Private Pay Practitioners Premium Podcast

This week I sat down with Katie McKenna, a licensed psychotherapist and master's level nutritionist with over 22 years of experience based in Seattle. Katie specializes in eating disorders, chronic illness, anxiety, and trauma. She also integrates nutrition, the nervous system, and the body-mind connection into her clinical work because she believes talk therapy alone is not enough. Katie has been...

This week I sat down with Shimon Cohen, a licensed clinical social worker, trauma therapist, and creator of Doin' The Work, a continuing education platform for social workers and helping professionals doing justice-centered work. Shimon is in the middle of the transition. He is on Headway and Alma, he knows he wants to be strictly private pay by 2027, and he is doing the work to get there. We talk...

I sat down with Kyle Harwick, a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of Next Wave Counseling in Newport Beach, California. Kyle specializes in working with men navigating stress, anxiety, and the pressure of everyday life. He is also one of the most relational clinicians I have had on this show. We talked about how he built a full private pay caseload before he even got fully license...

This week I sat down with Joshua Robinson, a Navy veteran, licensed clinical social worker, doctoral candidate, and founder of Stillwater Counseling. Josh is building a private pay practice across five states while working full-time as a psychotherapist at the VA, finishing a doctorate on workforce burnout, and teaching at Florida State. He came in with a lot of ideas and a lot of fear. We got int...

LCSW. LPC. EMDR-trained. IFS Level 2. You worked hard for every single one of those credentials. But if they're the first thing people see when they land on your profile, you may be losing clients before they even read the next line. In this minisode, I break down why leading with credentials is costing you connections, what your ideal client is actually looking for, and what to put first instead....

This week's episode is one I've been wanting to do for a while. And I'm making it free for everyone from day one because this conversation needs to be heard. I put together a roundtable of four male clinicians who are all doing meaningful work with men and couples in private pay, and we got into all of it. Where this work comes from, why men are still underrepresented in the therapy room on both s...

You have five seconds. That's how long someone stays on your homepage before deciding whether to keep reading or leave. In this minisode, I break down the three questions every therapist website needs to answer immediately, why most homepages fail the test, and how to find out if yours is one of them. If your homepage opens with a forest photo, a candle, or a Rumi quote, this one's for you.

Tonight's episode is live and this one is going to make you think. Dr. Brian J. Dixon is a psychiatrist out of Fort Worth, Texas, who has been direct pay since day one. No insurance. Never. He started in 2014 after being called into HR for calling out his medical director, put in his notice, built a Wix website, and his first patient handed him a $250 check. He said it was off to the races ever si...

This one might sting a little. In this minisode I'm talking about one of the patterns I see most in therapists -- deciding on behalf of your clients what they can afford before they ever have the chance to tell you themselves. That's not generosity. That's codependency wearing a helper costume. We get into where it comes from, how it shows up in your pricing decisions, and what to do instead. It's...

Dr. Darius Fathi is a licensed clinical and sports psychologist running a concierge-style private pay practice in Jupiter, Florida. He moved there in 2024 with a 3-month-old, left his behavioral health director role, and had to build fast in one of the most saturated therapy markets in the country. Here's what we got into: What concierge therapy actually means and how it's different from just bein...

Tonight's episode is live. Keren Khait Goldenberg joined me to talk about building a boutique private pay practice with three associates in LA, leaving the VC platforms behind, and what happens when you break your own boundaries with clients. We also got into the sliding scale vs. reduced rate conversation, how she structures her associate model, and what it actually looks like to wear every singl...

I sat down with Dr. Sheena Horsford, a licensed couple and family therapist in Virginia who went full private pay in September. Dr. Sheena has a doctorate - and insurance paid her at a master's level rate. Started at $80. Got up to $130 by the end. And when she added another person to the room for couples or family work? The rate went DOWN to $65. She lost 90% of her clients when she made the swit...

I am feeling so good this week that I am dropping ANOTHER BONUS! I sat down with my dear friend and play cousin Renelle Nelson, a licensed marriage and family therapist, AASECT certified sex therapist, and infidelity recovery coach in Arizona and Wisconsin. Renelle is Black history. First African American AASECT-certified sex therapist in both Wisconsin AND Arizona. And she had to stay ready with...

This week I went live with Karen Conlon, therapist turned coach, author, and host of the brand new Emotionally Wealthy podcast. Karen spent 20+ years in corporate sales before becoming a therapist. She built a group practice in NYC (7 therapists at its peak), specialized in psychogastroenterology (gut-brain connection), and eventually closed it two years ago due to burnout. Now she does coaching,...

Natalie Milom and I have been friends in the private pay circle for a minute, and I finally got her on the show. Natalie runs Potential Realized, a group practice in the Atlanta area, and she's licensed in Georgia, California, Indiana, Vermont, Florida, and South Carolina. She's a certified EMDR therapist and consultant, certified EFT couples therapist and supervisor candidate, and a TBRI practiti...

Rachel Bentley jumped on last minute when my scheduled guest got sick, and I'm glad she did. Rachel owns COR Counseling in Michigan - a group practice that grew from 3 therapists sharing one crappy office to 35-40 clinicians serving about 1,000 clients. She also runs Next Level Private Practice, her consulting company, and hosted a summit last fall with 120 attendees and 30 speakers. She started t...

I keep seeing therapists spread themselves thin trying to post on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Threads, whatever new thing just launched. You don't need to be everywhere. You need to be where your people are - consistently. Pick one. Maybe two. Get good at it. Let the rest go. DJ

This week I sat down with Ingrid Johnston, a marriage and family therapist in Washington State who's been in private practice for almost 10 years. Ingrid had a decade of steady growth. Then she took a 3-month sabbatical after burnout - and when she came back, she just... coasted. Didn't put energy back into the business. Didn't market. Didn't realize the landscape had changed. By 2025, her caseloa...

This week I sat down with Inna Zusman, a bilingual couple and family therapist in Maryland who specializes in multicultural relationships. Inna came back to therapy after 20+ years in corporate HR. She'd been recruiting therapists for years, so when she decided to make the switch, she treated it like a business decision - not a dream. We got into: Her idea to give discounts to clients who stayed l...

Tiffany Castellanos has been in private practice since 2009, but everything changed when her husband became disabled and she became the primary breadwinner. Add in clawback horror stories from colleagues, and she knew it was time to drop the insurance panels. Now practicing from Madrid, Spain (yes, legally - we get into that), Tiffany is building something unique: a practice serving expats navigat...

This week I sat down with Michele Tulk, a psychiatric nurse practitioner running a solo private pay telehealth practice in Washington state. Michele's path: stocking shelves at Target, pharmacy tech, CNA, RN in the ICU and ER for years, then psych NP on a specialized inpatient PTSD unit at the VA. She started her private practice in 2018 as a side gig while working full-time at the VA, working 65...

Private Pay Isn't a Dream. It's a Decision. This one is short and direct. Every day I see therapists who treat private pay like a wish - hoping clients will show up, hoping the numbers will work out, hoping it gets easier. Hope is not a strategy. Private pay works when you stop waiting for permission and start building with intention. It works when you treat it like the business decision it is. Yo...

This week I sat down with Anna Cimburek, a palliative care and hospice social worker turned grief therapist. Anna's dad died from pancreatic cancer in 2011 - 7 weeks from diagnosis to death. She was 27 and couldn't find any literature on adult child loss. That experience eventually led her to hospice social work, where she spent 4.5 years doing inpatient end-of-life care. After her brother also di...

This week I sat down with Steffeny Feld to talk about intensives - what they are, who they're for, and what therapists get wrong about them. Steffeny started her practice during COVID and never touched insurance. A friend connected her with a business coach who said "you don't need to get on any panels" - even her clinical supervisor thought it sounded "sus." But it worked. She went from weekly se...

This one's for everyone who's been spinning on the niche question. You don't need to have it all figured out. You don't need to pick the "perfect" niche. You just need to start somewhere. In this minisode, I break down how to approach niche selection without the spiral. Still stuck? I'm now offering Niche Positioning Reports. You tell me your niche, state, rates, and income goals - I send you a pe...