Live Consulting with William Hemphill: Should I Come Off Insurance Panels | FP 86

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Is your practice insurance-based or cash-pay? How does insurance-based or cash-pay influence the treatment that you do in your practice? What change can happen in your practice when you work with cash-pay?

In this podcast episode, Whitney Owens does a live consulting call with William Hemphill about whether he should come off insurance panels.

Meet William Hemphill II

Photo of William Hemphill, the christian counselor featured in this podcast episode for christian therapists trying to navigate the role faith plays in building their business.

William Hemphill, II, is a counselor, pastor, and speaker. As a husband who has been married for over 23 years and a father who adopted three children, he understands the rewards and challenges of maintaining a strong marriage and blending a family.

In his practice, he works with individuals who value their faith, couples who want to strengthen or rebuild their relationships, and with adoptive families in building loving connections. He is the author of the book Praying With Your Spouse: A Secret To Building Intimacy In Your Marriage.

Visit William’s website and connect with him on Facebook and join the Building Spiritually Strong Marriages community.

Listen to his podcast here. Email William at [email protected]

In This Podcast

  • Some things to consider
  • Where and how did you obtain your cash-pay clients?

Some things to consider

  • How do you do treatment?
  • What is your ideal client population?
  • Where are you located?

So when we talk about the type of counseling that you want to do, do feel like insurance helps encourage that or do you feel like insurance makes it to do the type of treatment you want to do? (Whitney Owens)

Sometimes therapists and clients alike would both like to continue the session longer than the time specified by the insurance panel, or they would even think that the session on a particular day may need to be shorter.

What is important here is that cash-pay allows therapists and clients to be more flexible with the times of the counseling session, whereas insurance pay is more restrictive in terms of timing.

How would you like to have your treatment run, or be able to run? Some treatment methods work better with 90-minute sessions as opposed to 45-minute sessions.

If you make the transition, you can always go back. You’re not messing yourself up but you can at least try, if you think that cash-pay is more in line with your values and how you see your community and how you serve clients, then that’s the way to go. See if that works and if you’re not getting the clients you need then you can always go back on insurance. (Whitney Owens)

You can try this system and see if it works for you and your practice. You can always switch back if you decide that it does not work for you.

Who is your ideal client?

With the clients you are seeing now that are insurance-pay, ask yourself if you think they would continue working with you at your cash-pay rate. You can offer superbills with cash-pay as well if you are concerned about the financial piece for your clients.

You can consider coming off insurance panels one at a time to see how your clients and your practice adjust to the transition, instead of coming off all of them at the same time.

If you decide to come off insurance panels, the process is:

  • Write a letter to your insurance or to the person that you are working with,
  • Let them know that you are coming off the panel,
  • They will usually respond to you and give you a date – this can be a while later – that you will be off the panel,
  • Once you have submitted the letter to insurance, write letters to your clients and let them know that you are moving off of insurance.

Where and how did you obtain your cash-pay clients?

Invest in what works. How did you come to find and connect with your cash-pay clients?

Examine your network base and see where and how you can expand your connections to encourage growth and new relationships.

Where would your ideal, cash-pay clients be located? In which churches, schools, and doctor’s rooms? Network with fellow practitioners, doctors, pastors, and school centers to encourage a referral system so that you can bring in cash-pay clients who share your values and are motivated to work on their treatment.

I don’t just envision counseling, I envision teaching and helping marriages and families, speaking and maybe eventually having a curriculum for different things. (William Hemphill)

Useful Links:

Meet Whitney Owens

Photo of Christian therapist Whitney Owens. Whitney helps other christian counselors grow faith based private practices!Whitney is a licensed professional counselor and owns a growing group practice in Savannah, Georgia. Along with a wealth of experience managing a practice, she also has an extensive history working in a variety of clinical and religious settings, allowing her to specialize in consulting for faith-based practices and those wanting to connect with religious organizations.

Knowing the pains and difficulties surrounding building a private practice, she started this podcast to help clinicians start, grow, and scale a faith-based practice. She has learned how to start and grow a successful practice that adheres to her own faith and values. And as a private practice consultant, she has helped many clinicians do the same.

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[WHITNEY OWENS]
Welcome to the Faith in Practice podcast. I’m your host Whitney Owens recording live from Savannah, Georgia. I’m a licensed professional counselor, group practice owner, and private practice consultant. Each week through personal story or amazing interviews, I will help you learn how to start, grow and scale your practice from a faith-based perspective. I will show you how to have an awesome faith-based practice without being cheesy or fake. You too can have a successful practice, make lots of money, and be true to yourself.

Hello and welcome to the Faith in Practice podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with me today. I’m excited about the series we’re doing on live consulting. I absolutely love doing consulting and so getting to do it live and sharing it with you guys has been a lot of fun and you’re going to enjoy today’s episode as I interview William Hemphill. He asks about coming off insurance panels. This is a question that I often get in my consulting and so this will be jam-packed of information. If you’re listening and you’re always wondering, “Should I come off of panels? I’m not really sure. How do I do that? What’s that look like?” This this interview is going to be for you.

But before we jump into that interview, I also want to thank you for the feedback I get from you guys. Podcasting, the world of consulting, it can get a little lonely sometimes, and I value your feedback and the relationships we get to have together. And so there’s a couple of ways that I get that. One is through reviews on the podcast. If you have not already, please take a minute, jump on your platform. If you’re just sitting there listening right now, you can just stop the episode and take a second to jump on and write and review this episode or this podcast. One of the reviews that recently came in that I just wanted to read, because I think it’s kind of fun to read the reviews, this person said, “My daily nourishment. This is such an awesome podcast. All the information is clear, well thought out and practical enough to implement with confidence. Such a pleasure to see other people in the field who have gone through what I am facing. This podcast is a godsend.” I just love that somebody finds that helpful, they’re growing their business and they found a community within listening to the podcast.

I also wanted to read another review. So another way that I hear from you guys is through email. So I got this review from someone who is in my current mastermind group and she just wanted to share what the mastermind group has meant to her. So here it is, this is Brenda Stewart, who’s in my current group, “The Faith in Practice mastermind group has been a phenomenal experience. I have built solid connections with other faith-based clinicians while at the same time, learning practical information on how to build and grow a private practice. It’s allowed what felt overwhelming to be manageable and achievable and from marketing to networking, to tracking intake calls and analyzing data to development and SEO, and so much more. This group has been invaluable. Whitney is an excellent consultant and I’m so thankful for the time and the mastermind group. It’s been an incredibly worthwhile investment and I’m deeply grateful.”

Brenda, thank you. You’re a lot of fun to hang out with. So I hope you’re listening to the episode and got to hear that, and I’ve really enjoyed our friendship and seeing you really take off. Brenda has started her own practice and it’s exciting to see people follow their dreams. And that’s some of what we do in the mastermind group, is we set goals, big goals for our practice, and then we accomplish those goals and then we set more goals and we do it within this community with one another. So I appreciate her and all the people that reach out to me and let me know what the podcast means to them and what working with me means to them.

So it would mean a lot to me if you take a minute to write a review about the show, or just send me an email. Let me know where you are in your practice. And if you want to start or really scale, honestly, scale and grow, you’ve already started your faith-based practice, if you want to scale it and grow it, please reach out to me about the mastermind group. I am taking applications through the end of June and if you want more information, you can go to practiceofthepractice.com\faithmastermind to learn more and sign up for that group or shoot me an email. And I’m happy to jump on a call with you to talk more about it.

So in this podcast though, today with my interview with William Hemphill, he actually has been in my mastermind group the past to go-arounds, so we’ve really gotten to know each other. I love William not only because of the way he’s growing his practice, but we have this other connection with the Methodist church and I just find that fun. You know, my husband is also a pastor in the Methodist church, so I really like working with people who kind of also have that pastor bent, because then we have a little bit of other connections going on. And actually there are a lot of pastors out there that have private practices on the side. So that’s really awesome. Anyways, so we’re going to talk about the insurance piece, should have come off panels should have not and so you’re going to find this episode helpful. This is a live consulting episode with William Hemphill, number 86, Should I Come Off of Insurance Panels?
[WHITNEY]
Today on the Faith in Practice podcast, we’ve got William Hemphill II. He’s a counselor, pastor and speaker. As a husband, who’s been married for over 23 years and a father with three adopted children, he understands the rewards and challenges of maintaining a strong marriage and blending a family. In his practice he works with individuals who value their faith, couples who want to strengthen and rebuild their relationship and adoptive families in building loving connections. He’s the author of the book, Praying With Your Spouse: A Secret To Building Intimacy In Your Marriage. His blogs and videos about relationships can be found at williamhemphil.com. He is a pastoral counselor owned faith and family empowerment. He’s also the founder of the Facebook group Building Spiritually Strong Marriages and the host of the Faith and Family Matters podcast. William, thanks for coming on the show.
[WILLIAM HEMPHILL II]
Thank you for having me Whitney.
[WHITNEY]
So we’re doing these series on live consulting, so I’m excited to do some consulting hair on the podcast. And when you posted your question to me in the Facebook group, that was really great. So I know William in a lot of different arenas, but for these live consulting, just so you guys know, I went straight to the Facebook group. So there’s a Faith in Practice Facebook group, a lot of F’s that you can be a part of. So just go to Facebook and look for that and the link will be in the show notes as well and that is where I go and offer the best things going on in our Faith in Practice community. So I posted the question in there and said, “Hey, anybody who wants some life consulting on the podcast?” And Williams stepped up with a really great question. So I’m excited about us talking about that today. So you want to go ahead and pose your question?
[WILLIAM]
Sure. what I had posed in the group was transitioning from insurance to private pay. This background I am, I’m on a couple of insurance panels and I think we’ve felt before, but I do a lot of couples work, but as I have begun to get more specialized than couples, I have wanted to transition for several reasons. One, obviously I want to have the time and space to do better work with the couples I do but then also, even as I’m working on growing a group practice, and then also looking at some other ministry opportunities, I want to be able to have the time and space to do those things well.
[WHITNEY]
So the idea kind of what I’m hearing there is if you were to come off panels and do cash pay, you’d be making more money, working less hours and have more time freedom you’re scheduled for some other things you want to work on?
[WILLIAM]
Yes, that’s right. Definitely.
[WHITNEY]
Okay, great. I think when we talk about the insurance cash pay question, some of the first things to consider is how do you do treatment, and what is your ideal client population, where are you located? And understanding that, do you want to be an interest based practice or cash pay practice? And those are all things to consider that I know you’ve kind of thought through as well. So when we talk about the type of counseling that you want to do, do you feel like insurance helps encourage that or do you feel like insurance makes it difficult to do the type of treatment you want to do?
[WILLIAM]
I actually, as I’ve grown more, I think it’s becoming more difficult because one of the things I’ve run into with insurance is sometimes there’s the time factor. You know, you only have a certain amount of time for certain codes that you use. And I find like when I’m doing a lot of work, especially with couples, you might need more than 45 minutes or you might need an hour, more than like 55 minutes. Sometimes I can see easily doing an hour and a half to do some serious in-depth work to help couples strengthen their marriage and do the things they need to do working on communication skills, the emotional things, and so on and so forth.
[WHITNEY]
Yes. And you’re EFT trained, isn’t that correct?
[WILLIAM]
Oh yes. I have taken the EFT externship. I’m also doing some training right now with Focus on the Family that has some specific things that I’m adding to that.
[WHITNEY]
And I know we’ve kind of talked before that when you’re doing the EFT, it serves better in a 90 minute session and that’s made it challenging with insurance.
[WILLIAM]
Yes, it does.
[WHITNEY]
So that’s definitely something to think through when you’re considering if you want to come off panels or not. Any other drawbacks that you immediately are thinking about when you think about coming off of insurance panels?
[WILLIAM]
I think the biggest drawbacks that I’ve seen, one of the things that was real interesting is I like to say my practice actually grew during COVID. It grew a lot because one of the things, I did invest in some marketing, some SEO, and then of course the insurance panels do do their share of marketing my listing. So my practice grew from, I’d almost consider a part-time practice to overflow, to where I was thinking about, “Okay, we need to try to do some things to add clinicians.” Some of the things I think about, one, I think about how that would affect the traffic flow, how would I need to change my marketing to still draw clients, that I have clients come, and then also how that affects my timeline even as I look at doing group practice work.
[WHITNEY]
Yes. All really good things to be thinking about. And I say this about lots of things in private practice, but everything’s flexible. I think as counselors we’re kind of perfectionist, we put a lot of work into things, and so we think that if this doesn’t work, then it’s all messed up. Well, that’s just not the case. Like if something doesn’t work, then at least now it doesn’t work and you can invest in something else and you know it. So this is the same choice for all practice owners, “Hey, should I be insurance? Should I be cash pay?” Or they make that transition later, as you’re thinking about doing, if you make the transition, you can always go back. You’re not messing yourself up, but you can at least try. If you think that cash pay is more in line with kind of your values and how you see your community and how you serve clients, then that’s the way to go and then see how that works and if you struggle or you’re not getting the clients you need, you can always go back on insurance panels.
[WILLIAM]
Okay. Okay.
[WHITNEY]
So let’s talk for a few minutes about your ideal kind of caseload and money for a second because I think this will help in looking at what you can do and what you feel comfortable with. How many clients would you say you see in a week?
[WILLIAM]
Right now I’ve pushed it back, but I’m still seeing about 21 on the low end to 25 or 26 on the high end. I would say late last year I had probably, we was more like 27 to 33.
[WHITNEY]
Okay. So I’m going to try to pick an even number. It makes my life easier. Let’s say you see about 24 clients a week. If you had to guess, how many of those are on insurance panels and how many are cash pay?
[WILLIAM]
I would say, I think I ran the numbers and I think it’s like 75, 25. So like 75% insurance between the two insurances, which one is about a little over 50% and then the other insurance and private pays each about 25%.
[WHITNEY]
Okay. So we could say that you have about 18 insurance based clients and about six self-pay clients?
[WILLIAM]
Mmh.
[WHITNEY]
And what’s your self-pay rate?
[WILLIAM]
My self-pay rate right now is $150 for couples, $125 individuals.
[WHITNEY]
And when you think about your caseload, you usually work with more couples, more individuals or they are equal?
[WILLIAM]
I probably have about 60% couples.
[WHITNEY]
Great. And then what is your average reimbursement rate with insurance? The reimbursement rate for insurance for couples is about 68 to 78.
[WHITNEY]
Okay. So I’m going to put 75 here. Yes, so you’re making half the amount with insurance that you then you would be making if you were doing a cash pay practice?
[WILLIAM]
That’s true.
[WHITNEY]
So for these 24 clients that you’re seeing six are already paying, so the 18 that are on insurance, you could see non self-pay clients. So you’d be seeing 15 clients a week and making the same thing that you’re making, seeing 24 clients a week? Does that surprise you or have you thought through that?
[WILLIAM]
I’ve thought through that a little bit. So it doesn’t surprise me.
[WHITNEY]
Okay. Now, just to first consider what would this transition be like for you, when you think of your clients that you’re seeing right now, do you think at least half of them would continue to work with you at your self-pay rate?
[WILLIAM]
I actually have not thought about that piece yet. I see some who might and I see some who, I would say definitely wouldn’t but I wouldn’t know.
[WHITNEY]
Yes, yes. And you can always still offer superbills to people if they have out-of-network benefits. You know we can’t guarantee with clients sold on their plans, but I would say at my cash pay practice, and I’m also in Georgia as well as you are, we have about half of the clients get some reimbursement for the out-of-network benefits. So that’s always something that you can offer. But it sounds like with the current caseload you have in getting you down to 15 clients would actually be helpful because you’re also a pastor, you’re starting a group practice, and so you need some time to be able to do that. And honestly, most cases, counselors assume clients won’t pay for something and clients do pay for something, especially the people who are already working with you. They already think you’re a great therapist. They’re going to want to continue to invest. I mean, I can personally say, I’m always amazed, when my rates go up, I always think, “Oh, no, one’s going to want to pay this.” And they do because they value the treatment.

So I think that this would be a really good chance for you to step out. You already have a good case load. You’re wanting to decrease your clients. You wanting to make more money. These are all reasons why this would be a good time for you. I think some practice owners that I see, or just clinicians in general that come off of panels, like to do it one at a time. So it’s something that you could consider kind of like getting your toes wet, to see how it goes, or you could come off of all of them at once. But I do think you have some options there with that. What do you feel like would be easiest for you?
[WILLIAM]
Now, it’s funny as you thought about that, because setback is one of the things I was thinking about, a little bit as I was thinking about this, this weekend, is possibly coming off one at a time. What was interesting about that is do I want to come off the higher paying one or the lower paying one. The higher paying one gives me more clients, but sometimes their reimbursement is very slow for various reasons, whereas the lower paying one, I pretty much from what I’ve seen, I’ll get my money.
[WHITNEY]
Yes, that’s a tough decision. I mean, I guess some of it would have to do with, do you have enough buffer that if you were to choose the higher paying one, that you would be able to survive until those payments come in? I think that I would choose the higher paying ones because your time is very valuable and you work hard, but I can understand that if you’re kind of in a situation, maybe you are expanding and you’re getting some new office space, then you want to get that one that’s going to pay you immediately. Yes. All important things to consider, now, the process, you probably know this, but just in case you don’t, or just for our listeners, if you are thinking about coming off of panels, you simply write a letter to your insurance carrier or the person that you’re working with, that you’re contracted with, let them know that you’re coming off the panel and then they will generally respond to you and give you a date.

I will say sometimes date comes a while later. Like you’re waiting on them to tell you the date and then you get the letter and you’re like, “Oh, it’s like in two weeks?” So once you write that letter and you send it in, you should just assume you’re coming off panels, start talking to your clients about that and give them a letter or inform them of that and let them know that, “Hey, I don’t know the exact date yet. They’ll let me know this, but here you go. I just want to make you aware of this.” It also can really help people’s treatment. They will get more invested in their treatment because they see that it’s time sensitive or their rates going up. So sometimes it’s actually clinically beneficial.
[WILLIAM]
Yes. Yes, I was wondering as you mentioned that, because I was thinking about that aspect too. Even with some of my private pay clients, this has been my experience anyway. They seem to do a lot more work a lot quicker.
[WHITNEY]
Definitely. Yes. And William actually is in my mastermind group, but also a part of our membership community for Group Practice Boss. So in their resources like this, we have in Teachable and so I’m saying that for you, William, that you can run in there and get that letter for your insurance companies. All you have to do is edit it for your practice and you can use it. So that’s a great resource to save you some time and energy.
[WILLIAM]
Okay.
[WHITNEY]
Yes. Okay. So then you think you’re coming off panels and I think the next thing you kind of brought up was what do you need to change about your practice? Is that what you had asked?
[WILLIAM]
Strange thing about practice marketing, so on and so forth.
[WHITNEY]
So you’ve heard me speak for a while and you hear me preach this all the time, invest in what works and not in what doesn’t work. So I would go back to your self-pay clients that you have right now. How did you obtain those clients?
[WILLIAM]
As I look, at thinking about some of them, some of them have found me through my website. Some of them have found me through directories, and I might have one or two being referred by other clients.
[WHITNEY]
Okay, great. And so your website, you’ve done a lot of work. I know you worked with Simplified SEO and that really helped. So you’re probably going to get a lot of traffic that way. So I would keep really investing in your website, doing the regular blogging, doing the SEO on those, doing all your links, those types of things, because that’s where a lot of traffic comes from these days, even for a cash pay practice as well. And I think about you being a pastor, really maximizing your denomination to be able to connect with other pastors that are also Methodists and get referrals from churches in that way. Is that an area you’ve tapped into much at all?
[WILLIAM]
I have not tapped in as much, probably as much as I could. Hopefully that’d be something that we can actually look at it a little more, even as we start to go back in from COVID and even some of our meetings starting to get connected, but I have gotten some referrals for couples work from a couple of pastors I do know. So keeping in contact with them and possibly doing something maybe with some other pastors.
[WHITNEY]
Yes. That would be super helpful. And I will say, as a practice owner, as I’ve grown my group, I find more and more, I have got to take down my client load because I’m spending a lot more time attending meetings, meeting with people, talking to them about the practice. And so if your client loads too much, you’re not going to be able to go to any kind of meeting. So if there’s any kind of pastor organizations in your area or passengers are getting together for lunches or continuing education. Those would be places for you to hang out and get to know them and share about your practice.
[WILLIAM]
Yes. I liked that you said that because I do find that one of the limiting factors can be the client load. It’s interesting. I freak about it as I talk about it. You want to expand, you want to grow, but then at some point you’ve got to back away in order to maintain or build the systems or take care of the things to help you grow and have more people.
[WHITNEY]
That’s so true. And we even found that when we slow down is honestly when we get our most innovative ideas. So that’s kind of when we think about things that we want to do to move our practice forward. I actually just did an Instagram, a video this morning after my run, because I was like, “Wow, I have so much energy and so many good ideas.” It’s like when I get away from everything and slow down, even though I’m actually running, this is when I get those great ideas in my business. And I think as practice owners, especially in your face that you’re hiring your first people, you’re super busy, but it’s so important that you find those moments to step back and relax because that’s, when you’re going to get your best ideas, you’re going to get your best energy.

It also helps us like rethink about how we’re spending our time. Sometimes we just start doing, but for the sake of doing, because we think we have to. When we slow down, we start to look at our schedule and realize, “Wait, I really have to do all this.” Like just what you’re doing right now. “You know what? I don’t have to take insurance.” It’s okay. And so you’re taking that step back and evaluating that.
[WILLIAM]
Yup. Yup. Thank you so much for even sharing that because I do find that also I laugh when you talk about running. I don’t run. I walk, but I do that same thing where you sit back and as you’re sitting there, I like to call it meditating and praying while walking and different things come through and different ideas come through. I’m just being honest. There are lots of things I want to do. Like even as I envisioned faith and family empowerment, I don’t envision just counseling. I envision teaching and working may help marriages and families. You know, speaking and maybe eventually having curriculum or different things like that.
[WHITNEY]
Yes. I love that. And that’s on of the reasons that you’re starting a group practice is to be able to have other clinicians working at your practice so that it frees up your time to do something on the side while people are offering counseling in your area. It’s a really great thing.
[WILLIAM]
Yes.
[WHITNEY]
And so could you share for just a minute, you’ve been in two of my mastermind groups, so I’d love for you to kind of talk about one is what’s a mastermind like and kind of how it’s benefited you and your practice?
[WILLIAM]
Okay. Well, I love to say, first of all, the biggest thing I get from masterminds I’ll say is accountability and growth. We have a group of people who are trying to grow together and keeping us accountable. Specialized teaching, Whitney does a whole lot to encourage us and she talks about different things like we’re talking about today, about how to transition from insurance to private pay or steps you need to grow a group practice, how you do payroll, all of these different things. We talk about a lot and so I do think the mastermind has been worth the investment. This is my second one and it’s funny when I came into my first one, I still remember the discussion. It was, we were just getting through COVID and my caseload was starting to grow and I believe one of the people in the group, I think it might’ve been Scott who said, “William, you need to start a group practice.”

I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about growing an individual practice, but everything kind of took off. And so it was good there to be in there, to get my feet wet, to learn some things, even as I figured out how to do that. And so now just being in the second phase, taking more steps in doing that to have a group practice, one of the things that struck me about a group practice, and I think I’d gone to a business seminar like last year or year before and one of the things they talked about not just being a self-employed person, but trying to employ and help other people. I remember that actually struck me a little bit because even when I started, I didn’t even think about that before, but I thought about that again as I entered into your mastermind. So actually I’ve started with my daughter doing my admin work, but I’m looking forward to employing and helping other people as we work to help families together.
[WHITNEY]
Definitely. Well, you brought up so many great points. I love how you mentioned Scott, because he so good about just kind of preaching it and really telling you how it is and bringing the Lord into it. And that’s such a good component of the Faith in Practice mastermind is we all have God in the center of the work we’re doing. So we’re all really encouraging and we have strong relationships and we can really call each other out and make amazing progress. So that part is super cool. And yes, I actually, when I do talks about should you grow a group practice, that’s of the big things I talk about that we really don’t think about, yes, you are employing people that need jobs. And when I was getting my license, I had an associate level degree and I was out in Colorado, my girlfriend, helped me get a job at a private practice as a group therapist.

I was so grateful because then I wouldn’t have gotten to see clients and I wouldn’t have been employed in that way. And so we get to offer that gift to other people and that’s such an amazing thing. I mean, as a group practice owner, your most important people are your clinicians and your staff. And if you care well for them, they can have bigger impact in your community, and you see far more clients than you ever could, but your hand is still kind of in it. You still get to be a part of it as you invest in them and I think that’s a beautiful thing.
[WILLIAM]
Yes, it’s beautiful. It’s so powerful, I think also, just to think about going from one place over the years where you’ve been an employee to now being an employer. And then I think one of the things you’ve talked about a lot in the Faith in Practice mastermind is thinking about the culture you want. That is one of the things I’m actually looking at more and more and things that I enjoy in employers and some things that go with that part of that. And so trying to create that place where people can feel empowered and grow and feel connected.
[WHITNEY]
Yes. I love that. Well, William, I’m going to ask you what I ask everyone here at the end of the show. What do you believe that every Christian counselor needs to know?
[WILLIAM]
I would say two things. One, ultimately the Lord is guiding your steps. Your footsteps are ordered by the Lord so just trust in the process and trust in the Lord. The second thing I would say is be who you are because there is room for you as a Christian counselor, just talking about it and being, that’s one of the things that shows up in my SEO, who I am. I said, “I am a counselor. I am a person of faith.” And so a lot of people come to me because of that. Now that doesn’t mean I have to preach in the room because I don’t necessarily do that. I do good therapy work and work with people and different things like that but sometimes we pray together. Sometimes we might share scripture together. We don’t have to do that, but just know that there’s room for that, if that’s what the client needs. So be who God made you to be.
[WHITNEY]
Well, we are going to end it on that. I love it. Well, thank you so much For taking the time to share your wisdom with us and to come on the show and talk about the transition to a cash pay practice. And I can’t wait to hear about how that goes for you and watching your journey.
[WILLIAM]
Thank you so much for having me Whitney.
[WHITNEY]
Thank you for listening to the Faith in Practice podcast. If you love this podcast, please rate and review on iTunes or your favorite podcast player. If you liked this episode and want to know more, check out the Practice of the Practice website. Also there, you can learn more about me, options for working together, such as individual and in group consulting, or just shoot me an email, [email protected]. Would love to hear from you.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard 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.