Takeaways:

• The hybrid private practice model allows service providers to combine traditional private practice with school contracts, enhancing revenue opportunities.
• Establishing school contracts can serve as a quick revenue builder, potentially generating significant income while building a private practice caseload.
• School contracts can supplement a growing caseload, providing income stability without requiring full-time commitment from the provider.
• The dual revenue streams from private practice and school contracts can offset seasonal fluctuations in income, ensuring consistent earnings throughout the year.
• For niche providers, school contracts can offer opportunities to specialize and monetize their expertise in specific areas, like AAC or bilingual services.
• Exploring various types of school contracts, such as virtual or FMLA coverage, can diversify revenue streams and adapt to individual business needs.

Links referenced in this episode:

• www.thetherapistsupportnetwork.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Therapist Support Network

Transcript:

00:00:02 .320 - 00:19:05 .410

Welcome to beyond the Big Agencies, the podcast for SLPs, OTs, PTs and related service providers who want to work with schools, but not for them.

I'm Elise Mitchell, an slp, a school contracting coach, and the owner of the Therapist Support Network, here to help you take control of your career, do what you love and build a sustainable practice on your terms. Because school staffing should be left to the professionals. Let's dig in.

Foreign hi guys, it is Elise and thank you so much for joining me today for another episode of beyond the Big Agencies.

I am really excited for this topic and this topic is inspired by an increase in questions that I'm getting, which is what is the hybrid private practice? How is the hybrid private practice beneficial and is this a direction that I should take my business?

So we're going to dive into the pros and the perks of combining your more traditional private practice model with school contracts and having multiple revenue streams. All right, so let's go ahead and first define what do I mean by the hybrid private practice when I use this expression?

I mean you have a standard private practice. You can either accept insurance or not. That's not my area of strength. So that's all I'm going to say about that.

I am exclusive to school contracting, so where my expertise will support on this topic is discussing how school contracts can really wiggle into your private practice, if you will, and support your private practice goals and your growth. And I'm going to discuss the perks of having this second revenue stream, what that could do for your business.

Let's go ahead and just get right into it.

So, so the perks of adding on school contracts to your private practice, why this is a topic that people are talking about and how this can support your business growth. So number one, the reason why I love adding on school contracts to your offerings is a quick revenue builder.

This is really for those of you who want to start a private practice and as you know, it just takes a bit to build your caseload.

However, with school contracts you can get one contract and have enough for a full time income, depending on your goals, depending on how large that contract is, etc. So establishing a school contract can be a significant boost to your income while you build up that private practice caseload.

So let's say a full time school contract has the potential to gross. I mean most of them gross over a hundred thousand.

Depending on the territories you're in, it can gross 120, 150, whatever, and that will go towards your business revenue. So even if you choose to staff it out. Right? You're listening to this and you're like, well, no, my private practice is already at full time capacity.

I can't take on a school contract too.

If you decide to staff this out, if you take away your provider's cost and taxes, et cetera, you could still get 20 to $30,000 of revenue added to your pocket from the school contract, even though you're not serving it yourself. So school contracts tend to build revenue quicker than private practice because it's, it's not exactly a B2B. Okay, so quick pause in the discussion.

I'm going to touch on some sales terms. So B2C sales are business to consumer and that's what you typically have in private practice, right?

You are a provider that is selling your services to, to either a caregiver for the loved one or an adult that wants a certain type of therapy. So that's B2C sales and that's beautiful and that's fun, but it is slower, right?

And schools, technically it's a, it's a little weird to word them this way, but technically schools are a B2B sales, meaning you are a business selling your service to another business, even though schools aren't businesses. Just roll with me here so you don't have to go and find the caregivers of all those students on the case list.

You, you essentially sell yourself to a school and they assign 40 students to you.

So because of that, the revenue tends to come quicker and you can go quote unquote, full time in your business sooner if you add on school contracts, if that's a goal, or if you're someone that just wants to get your business revenue to a certain point, like 500,000 or a million, adding on school contracts will typically get you there quicker than those sort of B2C sales. So pro number one is it's a quicker revenue builder than your standard private practice model.

Which brings me to point two, and I touched on that already, is school contracting can help supplement a building a building caseload.

So if you are someone that is still building your private practice, it can be exhausting to be building your private practice plus working the job you need for your income. Right? Especially when, and I remember this, I was a business owner and I was working for someone else.

I just didn't have the same passion for working for someone else anymore.

And so it can be really hard to have your business, your baby that you're building out and you're spending your time there and then you're also working A full time job for someone else or even a part time job for someone else.

If you do have that caseload that you are building up, and maybe you're a niche provider or whatever and it's just taking time or you're waiting to get credentialed with insurance, you can grab a school contract for that other part. And these don't have to be full time commitments.

There are many school contracts out there that are caseload overflow or just the students on service plans or for whatever reason. You know, it's a small school district, you can have, you know, two days a week with a local charter school while you build your caseload.

And many school contracts are annual. There are some that are three year. They're becoming more common, particularly in our northern states. But many school contracts are annual.

And so if you're like, ah, Elise, I really don't want to see students though. I want this beautiful AAC exclusive private practice. I love that for you, this doesn't have to be a commitment.

And maybe next year your private practice will have enough of a wait list or enough of a caseload that you could stop that school contract and you can make the choice choice to hire another provider for that school contract. So you keep revenue coming from that without spending your time doing something that you don't genuinely love.

So perk two with a hybrid model is that you can supplement a building caseload while your business grows. All right, perk three, and I love this about the hybrid model is the two.

So this is more for a pediatric private practice, but the two tend to offset each other with slow times. So with most of our school contracts, unless you have an annual school, when is the slow time when you don't get money? The summer and breaks.

Private practice, on the other hand, particularly pediatric private practices, when is there slow time when school starts back up. So seasonal fluctuations can be challenging for both. I personally take my summers off as a contractor, but that isn't something that everyone wants.

Not everyone wants to go those months with no pay. So those seasonal fluctuations can be challenging. However, they complement each other.

So when private practice referrals really peak in the summer, school services typically pause every now and then. You have esy, but that's usually not a full amount.

And then conversely, if you dip, if you experience a dip in private clients during the fall, they go back to school. School, school contracts can really fill that gap. So these two models can help provide revenue throughout the year, which I just think is wonderful.

Right? You can have that consistent revenue coming in, which is a challenge for any business owner.

And so I like how these two really play to each other in regards to scheduling. Okay, the next perk that I'm going to talk about is for niche providers. And it's funny, I say niche. Some pe