Episode #618: Doctors' Offices, Workshops, & Naysayers - podcast episode cover

Episode #618: Doctors' Offices, Workshops, & Naysayers

Feb 05, 202518 min
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Episode description

Allison and Abundance Community member Holly create a plan to promote Holly's upcoming workshop, focusing on using Facebook ads and targeting referral coordinators. They also discuss Holly's frustration over negative feedback about her cash pay rates. This episode is also available to stream on our YouTube channel!

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Transcript

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm Allison from Abundance Practice Building. I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping therapists build sustainable, joy-filled private practices, just like I've done for tens of thousands of therapists across the world. I'm excited to help you too. If you want to fill your practice with ideal clients, we have loads of free resources and paid support.

Go to abundancepracticebuilding.com slash links. All right, on to the show. Some people aren't sending HIPAA-compliant email, and it's a problem. Even if you're paying for a business Google Workspace account and have a signed BAA, your emails still aren't 100% compliant. That's where Palbox comes in. You can connect Palbox to your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 email one time, and you're completely covered. No one has to sign into portals. It sends and it shows up like any other email.

Behind the scenes, Palbox software checks the security settings of the recipient and ensures that the email is sent properly, so you're not violating HIPAA in the ways you may accidentally be now. I know, HIPAA isn't sexy, but we don't avoid compliance in an abundant practice. We check the boxes we need to check, and this is the easiest way to do that with email. Check out my friends at palbox.com. That's P-A-U-B-O-X. Use code ABUNDANT to get $250 off your first year of Palbox.

That makes it less than $100 for your first year. Again, that's P-A-U-B-O-X .com. Use code ABUNDANT. So I've talked about therapy notes on here for years. I could talk about the features and the benefits in my sleep, but there are a couple of things I want you to know about therapy notes that doesn't typically make it into an ad script. First is that they actually care if you like their platform.

They don't only make themselves available on the phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your hair out when you get stuck. They also take member suggestions and implement those that there's client demand for, like therapy search, an included listing service that helps clients find you, internal and external secure messaging, clinical outcome measures to keep an eye on how your clients are progressing, a super smooth super bill process, real-time eligibility to check on your client's insurance.

In my conversations with the employees there at all levels, they all really believe in their product and they want you to love it too. Second, they are proudly independently owned. Why should you care about that? Because as soon as venture capital becomes involved, the focus shifts from making customers happy to making investors happy. Prices go way up, innovation plateaus, making more money with as little output as possible becomes the number one focus.

With over 100,000 therapists using their platform, they've been able to stay incredibly successful and they don't have to sacrifice your experience to stay there. You can try two months free at therapynotes .com with the coupon code abundant. Holly, how are you doing? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. What would be most helpful today? Oh, okay. So a couple of things, um, best way to network with doctors.

And I have a workshop that I've been preparing, but I'm like, ah, how do I market this? So I watched the Facebook ads. So I have a few questions about how to go about all of that as well. Awesome. Very cool. Okay. Well, let's start with, let's start with doctors. Cause that one's actually a pretty quick ish answer. You're unlikely to sit down for coffee with a primary care physician or a gynecologist or most of these kinds of docs.

You may get that with a psychiatrist or second P or psych PA, but for somebody like a PCP, what you're going to want to do is call and ask to talk to the referral coordinator. Okay. Most of the big offices have a referral coordinator. If they're not super big, then they might just be the front desk person. Okay. So I would have a little script in front of you so that you are brief because they really value brevity and just say like, I'm Holly. I work with some patients in your practice.

If you do, or I have heard about you, even if it's through the internet, you know, and I think we are likely to share some patients at some point, I'd love to find out how to get on your referral list. Okay. So I don't even need to be like, I'm a licensed professional counselor. I work with sexual issues. I think talking about, especially sexual issues, because so few therapists do, I think it would benefit you to say I'm a therapist who specializes in sexual dysfunction.

If we're going to go, like, if that's what you're specializing in, because we want to use the medical language. We want to use their language, even though we're like, you're not dysfunctional. So to just name it what they would name it, meet them where they're at. Okay. And yeah, just ask how to get on the referral list. Okay. And with that kind of specialty, it might also benefit you to offer to do a talk.

If it would ask them if it would be beneficial, like if there's anything that I could do to support your office around like education of the psych side of it, I'm happy to just let me know. Okay. And then if you do like a lunch and learn, like you could say like, I could do a lunch and learn if that would be good. You're more likely to get nurses in the room than doctors, but the nurses are the ones with the power and all of the healthcare anyway. So, right. They interact with the patients more.

Yeah. The time. Okay, cool. So let's talk about your workshop. Tell me all about it. So it's, um, I partnered with a company called Floria. They do CBD sex oil and it's for women who have pelvic floor pain. So mainly for like heterosexual women that struggle with like penetrative sex, that that's my focus. Got it. And so are you talking, like, are you promoting this oil in your workshop? Is it just like, they're helping fund you doing it?

Yeah. It's kind of just like a free little gift to give away, but also, you know, a solution. So we're going to be talking about different solutions to resolve the pain that they're experiencing during intercourse. And so it's a solution. And so they get to go home with a little sample and, you know, have something immediately that they could test out if they wanted to.

Okay. And is this more, this is like primarily more vaginismus presenting more perimenopause menopause presenting, like, does that, does everything work for both? All of the above. Yeah. All those things. So awesome. So is this catered more towards referral partners or towards potential clients? I would say like potential clients is what I'm hoping. Okay. How I'm hoping to cast the net. Okay. So we're going to pair this with your conversation with these doctors offices then.

Okay. Okay. And maybe like pelvic floor PTs. I'm trying to think of the other places that people are going, maybe acupuncturists, functional medicine folks. So I would yeah. Yeah. So let's say you're going to a gynecology office or you're calling a gynecology office. You could say like, I have a free workshop that you could refer clients to.

I can do it on site if that would be more comfortable for them and that works for y'all, or I could do it in this other place, but here are the primary points that we hit on. Okay. I'm happy to talk to one of the doctors about it if they want to vet it and are curious. Okay. Would you like a Facebook ad? Well, I don't know. Cause you know, Mark Zuckerberg just changed all the right rules in the past. The rules kind of sucked for you in some ways.

If you were going to try to talk about anything sexual in a Facebook ad, they wouldn't approve it. Right. So I guess there is one plus to him allowing all the bigotry. I think it would be worth testing. I might try boosting a post first because it's going to be less expensive and you're going to be able to, it's just less complicated than a Facebook ad. Facebook ads have changed so much over the years. They become like, you really need help. Like a doctor to understand them.

Yes. That's what I figured. And I'm just like, what I would do is I would create a post. I would create a few posts, see which does best. And then whichever one seems to get the most attention, I would run like a boost. I would boost that post. Okay. All right. And it's a lot cheaper to boost a post too. Okay. Is this an online workshop or is it an in-person workshop? I should ask that. I'm going to do it in person.

Yeah. There's some like really fun coffee shops that I can rent out a room, a space to make it laid back and more comfortable since it's a vulnerable topic. Right. So I'm thinking since it's going to be in a public space, it needs to be called something that the person isn't afraid to go to the barista and be like, I'm here for the blank meeting. Okay. Yeah. My vagina hurts meeting is probably not the one they want to. You sure? Okay. Maybe I'll call it the CBD.

But I don't want, cause they're not coming for CBD. They're coming for solutions. And if we don't want it to look like it's just one big advertisement for this other company. You're so I would call it something colon and then something specific to either the organ or sexual health or something like that. I can chat GPT and stuff too. Yeah. Yeah. That isn't like the first part of it. Something they'd say to the barista and the second part, really specific.

Let's let chappy chat, GPT do some of that. If I think of anything while we're talking, Yeah. So since this is about vaginal health or vaginal pain, I would target pelvic PTs. I would target PCPs, gynecologists and obstetricians, midwives. I'm sure that there's some people going to functional medicine docs who are struggling. I mean, the thing is like, it's because it's going from what we think of as typical, like sexual pain all the way through perimenopause and menopause.

They're just kind of natural thinning and drying. There's a broad expanse of places that you can market this in kind of the medical or allied fields. But I would also reach out to couples counselors and let them know about it. I would reach out to other sex therapists for sure. And I think, I really think the trickiest part is going to be the messaging because it is so vulnerable.

So going to a public space and like looking to your left and looking to your right and being like, everybody else has the same experience as me. And they know I have the same experience of them is both comforting and normalizing and also very vulnerable. So you might want to make some sort of rules like this is for people with vaginas only don't bring your husband or partner, that kind of a thing. Yeah. That's a good idea. I like that. Cool. Yeah. Good. Is there anything else I can help with?

Let's see. I don't know, maybe just like through networking, there's a lot of just like negative, I don't know, people out there that when they find out that your cash pay and the rate that you're charging. So maybe I just need a little pick me up. I'm just tired of like, there's been a lot of great people, but the negative ones, I don't know. It just kind of get you down a little bit more. Yeah. So what are they saying? The negative ones?

Oh, just like anybody that charges more than $200 is, you know, I just don't understand how like a therapist could charge that much money. That just doesn't seem ethical or okay. Yeah. I would never refer to somebody that charged that amount because I just know my patients can afford it. Those types of things. Yeah. Okay. Well now you have something you can say to them of like, totally get that. I periodically do these free workshops that may be helpful for some of your clients.

So you can be like, okay. Cause you're not going to, it's not going to work to argue with them, you know? And I love the arbitrary of like anybody who charges over this number, like this is the dividing line, which is like made up in their own head. Yes. And so is it touching on something inside you that worries that you shouldn't be charging your fee? No, because I feel like I've done a lot of work good around all of that stuff. And like life's getting more expensive.

I work hard a lot of the money and effort that I make, I put back into the populations that I treat. So yeah. I don't know. That's a, that's a good question though. I think it's okay that I, what I'm charging is unethical. It just gets a little bit draining. Yeah. Yeah. You've met with like three people in a week and they're all like, yeah. So I think maybe looking at it kind of like somebody who disagrees with you politically of like, oh, they don't get it.

We're not going to be aligned in the way we see this. Yeah. Yeah. Just not a good fit. And I would also look at how did you find these people and how do you stop finding them? You know, what is it that drew you to them? And was it the same referral source? Was it like psychology today? So seeing how do you get more targeted with who you're networking with, with the people who like, they don't have to be private pay, but they need to not be shaming. Right.

Yeah. The shaming piece says enough about them. You probably wouldn't want to refer to them anyway. Yeah, no, no, absolutely not. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cause it's interesting because I've met with some providers that take insurance and they're really cool. And then others that, you know, aren't so right. And I will say I worked with so many people who are like, there was a time when I was that shamy therapist. I just like, I hadn't done my work around it.

I didn't realize there was work to do around it. Yeah. And that's not to say that anybody who takes insurance hasn't done the work or that all the people who are private pay have, it's just that the shaming piece is an indication that work hasn't been done. Right. Being offended by somebody's rate is an indication that work needs to be done or could be done. Nobody needs to do work, but not mine. Don't exactly refer to them.

Yeah. Yeah. Because like, I would love for them to at the very least consider like, maybe they could have this too. And that's probably some of the insurance therapists that you're talking to maybe like, Oh, wow. Like that would be really cool to be able to do that. Like you might be an inspiration to them on some level, even if they're not ready to take action. Right. Right. Yeah. I hope so.

Because I think, you know, like everybody in your community that you've created is, we deserve better and insurance is not going to give that to us. So yeah. And some people are like, I really want to stay on insurance, but they're doing it out of, it's not out of fear that they can't do it otherwise. Exactly. And they're not judging other people for their decisions around their business because that's just weird. Yeah. It is.

Yeah. I don't know what my, why I have to charge the rate that I charge. Yeah. I get it though. Getting these messages subtle or otherwise that you're doing something wrong. Right. It doesn't feel good. And that's where like coming in the Facebook group and like being around the people who get it can help calling your buddies who are also private pay can help. Right. Right. Yeah. Community. It can make a sick or it can make as well. Totally. 100%. Okay. That's really helpful.

And that's, that's all I have. Amazing. Well, it's great talking with you. Yeah. You too. Have a good rest of your week day. Thanks. Take care. Bye. Bye. Practice therapy notes is the way to go. Go to therapy notes.com and use the promo code abundant for two months free.

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