Kate Fisch on Building a Group Practice and then Starting Other Businesses | GP 48

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Kate Fisch on Building a Group Practice and then Starting Other Businesses | GP 48

How can you recalculate the business services you have into creating something new to work with? What other services can you provide with your skillset to broaden the scope of your practice and curb potential clinical burnout? Can you invert your clinical services so that you can treat new patients and not refer them out?

In this podcast episode, Alison Pidgeon speaks with Kate Fisch about building a group practice and then starting other businesses.

Meet Kate Fisch

Kate Fisch, LCSW is a practicing psychotherapist, eating disorder specialist, and eating disorder treatment navigation consultant, who has devoted the entirety of her career to helping women overcome patterns of disordered eating, improve the relationship with their bodies, and finally find peace in their relationship with food.

While maintaining a private practice and regularly treating clients struggling with eating disorders, Kate often contributes as an eating disorder treatment expert for written publications and speaks nationally on the topic at professional conferences.

Visit her website, connect on Facebook and Instagram. Get in touch via email [email protected]

In This Podcast

Summary

  • Delegating and building the practice
  • The next business venture

Delegating and building the practice

Kate’s practice currently has 16 clinicians, with a long waiting list of clients. She brought on board high-quality clinicians that wanted to see other types of clients as well as the clients that they specialized in helping, which in Kate’s practice is working with eating disorders. Kate describes her group as having grown organically, however, the general niche for her clients is working with people with eating disorders.

I remember listening to one of Joe’s podcasts saying that you have to have an A+ support system, there are no B+ staff. (Kate Fisch)

In the past 18 months, they have put real structures in place. She first hired an Office Manager then took one of her therapists who had been with her for the longest time and moved her into the role of Clinical Director. Handing over the admin and staff management, she has saved a lot of time.

The next business venture

Kate created Eating Recovery Academy, a place where clinicians can learn how to treat eating disorders effectively and quickly without having to take full and expensive certification courses.

Kate then worked with a fellow clinician to launch another stream which based itself upon psycho-education instead of psycho-therapy, where she worked with the parents and family members of people who struggled with an eating disorder and essentially coached them instead of treating them.

Ask yourself what is it that you really enjoy doing, what are people willing to pay for and what is missing that could help people? Combine these answers with creative thinking and consider how you could use these answers with your practice to branch out your skills and services.

Useful Links:

Meet Alison Pidgeon

A portrait of Alison Pidgeon is shown. She discusses ways to grow your group practice on this week's episode of Practice of the Practice. Alison is a serial entrepreneur with four businesses, one of which is a 15 clinician group practice. She’s also a mom to three boys, wife, coffee drinker, and loves to travel. She started her practice in 2015 and, four years later, has two locations. With a specialization in women’s issues, the practices have made a positive impact on the community by offering different types of specialties not being offered anywhere else in the area.

Alison has been working with Practice of the Practice since 2016. She has helped over 70 therapist entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, through mastermind groups and individual consulting.

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[ALISON]:
You’re listening to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. Whether you’re thinking of starting a group practice, are in the beginning stages of a group practice, or want to learn how to scale up your already existing group practice, we have lots of great content for you.

Grow a Group Practice is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you grow your group practice. To hear other podcasts like the Imperfect Thriving podcast, Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Empowered and Unapologetic, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Hi, and welcome to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. I’m Alison Pidgeon, your host. Today I am interviewing Kate Fisch, LCSW. She’s a practicing psychotherapist, eating disorder specialist, an eating disorder treatment navigation consultant. And she is doing all kinds of amazing things which we talked about in the interview. Not only does she still run her group practice, but she started other businesses as well. She also is an eating disorder treatment expert. She contributes to written publications and speaks nationally on the topic at professional conferences. It was so great to talk to Kate about everything that she’s doing and a totally new business that she created out of all of her experience as a therapist. And so I hope you enjoy this interview with Kate Fisch.

________________________________________

[ALISON]:
Kate Fisch, welcome to the podcast. I’m so glad you’re here.

[KATE]:
Hi, Alison. Thanks for having me.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, so I was first introduced to you virtually through our Killin’It Camp conference this year. And I was just really impressed with your talk that you gave. And that’s the reason why I wanted you to come on the podcast. So you’re a group practice owner, but you also have other businesses, which we’re gonna talk about those as well. But I thought maybe first, we could start out just talking about your group practice. So can you kind of give us the overview?

[KATE]:
Sure. Yeah. Well, it’s Northside Mental Health and we’re here in Indianapolis. Let’s see, currently, we have 16 private practice clinicians, and we are onboarding another one this week. Given our current COVID chaos and the state of the world, our therapists are overwhelmed right now with case loads, and we have so many people on the waiting list. And so it’s a little bit of like, I want to hire, and bring on more therapists to be there and take care of these people who are really struggling, but also kind of balancing the what happens when I mean, if please, fingers crossed, the chaos settles down, you know, settles down a little bit, if there’s still going to be that supply of clients. So, currently kind of managing that. But I think 16, 17 is a good place to be right now.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, and I know you talked in your presentation at Killin’It Camp about kind of putting a lot of like structures in place so that you could free up more of your time to start your other businesses. So can you kind of explain to us like from an organizational chart, kind of standpoint, like what is your practice? How’s it structured?

[KATE]:
Yeah, yeah, and this is all relatively new, the structure part of it, and like you and I were discussing before it, it’s definitely if I could go back and do it again, I would have implemented these changes sooner. But you know, you live and you learn and hopefully I can pass this wisdom off to someone else, as they’re getting started. So just recently, I would say the past year, 18 months, we have started to put real structure and processes in place. I hired an office manager who is a lifesaver and I remember listening to one of Joe’s podcasts early on where he talked about how you have to have an A plus support system. You know, you can’t have, there are no like B plus. staff, there can’t be, and I was lucky to have Lindsay, my office manager kind of fall into my lap and she’s certainly A plus. So we also went ahead with that change and I took one of my therapists who had been with me almost the longest and was already kind of the person I bounced most things off of clinically and and business wise to clinical director, and this, this did a couple of things for me.

So, Lindsay, the office manager, took over all of the administrative tasks. And although I had already started to hire a billing system, an accounting firm, we outsourced IT, and also website design and social media, I still needed somebody to manage all of those third party vendors. So she really took over that piece for me, as well as just managing the day to day practice, like, are there enough manila folders, and does the alarm work and, you know, things like that. And then my clinical director took over the part that I felt like was the most time consuming to me, and that was consulting with my fellow clinicians, I was finding that so much of my free time was spent, you know, I get off the phone or out of a meeting or at you know, I’d be done with a client, I’d open my door, and there be, you know, one or two clinicians there wanting to talk about, you know, a client that was maybe suicidal or, you know, I don’t know what to do about this potential conflict of interest. And although I love that part of the clinical management and clinical leadership, it was taking up a lot of time. So hiring the clinical director gave me the opportunity to kind of redirect everyone her way so I don’t have, and I miss it, but I don’t have that day to day interface with my therapists anymore, which is, you know, good and bad, but definitely freed up a lot of time.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s great. And that’s actually the structure that I’m in the process of putting in place as well. I have my office manager who I’ve had for a while, but I’m looking at really handing off a lot of those responsibilities, like you were talking about, to like a clinician operations person. So I feel like, though, once you start to get bigger, like you start to grow beyond like 12, 15 therapists, like you really need to have those, like full time in-house people doing those things for the practice.

[KATE]:
Right. Or it has to be me full time. Like, that’s a full time job. It’s a full time job.

[ALISON]:
Right. So since you’ve delegated out all of those tasks, like how much time do you think you actually spend working on the practice now?

[KATE]:
Um, well, I do see about eight of my own clients a week, you know, and so that comes with, obviously, the hour you spend with them. And then you know, the additional time consulting or doing, you know, whatever, writing notes and all that stuff. But I would say I spend on just the practice, maybe an additional five or six hours a week, it’s typically correspondence in the morning, or just fielding decision making questions from my office manager, and my clinical director. And I don’t know if this happened for you, Alison, or not but I think for so long, and I can, I’m happy to speak a little bit about kind of the development of the group, going from solo to group practice, but for so long, I felt like the nice guy, right, like, I was super accommodating and I wanted to help everybody build their caseload. And, you know, I wasn’t necessarily invested in building this group practice for the profit. I mean, it’s not my hobby, you know, I mean, I still like to make money. But, you know, I was really focused on creating a space where really quality clinicians could, you know, practice their craft, you know, without all the obstacles of understanding insurance or paying taxes or building a business, that I realized that I wasn’t really maximizing my profit margin.

And once I let go of that idea that like, it’s okay to make money. And I think Joe speaks to this in several episodes, at least that I’ve heard, that it’s a lot easier to have other people kind of make those decisions. So just this morning, I got an email from my office manager that reported, you know, hey, we can save this many 1000s of dollars a year if we start having the clinicians pay for their own, it’s like a voicemail app. And, you know, she had done the legwork and realized that it was being underutilized. So we were paying for a, you know, a service for the clinician that was supposed to help simplify their life that they weren’t really using. And so to be able to say, okay, yeah, let’s cancel that. If they want it, you know, they can pay for it themselves, without having to like, you know, necessarily be the messenger of that decision. So I think it helps maintain the dynamic in the group of like, okay, this is Kate’s practice, and, you know, we like her mission and we want to be a part of this group. So it keeps that dynamic while still having a new structure in place that is, I’m able to set limits, and hopefully increase profit margin.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, and I think that’s a great example of like, if everybody is on the same page about we want to do what’s best for the business, then those decisions can happen. And there’s not a whole lot of, you know, drama or pushback that comes out of it.

[KATE]:
Yeah, yeah. And, and I noticed as I grow, I mean, originally, you know, the people who’ve been there the longest with me, in the beginning, you know, there’s such a connection there, like we’re doing something together. And as it grows, I still like to know all of my clinicians, but I feel like that connection isn’t as strong. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it’s just, there’s only so many hours in the day. But now I’m able to make decisions and say, well, if this person doesn’t like that decision, they don’t have to practice here anymore. You know, which sounds a lot harsher than, it doesn’t come off, you know, I don’t say it like that. But if it feels easier to let some of that go, because of size. And also because I feel like I have a buffer in between me and the clinicians now.

[ALISON]:
Right. Yeah, and I think that’s such a good point, because I remember getting to a point at which I realized that we had gotten big enough that if one clinician left, it wasn’t gonna break the whole practice, right? And like, if a clinician leaves, it’s probably best for everybody because obviously, if they’re leaving, maybe they’re perceiving that they’re not a good fit, or they just feel like, okay, I’ve outgrown this place for whatever reason, or, you know, what have you and it’s like, you know, if people leave, I’m just like, you know, we’re gonna keep going, and if you know, it’s going to be fine, we’re gonna find out other clinicians, it’s not like this, you know, terrible thing to have happen. It’s like, okay, this happens. And, you know, maybe ultimately, it’s best, you know, for the whole of the organization and for that individual, and just feeling confident about who you are, and knowing what you want.

[KATE]:
Yeah, yeah. And I think in a community of therapists, you know, I personally try, and, you know, kind of follow the blue ocean philosophy of like, let’s collaborate and not compete, like, there are enough clients to go around, there’s enough people who need services to go around, right. And so when people do leave, or clinicians do leave, especially if they’ve left under, you know, amicable circumstances, like, I try to make it a point to, you know, continue to communicate, and even refer over to them if they’re going to be a better fit than someone we have. And I do that from kind of a, that’s just good business. You know, I think that that in the end, you know, that will benefit everybody, that will come back around to, you know, be a positive in the end.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah. And can you just reference that, Blue Ocean is a book, right? So for the audience members who may not have heard of it, can you kind of tell us the title or give us a little bit of a background?

[KATE]:
Sure. And I’m not gonna pretend to, you know, to, to be an ambassador, and to really know it in and out, but my understanding is, you know, you look at the ocean, and it’s endless, right? So instead of seeing your market as limited, you know, you see it, as you know, there’s endless opportunity. And, you know, even if someone else is doing what you’re doing too, instead of competing against them, you know, you can look at what they’re doing well and use it as information.

[ALISON]:
Right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a, I think that’s a pretty well known business book if people are interested in that. One thing too, that I wanted to ask you about is I know you started out solo private practice and your specialty really is treating clients with eating disorders. And then when you were, you know, starting to grow the group practice, like how did you think about branding the group practice? Like, did you want to make it you know, all of our clinicians are going to treat eating disorders or did you have a different idea? Was it intentional? What ended up happening or did it happen organically? Like, how did that go for you?

[KATE]:
Yeah. And it’s, it’s a good question. And it’s actually been something I’ve been talking about a lot in getting ready to launch my own podcast. And in launching this course for private practice clinicians, teaching them how to treat eating disorders in private practice. Because I realized, you know, when I was in solo practice for not very long, less than a year, when I was totally full of eating disorder clients, and it kind of just happened, all of a sudden, it was like, once enough word got out that there was someone in private practice who accepted insurance, who was seeing eating disorder folks was out there, it was full. And because I think there is such a limited amount of private practice clinicians who are trained are willing to see that population for a number of of reasons, most of which are myth, but I realized that I had to get, you know, I didn’t want to say no, and I was, you know, seeing 30 people a week, and that was not sustainable for for my household with a partner who was working full time and two young children.

So I had to get somebody else in there. And I had a really hard time finding other clinicians who were willing to see clients with eating disorders. And it was like, well, but that’s what I need, you know, so. So I was, at first I brought in people that I knew previously and knew to be quality clinicians, that was really, you know, really important to me. And started to say, okay, I hear that you specialize in substance abuse but if I can help you learn how to do this, will you also see this client population? And I think that’s what kind of the organic piece of it comes from is that, yes, they were, you know, we worked together, we did a lot of consulting and supervision to get them on their feet with that client population, but they were also still wanting to see, like, you know, the example I’m thinking of is someone who specialized in substance abuse. And so, as I was growing, I was thinking it would be just eating disorders, but organically it, you know, we brought on people who wanted to see other types of clients as well. At this point, being out in private practice for eight years, you know, my name is associated with eating disorders. So, I would say the majority of our referrals that come through are for that. But anybody who’s been practicing and is a good clinician, you know, is going to make their own name. And, you know, they pull in the ideal client that they want. So I think organic is probably the best description of how that, of how this happens.

[ALISON]:
Mm hmm. So would you say the group as a whole has a niche? Or how do you kind of brand yourselves?

[KATE]:
Um, I think it’s, I think it’s two, maybe happening simultaneously, right? Like, I think, in a certain community of therapists here. Northside Mental Health, and Kate Fisch’s practice is known for eating disorders. But I think there’s also, you know, enough networking that has gone on, that in a more general community of clinicians, we’re also just known as, you know, a large private practice, that treats a lot of different issues in an outpatient setting. My gosh, I wish I had more of a clear answer for that.

[ALISON]:
No, that’s a good answer. So, yeah, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about the other things that you’re doing. So, you know, we’ve talked in the beginning of the interview about how you have, you know, kind of worked yourself out of your private practice so that you did have time to do other things. And so what was the next business that you started after the group practice?

[KATE]:
Um, well, technically, the next one I started working on was Eating Recovery Academy. And that was, that’s still happening. And, and that’s the, it’s my attempt to help other therapists in private practice learn how to treat eating disorders, you know, effectively and learn how to treat eating disorders quickly without, you know, having to take you know, certification courses and things that cost a lot of money and take a long time. But what happened in between wanting to do something, wanting to do the next thing, and, and where I am now is I realized there was a need for something different within the field of eating disorders. And this idea was actually born in the very first Killin’It Camp. I went with one of my clinicians, who’s now our clinical director. And we were thinking about, you know, what was next, right, like, I had done solo practice, I’d done group practice, I started to get clinically burned out, and restless. You know, like, I, I’ve done growing. Not that I don’t want to continue to grow the practice, but I’m done doing that, you know. I hate saying bored because it sounds so glib, I like restless. And started to think about what other need is not being met out there. And, and also staying within the framework of what I know best, and what I think I do best, which would be treating eating disorders.

And what I started to notice was, instead of just getting eating disorder clients, I was getting two other types of people contacting me. The main, the main type of person was parents, hey, my 15 year old is seeing so and so, they recommended that, you know, we get in touch with you so that you can help us, mom and dad, figure out what this whole eating disorder thing is all about, and how we can be, you know, the best support system for our kid. And I started seeing them under a billing code that is family therapy without patient present, for those of you who use procedure codes, but I realized that I wasn’t doing psychotherapy with these parents, it was psychoeducation. Right? And really, it was consulting.

And then the other type of person who was contacting me were other clinicians in the community, right? I’ve been working with this person for a year, we have an excellent rapport and I just found out that, you know, in addition to the anxiety they’re struggling with, they have a disordered relationship with food, what do I do? And so taking, you know, those two, those two needs together, my fellow clinician and I launched a business called North Side Consulting, and it is not therapy. It is psychoeducation for right now, it’s families and loved ones of people struggling with eating disorders, helping them figure out, you know, how to best support their kiddo or their partner. And then also, you know, how to get into treatment. I don’t know, if you’ve, if you’ve faced this, you know, maybe not just with eating disorders. And you know, back when you were seeing clients regularly, maybe even substance abuse, is taking someone who’s unfamiliar with, like, mental health benefits in their insurance plan, or who’s unfamiliar with, you know, different levels of care and treatment options out there. It’s like an endless world of treatment centers nationally, right?

[ALISON]:
Yeah, it’s daunting.

[KATE]:
It is. And before I opened private practice, I was the admissions director for a large eating disorder treatment center in St. Louis. And one of the, you know, main parts of my job was just getting these people who call and say, I don’t know what to do, like, you know, pediatrician said, my kid’s sick, and she needs residential care, and I don’t know what that means, right? And so being able to walk them through those steps, you know, get in touch with their insurance company, understanding their financial, you know, situation, and, you know, being able to get their kiddo in, get assessed, and say, Yeah, she, you know, she needs this level of care, or he needs this level of care. And this is, these are the next steps. So I understood it from that side, which gave, I think, gives me the advantage now that I can I can kind of help support parents, you know, on the outside who are trying to find the best treatment opportunity or option for their sick kid. And also while the kid’s in treatment, being able to say, like, this is part of the process, you know, a treatment center is not a destination. And if, you know, if you want to increase the likelihood of positive outcome of recovery, you know, these are the steps you guys are gonna have to do at home post treatment. So providing that kind of coaching service as well.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, what I love about that is you obviously, you know, worked in the field in various capacities, and you took what you knew and what you were familiar with, and just sort of looked at the, you know, what was available and in the field or in the community and realized like, oh, there’s like this big gaping hole of things, you know, services that people need that they’re not getting, and started a service for that. Obviously you have a very entrepreneurial mind to be to be looking at that in that way, but also just, you know, creating something new that is obviously really valuable to these families, I think is such a cool thing. Because our, and I know, I’m probably preaching to the choir, but our health system is so siloed. And, you know, things can be so confusing in terms of how to access care, and also what, you know, what is my insurance actually going to pay for? You created, you know, a few different solutions for people going through that whole process. So I think that’s really smart. And I’m sure, you know, like I said, very valuable to those families.

[KATE]:
Yeah. And still all of that, everything you said obviously is true. And it’s still through the framework of mental health stigma. Right? So it’s not only is it confusing, and big, and, you know, all sorts of, you know, yeah, right. It’s also like, well, I don’t feel like maybe I could ask anybody or, you know, get help, because, you know, what would people think if I told them, my child had to go to a mental health treatment center? Right? I mean, so it’s kind of helping normalize that too, you know, which I think, you know, as therapists we’re doing all the time.

But yeah, and I think, you know, what you said is so important, like, if your listeners are thinking, okay, what’s the next thing for me? Or maybe I don’t want to take my solo practice and turn it into a group practice, or, you know, it’s being able to say, what is it that I really enjoy doing? Right? Because that’s how we’re going to go and have a successful happy career is when we’re doing things that we love. And, you know, what, what are people willing to pay for? And what’s missing? What do people need? And I think if you can kind of ask yourself those questions within what you already know, and what you know you do well, you know, and some creativity, like there could be something else besides therapy.

And I said this at Killin’It Camp this year, too, which is, you have permission to not be a therapist anymore. Like, I think I felt like I had to keep being some sort of clinician because that’s what I am educated to do. And that’s what my experience is in, and one side could sidestep that and get out of that box and give myself permission. Like it’s okay, like, I have other skills to offer, other services to offer that’s not, you know, that I don’t, I’m not gonna call, I’m not practicing therapy anymore.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I’m glad that you said that. Because it took me years to wrap that around my mind of like, it’s okay. I don’t have to keep seeing clients. And I think what helped me is I realized, like, okay, I’m gonna stop seeing clients, there’s no reason I can’t go back and start seeing clients again, if I really miss it, or I hate it, or whatever. That hasn’t happened. But yeah, I think that’s so important, because we get so, you know, wrapped up in like, well, I spent all this money on my, you know, masters degree or my PhD, and it would just, you know, everybody would think I’m, you know, fill in the blank, you know, crazy to give up practicing when this is what I spent, like, so many years learning. But yeah, I think ultimately, though, you know, I think about I took my skill set, and, you know, my entrepreneurial spirit, I guess you could say, and, you know, created jobs for 20 therapists who are now serving the community. So, you know, even though I’m not personally seeing clients anymore, I know that my staff is providing really excellent services. So that makes me feel good. And that makes me feel you know, better about the fact that I don’t see clients anymore.

[KATE]:
Do you ever have the itch to to practice clinically again?

[ALISON]:
I don’t.

[KATE]:
Yeah. You still haven’t recovered from that clinical burnout.

[ALISON]:
No. And, like, I’ve been doing some supervision now with my therapists, which I enjoy, because it’s sort of like, you know, sort of like practicing your clinical skills again, without seeing clients.

[KATE]:
Yeah. Yeah.

[ALISON]:
So I think on some level, like, that will be fine for me to keep doing like the clinical supervision piece, but I don’t really want to take on, like a, you know, even a small caseload of clients.

[KATE]:
Okay. Yeah. Well, I’ll ask you that again in a year and see what you say.

[ALISON]:
Okay. Yeah. So I know you mentioned about the company that you developed and I apologize, I forget, you said Eating Recovery Academy?

[KATE]:
Eating Recovery Academy. Yeah, yeah.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. And so is that what the new podcast that you have coming out, is [unclear] name, tell us about that.

[KATE]:
Yep, Eating Recovery Academy. And it is what I wanted to be is, you know, shorter kind of bite size episodes on how to treat, you know, eating disorders or disordered eating in your private practice. And while I was building my group practice and wanting other clinicians who were willing to treat eating disorders, you know, they weren’t really out there. So I had to help, like I said earlier, help develop those skills. I heard a lot of kind of myths, you know, people with eating disorders are too difficult to treat in private practice, or, you know, there’s a highly specialized, specifically trained clinician out there that I need to refer this client to. You know, which, yeah, there are but it’s also not, it’s not a, you know, treating eating disorder in a private practice is actually not that scary. And it is something that most clinicians already have the skills to do. A lot of the folks that ended up joining my practice came from a substance abuse treatment background. And I quickly realized that we just need to change the vocabulary here. You know, and eating disorders and substance abuse, by no means am I putting those together and saying they’re the same thing. But if you could change the vocab, and realize that the skills that you use every day, the interventions that you use every day with your clients are also the ones that are going to work with eating disorders, you know, then I think the confidence is already there.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, what kind of resources then are you going to offer to therapists who want to learn more about eating disorders?

[KATE]:
Yeah, so the podcast is, you know, a free way to listen, you know, and get kind of this quick rundown of, you know, here’s what you do. I have some really amazing guests lined up too that, you know, talk about how to run a group in your practice for, you know, an eating disorder support group, for example. I have an expert on who does a great job of sharing the best way to assess and evaluate for, you know, an eating disorder. So hopefully, that’ll be kind of an easy way to increase your clinical skills and know how, you know, as a private practice clinician, so you can continue to build your caseload and, you know, not have to refer potential clients out. And then also, you know, if you sign up, we have a free email course, that has some similar information, but it’s a little bit more structured. So it’s 10 emails total for now, and I see so many that I want to, I want to send out additionally, that, you know, help kind of in a more linear way, say, this is how you evaluate for an eating disorder. This is treatment planning, you know, here are the obstacles you’re going to run into, this is how you conceptualize what’s going on, go try it and let me know how it goes. And ultimately, I want to create a case consultation community for a therapist who, you know, can buy a membership and hop on, and, you know, run down a case with me or their peers and see, you know, get some support while they’re learning how to treat the specific client population.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s great. And I think, you know, that work is so important, because I know in my area, we often do treat some eating disorders, but we refer out for others and it’s like, where do you refer them to? It’s like, everybody is full, or there’s not that many therapists that you know, are qualified to treat eating disorder. So I’m glad to hear that you’re, you know, training more clinicians to be able to help those clients.

[KATE]:
And you’re in Michigan, right, Alison?

[ALISON]:
No, I’m actually in Pennsylvania.

[KATE]:
Are you in Pennsylvania? Okay, so in Pennsylvania, yeah, there are some really good centers there. I was thinking Traverse City. But in Michigan, there’s not, you know, there’s not always that, you know, fantastic, you know, eating disorder treatment center resource in somebody’s backyard, and they’re expensive, right? And, you know, I like to say too like, you know, if you have high blood pressure, like, let’s not do open heart surgery as the first attempt at fixing that problem, right? Like, let’s just take some Plavix or like, whatever the drug is now that helps with high blood pressure, you know, let’s, let’s start with the least amount of intervention, and see what kind of effect we can have. And I think that, you know, if you look at a, you know, level of care, stair step approach to, you know, any treatment, you know, this outpatient private practice is usually kind of this ground level, like, let’s start here.

[ALISON]:
Right. Yeah. So when is the podcast coming out?

[KATE]:
Oh, I don’t know. I am, I’m pretty close. As you know, you have to have a certain amount, you know, kind of recorded and ready to go. And I’m getting close to that number. I’m hoping, hoping, hoping by the beginning of next month. And, yeah.

[ALISON]:
Okay. So by the time this podcast comes out, potentially your podcast will be out.

[KATE]:
Whoo, I didn’t even think about the timing. Okay. I better get to work.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, great. Well, I look forward to hearing the podcast and I wanted to let folks know how they can get a hold of you. If they have questions about any of the different things that you’re doing, your different businesses, what are the best ways for people to get a hold of you?

[KATE]:
The best way, you know, if you want to learn about Eating Recovery Academy, the website is up, eatingrecoveryacademy.com. Otherwise, email is the best way to get a hold of me. I am so happy to answer any questions for your listeners, as I feel kind of like, you know, a kinship with other people out there in private practice trying to build and grow and learn new things. And that’s, it’s [email protected]. And yeah, that’s definitely the best way to get in touch with me. And then we have our website, too, which is northsidementalhealth.com as well. And there’s lots of information on there too.

[ALISON]:
Great. Well, thank you so much, Kate Fisch. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today. And yeah, it was great. Thank you.

[KATE]:
You’re welcome, Alison. It’s always a pleasure.

________________________________________

[ALISON]:
Thanks so much for listening. If you are listening to this on the day it comes out, it is the last day of 2020. I hope you are breathing a sigh of relief. Hopefully that 2020 is over after everything that has gone on this year with the pandemic and everything else. Wishing you nothing but great, great luck with your business in 2021 and good health. And I will see you all next week.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.