Private Practice Success Stories

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Opening a Specialty Practice + Multiple Streams of Income with Sydney Bassard Mar 07, 2022

Show notes

Many new SLPs hold back from starting their own private practice because they don’t believe they have enough experience to venture off on their own, but that isn’t true!

You can start your private practice as soon as you have something to bring to the table. Specializing is a great way to increase your referrals and find success sooner, even if you are a new SLP.

In this episode, I sat down with Sydney Bassard to talk about how she started her own private practice that focuses on deaf and hard-of-hearing children and literacy early on in her career and how she created multiple streams of income to increase her success.

Sydney knows that she can run her private practice in whatever way works for her. She is a multi-passionate person and is using her private practice as a way to focus on more than just one of them.

Sydney Bassard is a private practice SLP in Charlotte, NC. She graduated with her B.S. in Public Health in 2017 and her MSP in Speech Pathology in 2019. Sydney received both her degrees from The University of South Carolina.

Prior to opening her own private practice, Sydney worked in outpatient pediatrics as a member of the cochlear implant team. Her private practice, The Listening SLP, LLC, is founded on the principles to "Listen.Learn.Advocate" with the clients and families she serves.

She is enjoys sharing strategies for incorporating language and literacy throughout daily routines via @thelisteningslp on Instagram and Facebook. Outside of being an SLP, Sydney enjoys digital content creation, hiking, enjoying time with friends and families, and spoiling her dog, Kinsley.

In Today's Episode, We Discuss:

How Sydney decided it was time to start her private practice
The benefits of specializing
Why you don’t need decades of experience to start your private practice
The importance of continuing education when you have a private practice
The benefits of creating multiple streams of income
Branching out with teletherapy

Life is short, so we need to be doing things that we love to do, that we are fulfilled by, and that are providing a service. Starting a private practice is a great way to create the career of your dreams, just like Sydney did.

If you are interested in hearing more from Sydney, I highly recommend you follow her on Instagram for inspiration and tips.

Want help to start your own private practice? Spring Enrollment for The Start Your Private Practice is coming up so let's get you on the waitlist!

Resources Mentioned:

Join the Waitlist

Visit Sydney’s website

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Check out Mallory’s courses

Offering Pediatric Feeding Therapy and Parent Coaching with Mallory Millet Feb 28, 2022

Show notes

Have you ever wanted to offer a specialty service?

When you start your own private practice, you have the freedom to create the job of your dreams for yourself. If you are passionate about a certain service or population, make that your specialty! This helps you become known as “the one” to go to for that service so you can put your business on the fast track for success.

My guest in this episode of Private Practice Success Stories is Mallory Millet, a Start Your Private Practice student. Mallory is a speech therapist who carved out a niche for herself based on her passion and where she saw a need.

Mallory Millet is a Speech Pathologist who specializes in pediatric feeding disorders. Her focuses include infant reflux, infant oral development, and bottle feeding. Through her professional work, and with a lack of support during her own babies’ feeding journeys, she created The Feeding Mom. It is here that she provides in-person and virtual support to empower parents through their feeding journeys locally and around the world. Her philosophy is: every parent deserves to love feeding their baby.

In Today's Episode, We Discuss:

Mallory’s journey to starting a private practice
How specializing can help you grow
The importance of referral marketing and social media marketing
The benefits of parent coaching and how to add it to your services
Other things you can offer in addition to therapy in your private practice
How to price your services and when to raise your prices

I love how Mallory created a really unique space for herself by offering both pediatric feeding therapy and parent coaching. So many SLP’s and OTs say that they miss collaborating with parents in schools. With your own private practice, you have the freedom to add parent coaching if it is something that you are passionate about.

There is no one way to run your private practice. You are in charge of what you offer and what you don’t!

Want to learn how to offer your own private therapy services just like Mallory? Join the waitlist for the Start Your Private Practice Program so you can sign up during Spring Enrollment.

Resources Mentioned:

Visit Mallory’s website

Follow Mallory on Instagram

Where We Can Connect:

Check out Ana-Maria’s website

Increasing Access to Services for Bilingual Populations with Ana-Maria Jaramillo Feb 21, 2022

Show notes

Have you ever felt called to start a private practice that serves the underserved populations in your community?

Some of my most successful Start Your Private Practice students are bilingual and have started their private practice to serve linguistically diverse populations. This population often faces a long waitlist for bilingual service providers. They are in desperate need of people like you!

In today’s episode of Private Practice Success Stories, I sat down with one of my Start Your Private Practice students, Ana-Maria Jaramillo, to talk about how she decided to start her own private practice for the bilingual community and drastically increased her impact while also increasing her income.

Ana-Maria Jaramillo, M.S., CCC-SLP is a nationally-certified bilingual pediatric integrative speech-language pathologist with extensive experience providing speech-langauge therapy to children ages birth to 18.

She is the owner and founder of Voz Speech Therapy, a private practice that provides individualized services in English and Spanish in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Her area of specialty is working with children in early intervention, ages one to six years old, with autism spectrum disorders, orofacial myofunctional disorders, oral-motor disorders, expressive/receptive language disorders, learning disabilities, fluency disorders, social language impairments, and articulation disorders.

She graduated cum laude in 2013 with a Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and obtained her bachelor’s degree in child psychology and sociology from Saint Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. She currently serves as an adjunct professor at NYU and is pursuing a clinical doctorate in speech-language pathology from Northwestern University.

When she isn’t treating patients, Ana-Maria is actively speaking at local high schools and offering webinars on ways to diversify the field of speech-langauge pathology through her organization DiverCity SLP.

In Today's Episode, We Discuss:

Why Ana-Maria decided to start a bilingual practice
Why you don’t need tons of money to start your practice
How Ana-Maria transitioned from a mobile private practice to a brick and mortar setting
The power of in-person networking
Why when you’re truly ready, the people will come
How Ana-Maria is using her expertise to increase diversity in the field

Ana-Maria is such a powerhouse and she is a great example of the incredible things you can accomplish and the impact you can make if you set your mind to it. Starting your own private practice can open the doors for you to do the things you’re really passionate about.

Want to start your own private practice serving underserved populations? Make sure you get on the waitlist for The Start Your Private Practice Program for when we re-open in the Spring!

Resources Mentioned:

Follow Ana-Maria on Instagram

Where We Can Connect:

Follow Medicare for SLP’s on Instagram

Mastering Medicare with Katie Brown Feb 14, 2022

Show notes

For SLP’s who focus on adult care in their private practices, one of the most important things to learn is Medicare. Many of our adult patients utilize it to pay for the care they need.

But how do you set it up for your private practice?

In this episode of Private Practice Success Stories, I sat down with one of my Start Your Private Practice students, Katie Brown, to talk about Medicare in the private practice setting. Katie runs her own practice for adult patients which has given her a lot of experience and knowledge on taking Medicare payments.

Billing Medicare can be scary for SLP’s. We have all been there! Katie is making it easier than ever for SLP’s to get enrolled, learn how to bill properly, and document their services through her new program Mastering Medicare for SLP’s.

Katie Brown, MA, CCC-SLP, CBIS is a speech-language pathologist and certified brain injury specialist practicing in Buffalo, NY. She owns a private practice called Neuro Speech Solutions which specializes in therapy for adults with neurogenic communication and cognitive disorders. Katie is passionate about providing meaningful, functional therapy to those with aphasia and cognitive impairments related to stroke and TBI.

Outside of her private practice, Katie is active in the SLP community. She is an advocate for person-centered care and creates digital materials aiming to help other medical SLPs feel more confident in providing personally relevant therapy. Katie is a mentor for the Start Your Private Practice Program and an SLP consultant for the aphasia app company, Tactus Therapy. She volunteers for several non-profits and provides a monthly workshop for brain injury survivors.

In Today's Episode, We Discuss:

What is included in Katie’s Medicare program
What mistakes to watch out for when applying for Medicare
Why it’s okay if a claim gets denied and what to do if it does
How long the process of getting everything set up takes
Why Katie’s course will work for you even if you are already seeing Medicare clients
The cost of inaction in your business

We need more private practices out there that will accept Medicare. Katie is a phenomenal example of taking action. The more you delay figuring out Medicare, the more you and your patients will miss out. There’s no better time than now to get started!

Want to join Katie Brown's Master Medicare for SLPs Program? I am a proud affiliate and have a Coupon Code to save you some money. Use this link to register with the special coupon code.

Resources Mentioned:

Master Medicare For SLPs

Follow Katie on Instagram

Join the Medicare For SLP's Facebook group

Neuro Speech Solutions

Where We Can Connect:

Free Training: How to Start Your Speech Therapy Private Practice

Meet Adult Medical and Specialist Private Practitioners Feb 07, 2022

Show notes

This is a very special episode of Private Practice Success Stories!

This is part two of a Student Success series I did where you’ll hear from three SLPs who have successfully started Adult medical-focused private practices and three SLPs who have started specialty or bilingual practices full-time or “on the side.”

Sometimes hearing the stories and successes of others is just the jolt of inspiration you need to get the ball rolling in your own private practice. This episode is meant to inspire you and show you real-life examples of people who have really done it and are out there running their own successful private practices.

Can you have an adult-only practice? The answer is YES! These students are proof of that. They started their private practice without any previous business experience and without learning about private practices in grad school. That means that you can do the exact same thing.

In Today's Episode, We Discuss:

Reasons why medical-based SLPs become interested in starting private practices
The impact mentors had on me and my practice
Why I cover Medicare in The Start Your Private Practice System
Interviews with 6 of my students from the course

Just because the speech industry is mostly dominated by pediatric services doesn’t mean you can’t find plenty of success working with adults only if that is what you are passionate about. There are so many adults in your area that are desperately searching for someone like you!

I hope that you enjoyed hearing from Adult Medical and Specialist Private Practitioners! After listening to their stories, do you see what is possible for you too?

If you want to learn the ins and outs of private practice before jumping in, come to my free, on-demand training to learn the steps to get started and major mistakes to avoid.

Resources Mentioned:

Where We Can Connect: