Doc Warren

One of the most common questions I get when I am lecturing on private practice related issues pertains to marketing. Many folks appear to think that they need a budget the size of Wal-Mart or Home Depot in order to “break into” the business of therapy in their area. The truth is that it is not the size of the marketing budget but the quality of the plan that makes the most impact on a new practice.

“So you’re a shrink huh?” “You just talk all day and get paid for it? Man, what a racket.” “As a (hairdresser, bartender, cab driver, street vendor or street walker) we really do the same job because people tell me their problems all day long.”

As I write this I am looking out of my office window at a pile of snow that I am quite sure was once a park bench where a client’s father regularly fed his infant just a few months ago. Today the bench and the garden area that surrounds it are just an endless sea of white with some green poking out from the arborvitaes. Ice is dropping from the office roof, from the trees and I am wearing the knee brace that was a gift from a recent fall. Winter can be harsh in New England to be sure. While I watch the rose bush in the garden sway in the breeze, still encapsulated in ice, I think of what this area will look like just a few months from now when the ice and snow are gone and the energy from the once frozen water has started to reinvigorate that bush and new growth emerges.

I am old fashioned to be sure. My office is filled with Mission Style furniture and Barrister bookcases and though parts of the building are about 15 years old, I designed, built and decorated it as if it could have been built in the 1920’s when the street was first designed. I even put furring strips on selected roof rafters to give it the appearance of the roof settling with “age.” My wife often teases me that I am the only person on the planet that still uses the term “telephonic communication” when making a note on a phone call.

“I can’t wait until I open my private practice and never have to do paperwork again!” There are many misconceptions about opening a private practice but this one in perhaps the biggest. Paperwork is the arch enemy of many a clinician but sad to say, going into private practice will do little to solve them. Now don’t get me wrong, I have less paperwork in private (ok, small not for profit) practice than I ever did before but I still have my share. Although I no longer have to do an expense report (because no one will pay me back for it anyway), I no longer have to do a mileage report, quarterly reports etc. Private practice still has many paperwork related items.