intermediaries information, follow whichever one is more strict. So some rules will be more lenient one way. And the other always go towards what's more strict.
And then you know that you'll satisfy both areas and then Medicaid will have their own set of billing recommendations and compliance measures. You have to follow as well. If you're any sort of geek like me, Kind of like reading it because you're like, oh, interesting. So we can do, you know, for wheelchair things, but we could do, you know, it's just, it's silly, but once you start reading it, it becomes a lot less jargon-y, it's pretty simple.
You just have to read it and it's like a playbook. So,
[00:49:42] Kate Grandbois: and if you don't want to read it, you can hire Krista to read it for you and explain it to you. So completely confusing and dry.
[00:49:49] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. It's totally dry, but it really is like the playbook, you know, it's like, this is a game it's, it's not a game, so I don't want to downplay it, but these are the rules we [00:50:00] play by and that's how we get paid.
So, you know, with your private pay pieces, it's actually still a good idea to be reading those manuals, to see what's being covered, or what's not, there's also things. So for example, dry needling with physical therapy, Medicare's not paying for that. It used to. And so then you have to gather private funding from your patients for those pieces.
So those are the things it's important to get to know. A lot of times when I talk to therapists about this kind of stuff, I can feel it. I can feel it right now, even to people that aren't even listening yet, that it's like, they're going, ah, like I maybe private practice isn’t for me
[00:50:39] Kate Grandbois: it's the dread, the, the dreaded paperwork and billing
[00:50:42] Krista Covell-Pierson: and it's, and there's a lot of fear in it.
It's very fear-based and we're always afraid we're going to end up in the orange jumpsuit. And so, you know, like that, there's like these fraudulent things
[00:50:55] Kate Grandbois: Nobody wants to go to therapy jail. Nobody, nobody wants to go to therapy jail.
[00:50:56] Krista Covell-Pierson: Jail. Yeah. And it's very, it's a very
Amy Wonkka: Or real [00:51:00] jail.
Krista Covell-Pierson: We just don't want to be locked up at all.
Yeah. And it's just, it's. It's a very fear inducing thing for a lot of people. And I, and I can go there too. The more knowledge you have about it, the less scary it becomes because you know it so well. And again, you're going to take your HIPPA class every year. I strongly recommend, even if you're not in private practice, if you are a practitioner, you should be taking a billing and documentation class every single year of your career.
Because a lot of times the documentation you wrote it. I am an expert witness for a case right now for a hospital representing a therapist. It comes down to her documentation. So it's either going to hang the hospital and her or not. And so that it's really important that you know, to have defensible documentation.
[00:51:54] Kate Grandbois: And for anyone listening, who is having some uncomfortable, nervous feelings, I'm also having those uncomfortable feelings, that's, you're talking, I'm like, I've never taken a class. [00:52:00]
[00:52:00] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah.
[00:52:04] Kate Grandbois: It's terrible. This is a really big deal. And you're absolutely right now I'm going to be Googling documentation.
[00:52:10] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah.
Kate Grandbois: Do you have one that you recommend.
Krista Covell-Pierson: I do actually, um, there, if you do part B, I always recommend taking anything through Rick Guwenda. Um, he's a physical therapist, but he covers OTPT and speech. There's a lot of them on, like, I know summit does a good job. They have good reputable people on there. Um, those are two off the top of my head.
[00:52:34] Amy Wonkka: I think it's a really interesting perspective because I'm all about professional development.
I love learning things. I'm going to conferences, I'm reading stuff, but it's
[00:52:42] Kate Grandbois: you started a continuing education platform, right? Friends
[00:52:47] Amy Wonkka: here I am on the podcast because it really into this, but it's, it's mostly focused on clinical strategies, right? So this is an interesting perspective that in, in [00:53:00] doing that, I'm, I'm leaving out this important piece. And I don't know how many other people are maybe having those same fields right now, but it's an interesting, you know, to kind of add it into the professional development plan that we all have.
[00:53:14] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. Because like, even with the expert witness case, like the hospital hired me, but the therapist is on the stand.
And so, and talk about scary feels like I get scared for her. Um, and it makes me nervous too. But the more, again, the more you know about the documentation, because it really is, I mean, the insurance companies are who's paying you so should probably know what they want to know, therapists that were really good about documenting what our patients are doing, because we're all into the patients.
We're not really good about documenting what we do and that's what we're getting paid for. So it's documenting that skilled level of service and. Not necessarily like creative writing as far as like falsifying things, but to be [00:54:00] a good writer so that it's understood about what you're doing and clear that's what you need is great language.
[00:54:09] Kate Grandbois: I mean, you clearly know I could pick your brain for another million years. I, I feel like I could talk about the need for what am I need to do really driven by my own anxiety that I'm now doing something wrong, but I'm looking at our learning objectives and our time. And I'm really excited for the last learning objective, because I know you and I had a conversation about this in preparing for this episode and it's very near and dear to my heart and soul.
Um, but I think one thing I, before we move into that, I wanted to ask a question that I get asked a lot and. If you, what your perspective was, I get often asked how much do you charge? I mean, not so much by families, but by other clinicians who are interested in getting into private practice. So how you price yourself, how you price your services for your customer.
So, and that can be different. You could be working with families, you could be [00:55:00] providing trainings to staff. You could be providing mentorship or coaching. You could be being contracted by larger businesses, hospitals, or schools. What advice do you have about how to price your own services? Good question.
Asking for a friend. Yeah.
[00:55:15] Krista Covell-Pierson: You want to do a market analysis, find out what everybody else is charging, you know, see what the industry standard is. And if it is something that you're providing that normally insurance would cover, there are some ethical things around that too. So if it's normally a hundred dollars and insurance will pay for that, you really shouldn't be charging more than about 10 to 15% over that.
It's kind of the rule of thumb. Do your market analysis, figure out what's what's fair and reasonable. And then. Don't undersell yourself either. So also think about the amount of time that's going to go into your service on the front end and the backend and quantify that. So put numbers to that. So you may be thinking like, oh, I could charge a hundred dollars to go to somebody's house.
That's no big deal, but are you doing a lot of prep work on the [00:56:00] front end? Are you writing up a big report? That's going to take you three hours. You need to quantify that and put down an hourly rate that you feel is reasonable and fair. I find that therapists tend to undercharge, but then there's some people out there that I'm like, whoa, like that's crazy.
That's a really high rate, but you know, you're only going to get it if somebody is going to pay it. So if you want to put your shingle out there and say I'm $500 an hour and nobody comes knocking, you might need to lower that price. I don't know if that's helpful.
Kate Grandbois: No, very.
[00:56:32] Amy Wonkka: Andjust before we move on to the next one, We talked a bit about, the next one, the next learning objective, we talked a bit about Medicare Medicaid.
Is there a clear contrast between benefits of just being a private pay? Because I heard you mentioned that even if you're doing strictly private pay, you should still be aware of all of these other components you should know about billing. You should know about, um, the fee structure. [00:57:00] So do you favor one over the other
[00:57:02] Krista Covell-Pierson: of being private payer insurance?
Yeah. I say take insurance, but I'm super biased. I always have. I, well, I shouldn't say always, I took private pay in the beginning and then people who were paying me were actually other professionals that needed my expertise. So lawyers, psychologists, and then started getting into some stuff with families.
And then as I was like, gosh, you have Medicare that Medicare could pay me for the service and you've paid into Medicare your whole life. I should be a Medicare contractor. So that's why I did it. And I feel like the insurance it's opened up a lot of doors for me and my practice that we take all these different insurances.
I will say this, that the insurance says, if you're out of network, this is something to investigate. If you're deciding to go in or out of network, especially with some of the big private insurances, not just Medicare. If you're out of [00:58:00] network, sometimes then people will have out of network benefits where they'll still pay for some of your services.
Somebody might have a higher copay, but you can get all that stuff by calling the insurance company and asking about that individual specific plan, which we do. We do that for all of our patients. We find out what their insurance will cover first, before we come out, because we don't like surprises. So you can figure that out.
Then if you go in network with those people, sometimes your fees that they will pay, you will actually go down. So sometimes it makes more sense to stay out of network, then go in. So those are good things to ask. And you also want to ask, I think this is a little overwhelming for people, but also ask when people have an insurance plan.
So let's just say Anthem, what happens if they also have Medicaid? Because that can change some things too for reimbursement.
[00:58:55] Kate Grandbois: Insurance it's so it's, it's so overwhelming. It is. And it [00:59:00] loops back to something we haven't really talked about, but also I think a driving question that helps you make decisions is what is your business goal?
So if you're employed full-time and you want to go into private practice for some supplemental income and you want to see no more than three or four patients on the side or clients on the side, then perhaps the volume that insurance would bring you is not necessary. And you don't have the time to invest in the paperwork.
On the other hand, if you have a business goal of developing a clinic or a brick and mortar or hiring people or doing this full time, I think based on my experience, getting a volume of a full case load of private pay is going to be very hard and take you a really, really long time. So I think whether or not to make the decision about private payer insurance can sometimes be really looped back to other variables going on in your life.
[00:59:51] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. That's great advice. Thanks. Okay.
[00:59:58] Kate Grandbois: So maybe that's the perfect, [01:00:00] awkward segue segue we needed to get into our last learning objective, which I'm going to read it out loud again for the sake of reminding everyone. Cause it's been awhile. This is related to the importance of personal development in private practice and it's personal development, not necessarily professional development.
And I can't wait for you to talk to us about this because we had such a great conversation leading up to, um, this episode.
[01:00:25] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. This is a big thing for me. And especially with people I coach, I always like to find out really their level of comfort with this too, because we're always looking towards, okay, we need to figure out HIPAA and we need to figure out marketing we need to figure out this, this, this, because this is what you do for business.
And then I'll talk to people and they'll say, well, I'll read one of those. Sometime, or I'm going to read that book and then they don't, but what I've come to learn, and this is just personal experience as the better I became at life, which is like, and I'm not saying I'm like, as [01:01:00] A-plus at life, versus I'm just saying the better I got at certain things, certain skill sets, better my business became. And so, you know, communication, patients, active listening, um, finding out what my own insecurities were, any weird things that you have going on, we all have them. We all have this other side of ourselves that needs to be sort of uncovered and worked on. And when you do that one, you become more empathetic and capable with your people that you're going to be working with and to you grow.
And when you're growing, you're stronger and you're more capable of managing a business. If you are going into private practice or you have a private practice, you will learn, it will push you in ways that you didn't think that you would ever be pushed nor that you wanted to be pushed or that you ever thought you would ever have to do.
It is not always fun. I mean, let me tell you, when we got that letter that we were being audited, I was like, okay, this [01:02:00] is kicking in some anxiety for me, but, you know, had I gotten that letter 10 years ago, I would have flipped out. So, you know, just to be able to manage your own self is really important.
And it will help you with your personal finances, with your families, your relationships that are outside of work, it's all a really positive thing, but it benefits your business. So I can't say enough about that. So conferences, books, webinars, and some people are really into that anyways. And that's great, but there's, you know, go to your Barnes and noble and walk through that.
Section and pick something out that speaks to you. It may have nothing to do with business, but read it. It'll help you. There's lots of really awesome stuff out there. I mean, I could give you lots and lots of resources she's for those types of things,
[01:02:47] Kate Grandbois: we would love those resources and we can list everything in the show notes so that if anyone is listening and biking or driving or running or folding laundry or whatever, all of the resources will be there, they'll also be on our webpage.
I also [01:03:00] just want to unpack that for a minute because I, I find it so important from personal experience. And because I think that these, again, components, they have a trickle effect in terms of benefiting your business, benefiting your therapy, benefiting your private personal relationships, benefiting your personal finances.
These are things that you're doing to invest in yourself that then have an ripple effect across so many things. And the reason my, I personally, when we talked about this before leading up to this episode and it resonated with me so much, and I thought, you know, spend some time thinking about it. It's related to the relationships that you're making in your community.
If you have employees, it's an incredibly important if you have employees. And I feel that it combats something that unfortunately I see a lot, which is this concept of ego. And that's a really big piece. When you have a business is, you know, recruiting people for your business, recruiting [01:04:00] staff for your business.
I have a great business. Look at all these things I do well, but what am I not doing? Well? How is when, uh, when should I make a referral to another business? You're not going to be able to answer any of these questions or model really professional humility for your staff if you have ego. And we all have an ego.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, but knowing how to sit in the discomfort of knowing when you need to grow or when you need to stay silent or when you need to have a difficult conversation. And let me tell you, and you're right, when you're in private practice owner, you are having difficult conversations all the time with patients and families, with staff who maybe might be underperforming or need a little bit more support, um, with billing agencies, with people who are auditing you.
I mean, there is just discomfort everywhere. And if you can't sit in it to grow, then it's not gonna, you're not gonna succeed.
[01:04:59] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. And I [01:05:00] think when you model good behavior, it feels, say that. And I mean, I'm not saying like, you know, right or wrong, like manners, I'm just saying like, when you're really self-managing yourself, well,
Kate Grandbois: maturity it's professional maturity.
Krista Covell-Pierson: It is, then people recognize that they see that and they trust you. And then that helps people to feel safe with you because they are. And even with my own staff, you know, sometimes I'll have a staff member that maybe will just be very, very overwhelmed and. You know, as a boss, that's the last thing I want somebody to feel.
And so then it's also being able to come in and, but instead of like just saying, okay, well, this is how we're going to fix it. It's also learning how to challenge that staff member to, you know, kind of like a guided discovery. Like how can she manage it better? Like here's some skills here was what we can try, but also help her engage with it too.
If I'm not figuring out how to do that as a leader, I'm not going to be able to really support her. And it's just going to keep perpetuating. [01:06:00] There's just a lot of stuff. When it comes to, you know, conflict resolution or advocacy and planning things or mastering, you know, the time that you're working that is really important to organization and then reef, it's a constant refining.
It never ends. And you know, even the anxiety about, you know, HIPAA or billing and stuff that doesn't really ever go away. I had the same girl that asked that I was talking about earlier about the business cards and didn't get her business off the ground in the beginning. She asked me, well, when do you stop being so scared?
And I was like, I don't know, but you know, it's also, you do get stronger. So things that scared you a year ago or two weeks ago, they're not as scary anymore and you become stronger. So I just think that is a really important piece of it that people don't really see as benefiting the business when actually that above everything else is probably your ace in the hole.
[01:06:56] Kate Grandbois: And I want to unpack one last concept before we wrap [01:07:00] up, which is something you mentioned about leadership and how this relates to personal development. When you are running a practice, even if you don't have employees, you are. You're the boss. You are, you're either in charge of yourself or you're in charge of people who work under you or with you in a collaborative manner.
And you can't develop leadership skills with knowledge you can't, you know, and with clinical knowledge, you could be a great clinician. And have great clinical decision-making skills, but those do not automatically translate to leadership skills. And so much of that comes from having space in your, I want to say if something, you know, really cheesy, like space in your heart, but it's a personal journey.
It's a personal, it's a, it comes from a personal place to be able to make space for others. And I think a lot of us who maybe graduated and went into jobs, maybe didn't have the best managers or didn't have the best supervisors. [01:08:00] I think for some people tends to be this assumption that, oh my manager's always right.
And they're the boss and they're making decisions and that's not what it's about. It's about making space for other people. And you can't do that if you have bees in your bonnet.
[01:08:11] Krista Covell-Pierson: Yeah. That's true. Those bees. I know that the sting. Yeah.
Kate Grandbois: Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. And I think that's the thing. And I think people don't realize too that when they become a business owner, they are it's, you've already you've that's when the shift has been made, like you're a leader, even if you don't feel like a leader, I was asked to teach a leadership course and I said, I don't really identify with the word leader.
And I thought, that’s kind of dumb, cause I am a leader. It just seems weird. Like we don't say like I'm a leader, like who says that, but you are, and people are watching you, people are learning from you, watching from you and they're either learning what they don't want to do or what they do want to do. And you gotta be [01:09:00] able to be comfortable in your own skin too, because like you said, with ego, with business, you can get really, you know, egotistical about the whole thing.
We all know people like that and to humble yourself and just know that, you know, every day is a challenge, but being a business owner is no joke. It's tough. It's really tough. And it's not tough in the way that you think it's gonna be just like marriage. You think it's going to be tough. It's tougher in a different way.
[01:09:26] Kate Grandbois: So in our last minute or two, as a closing to sort of close this out, do you have any words of wisdom or words of advice for someone who is listening and maybe thinking about this as their next adventure?
[01:09:38] Krista Covell-Pierson: My advice. If somebody thinks this might be their next adventure is to listen to that w that low it's like a voice or whisper or a feeling and to follow it.
And sometimes it's fun to lay in bed and just think about what could be, and that's fine, but just follow it to the next right thing. Pick up that next breadcrumb. You know, if you're interested and you want to find out more, [01:10:00] learn more. If you're like, maybe I'll be a Medicare contractor, do that. If you're like, yep, I'm ready to do it.
Just do it. Just keep going, keep moving forward. Because if you get that and if you have so much fear and anxiety in the way, work on that, go see a counselor about it, go see a life coach, hire somebody, you know, call me, um, read a book about it because it's a really powerful thing, but you have every single person listening to this.
Whether they go into private practice or not has a talent and we need it in the world and maybe it's in private practice. And if that's for you, just keep listening to that calling and then you'll get stronger in it. Well, it feels so scary. You won't always feel like you're wearing somebody else's clothes.
[01:10:41] Kate Grandbois: That's such great advice. And you brought it full circle with the clothes analogy that
[01:10:44] Krista Covell-Pierson: totally did.
[01:10:49] Kate Grandbois: It was so lovely.Thank you so much for being here and joining us. You are just a wealth of knowledge and I learned so much. I know Amy did too so much, so much. And for anybody listening, who [01:11:00] wants to learn more again, Krista has generously agreed to participate in a Q&A with us.
Stay tuned for a date, check our social media channels, subscribe to our newsletter. If you're interested in attending, it's a Q&A for our subscribers. Uh, it's the first Tuesday of every month at 4:30 PM Eastern standard time. And we hope everybody learned something today. Krista, thank you again so much for joining us.
[01:11:25] Krista Covell-Pierson: Well, thank you for having me. It's really fun. And it's fun for me to talk to people that aren't OTs too. So I'm excited to meet more speech therapists. You guys are doing a great service by this podcast, so it's really fun to be part of it. So thank you for inviting me. Thanks.
[01:11:40] Kate Grandbois: Thank you so much for joining us in today's episode.
As always, you can use this episode for ASHA CEUs You can also potentially use this episode for other credits, depending on the regulations of your governing body. To determine if this episode will count for professional development in your area of study, please check in with your governing bodies or you can go to our website, [01:12:00] www.SLPNerdcast.com.
All of the references and information listed throughout the course of the episode will be listed in the show notes. And as always, if you have any questions, please email us at info@SLPnerdcast.com. Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope to welcome you back here again soon.
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