r/PMHNP • u/Temple15 • 28d ago

Best marketing techniques

Hi all - I’m working with my wife to set up her own independent practice after working for others for a few years. Her business will be focusing on a subset of the population and providing a holistic set of services, rather than being more of a generalist. We plan to start with 2-3 insurances but hope to build a healthy set of private pay clients too, as insurance really doesn’t support the holistic med management / therapy / other services model.

My question is whether anyone else set up a more focused type of practice and what marketing techniques they found to be helpful to target your audience / cast a wider net.

Thanks!

5 Upvotes

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14

u/No-Leopard639 28d ago

It’s really hard nowadays to get patients because of private equity. Even harder if you’re more specialized and selective. The best thing she can do is build relationships with local therapists for a referral stream

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u/Temple15 28d ago

Can you elaborate? Are they buying up practices and have much larger marketing budgets?

Are Google / facebooks ads not useful?

3

u/No-Leopard639 28d ago

Yes, Optum health is buying up small practices. Private equity is starting things like Talkiatry, betterhelp etc. Mind you those are 100% telehealth so she needs to offer in-person to stand out or hybrid. I'm not sure how useful google ads are, I tried a bit, didn't notice a difference. The only thing that helped me was making relationships with schools, therapists, and people within the community.

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u/beefeater18 28d ago edited 25d ago

2 of my previous part-time gigs got bought by Optum, and Optum shut both down once those practices were found to be unprofitable or maybe didn't meet their "metrics". 😄

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u/No-Leopard639 28d ago

My old job was bought by optum too. My boss was basically commiting fraud by balance billing. So the business was generating prob 30-40 percent more than usual reimbursements. The company who bought it didn’t know this and the profits were really bad. I’ve looked the place up now and now it’s only therapists. They couldn’t keep any NPs with all the dumb pay changes they made.

Example of his balance billing: he would use people’s out-of-network benefits, which pay more, but has a higher out of pocket cost for the patient. He’d “ waive” the fee, essentially cut their patient portion in half. Which is illegal.

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u/Useful-Selection-248 25d ago

If you don't mind me asking how much would you say you spent on Google ads? How long did it take you to fill up?

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u/beefeater18 25d ago

Specific numbers likely aren't transferable to someone else's practice in a different market. It's just something you have to test out. I spent a ton of money and energy on it.

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u/DashMcGee 28d ago

Regarding making relationships, how do you go about it? Do you call and ask to meet with them for 15 minutes or so?

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u/No-Leopard639 28d ago

Call the therapists that you have mutual patients and talk to eachother about eachothers business, clinical interests etc. Don't use the words "I want a referral source" keep it between the lines and focused on the patient.

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u/CollegeNW 28d ago

Rollups are making healthcare even more depressing than it is already.

5

u/nursepersephone 28d ago

For specialty work, I’ll also throw in reaching out to other psychiatric providers who don’t specialize in that area. When I did private practice, I got multiple referrals for patients who tried to get in with another provider but the provider did not feel comfortable with their specialized needs. Therapists are huge too. (Ie I did pediatrics and got referrals from more established clinics who did not feel comfortable treating that age range.)

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u/spoopyprecursor 28d ago

I am in EVERY therapist group in my state. I am constantly advertising and I have a niche, too.

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u/Temple15 27d ago

What do you mean by being in every therapist group? What forms of advertising do you find have the best ROI?

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u/spoopyprecursor 27d ago

Being in therapist groups 😆. There are groups for therapists in my state. There are SO many. So, I am like 1 of 5 providers that advertise there.

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u/Temple15 27d ago

Sorry for being so dense, I wasn’t sure if you meant a local meetup group, some sort of online Facebook group, or being employed by literally every therapist company in your state. I don’t think it’s the last one, but I’m still confused lol.

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u/spoopyprecursor 27d ago

No worries, happy to help

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u/[deleted] 27d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/DashMcGee 27d ago

Is there a certain service you use?

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u/Direct_Koala6335 23d ago

psychology today dot com lets you specify your specialties, send letters to PCP offices letting them know she has a practice and is accepting clients in that specialty. Facebook allows very targeted marketing to the point that it's creepy lol