Critical Questions – Part 1 with Brandon Shurn

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Practice of the Practice: Grow a Group Practice Podcast

Practice of the Practice Network

296 episodes

2 days ago

Andrew Burdette founded Mindful Counseling PLLC in Asheville, NC, shortly after completing his graduate program in clinical mental health counseling. At the start of the pandemic, he pivoted to an online solo practice, and in 2022, began to grow a group practice.

Andrew joined the Practice of the Practice Team in 2023. In this podcast, Andrew will be focusing around all things group practice, from just getting started to growing and scaling to fine tuning your systems and team. In this podcast you will hear about the nuts and bolts of how things work and some perspective on how to do it well from experts in the field.

All content for Practice of the Practice: Grow a Group Practice Podcast is the property of Practice of the Practice Network and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Critical Questions – Part 1 with Brandon Shurn | GP 293

Practice of the Practice: Grow a Group Practice Podcast

26 minutes 22 seconds

1 month ago

Critical Questions – Part 1 with Brandon Shurn | GP 293

How do you decide who to bring into your practice when you’re ready to expand? What are the pros and cons of working with provisionally licensed clinicians? Why is clarity so important before making your first recruitment decision?
In this podcast episode, Brandon Shurn offers you critical questions to answer on expanding your practice.

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In This Podcast

* Who do I want to recruit?
* The benefit of working with a provisionally licensed clinician
* Take some action

Who do I want to recruit?

Who do I want to recruit?

I say “recruit” as opposed to “hire” because there are many ways [to] expand without necessarily hiring or bringing someone on board as an employee. (Brandon Shurn)

You can grow your solo practice into a group practice, or you can build your solo practice out into a larger business.
The 1099 and W2 approaches are most common. Whichever system you choose will matter because it offers different ways to integrate these new staff members into the business.
You can also consider hiring interns who are provisionally licensed or fully licensed clinicians, depending on your preferences and what you want to offer your community.

There is no right or wrong, it’s all about what you are wanting to do in your practice, and how you want to expand your practice. (Brandon Shurn)

The benefit of working with a provisionally licensed clinician
Depending on which option you choose, if you want to recruit people to grow your practice, you can work with different benefits and some downsides.
For example, if you recruit interns, the contract only extends to the point that their program at the university is complete.
Therefore, their time with you is relatively short.
However, the benefit of working with interns is that once they get used to working with you during their internship, they may come back to your practice for a full-time job after they graduate.

In Maryland, they’ve got to do at least two more years of postgraduate [work], I know that if I can get a person as an intern, really train them up, immerse them, and mentor them, and then they stay on board with my practice, I’ll have three years to really shape the way this clinician will show up. (Brandon Shurn)

Take some action
Take some action by exploring the options that you have available to you when it comes to recruiting people into your practice:

Reflect on your license and how it differs from others
What do you know about other licenses?
How comfortable are you helping other licensed people navigate working in your practice?
Consider the potential downsides as well as the benefits

You want to explore this, and [remember] there is no right or wrong answer, it’s just about being clear, and if you do not consider who you want to recr...