My Journey in Providing Health Insurance to my Employees

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My passion within this field, as I am sure it is for many of you, is providing high-quality care.  When transitioning my solo practice into a group practice, I saw this same type of desire translate into providing a high-quality atmosphere for my employees to come to work.  (If you are considering expanding to a group practice, I recommend reading this article.)

My offerings

This came in the way of offering quarterly training, providing lunch at staff meetings. And ensuring every therapy room has a window and a plant. I also made sure to keep a clipboard in the supply room where any clinician can add to a list of needs for working with their clients, among others.  As you can imagine, transitioning from just a counselor to a boss was and still is a process I walk through daily.  For more support on this particular topic, check out this podcast.

Providing a quality work environment

Through the process of providing a quality work environment, one of the things I have implemented is quarterly workplace evaluations. In which the clinicians provide feedback on their experience as an employee. This includes things that are working well, areas of improvement, and desires for incentives.  One of the things I began hearing over and over was a desire to have health insurance.  This was a process I was not even close to knowing where to begin.  So there started my journey.

The start of my journey

First, I scoured the Facebook groups, obtaining any and all information I could from those that were in the process of offering or were already offering this incentive to their employees.  I also attempted to research laws and restrictions around this, as I realized there were different laws in place state by state-commence head turning and chin scratching.  Still pretty overwhelmed, I knew the next step would be to make an actual phone call.  But to who??  Insert more chin scratching and then I had an idea…

I reached out to my personal broker who helps us find the best auto and home insurance policies.  I asked him who to contact if I were to want to offer insurance to my employees.  He was quickly and easily able to refer me to a specific broker that does this exact thing.  I had one call with this broker and the rest was done via email.  Within a few emails, he was able to provide a list of options to offer my employees and guess what??  It was surprisingly affordable!

Needless to say, this process was way easier than I had ever imagined.

Through the entire journey, I have learned that the best thing you can do is to just start somewhere in taking action.  I finally stopped allowing fear to hold me back and dove into equipping myself with information to make the best decision for myself and my group practice.  I truly believe adding this incentive to my practice has allowed me the opportunity to retain my, already awesome, employees as well as draw in future high-quality candidates.

Angel Koenig is a Licensed Professional Counselor and owner of Mindful Counseling, PLLC in Denton, Texas.  She loves utilizing mindfulness into her practice with her clients, emphasizing the importance of being here now and treating self with kindness.  Angel has and continues to enjoy building her group private practice and helping others who are on the same path.