OTS 27: How To Start Seeing Clients On the Side, Featuring Scott Harmon
- Jayson Davies
- Apr 1, 2019
- 38 min read
Updated: Apr 29
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 27 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
Have you ever thought about seeing clients on the weekends or maybe during summer? Do you have a dream to be your own boss? If so, this episode is for you. In episode 27, Jayson interviews Scott Harmon, OTR/L, on how to start a therapy practice from the ground up. We talk about why many therapists turn to starting their own practice, as well as some of the practical steps you can start with if you want to do the same thing.
Scott owns two of his own private OT, Speech, and PT clinics for many years now and he now shares his wisdom via the Start A Therapy Practice Podcast, the StartATherapyPractice.com website, and The Academy of Private Practice.
Listen in to learn more about how Scott started his practice and how he recommends you start as a school-based OT.
Links to Show References:
Quick reminder: Links below may be affiliate links. Affiliate links benefit the OT Schoolhouse at no additional cost to you
The below references were mentioned throughout Episode 27
Start a Therapy Practice Website (Special page just for the OT Schoolhouse Community)
Use Promo Code "otschoolhouse" to get $100 off your access to the Academy of Private Practice!
The Academy of Private Practice
This is Scott's advanced paid course that is guaranteed to help you start your own private practice! (Use Promo code "otschoolhouse" for $100 off)
Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs.
Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
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Episode Transcript
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Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Hey everyone. Welcome to episode number 27 of the OT school house podcast. My name is Jayson Davies, and I am your host, and let's get this podcast started off right, because it is April 2, it is ot month. So also summer is right around the corner. We're only a few months away from that as well. So we got a lot to celebrate today, this month, going forward, everything's looking good. I hope you all are having a great start to your April and that everything's just going wonderful at your schools. In fact, I actually want to kind of give a little call to action. I want to see what you all are doing for ot month. I'm putting together a few things that you'll see throughout the month on Instagram, but I also want to see what you're doing, so tag me in a picture on Snapchat, or, sorry, not Snapchat. I don't use Snapchat. Tag me a picture on Instagram or maybe Facebook. Let us know what you're doing. I'd love to see if you're putting any flyers up, or if you're doing any little events on campus, or maybe on a college campus, you're doing something if you're a student. I'd love to hear it, love to see about or, wow, I can't even say that, right? I'd love to see it, or love to hear about it, that'd be really cool to see. Today we're doing something a little bit different. So I first want to say thank you for clicking to press play on this episode. I know the title's a little different than some of the other titles we've had. You know, we just had two really great podcasts on sensory integration, and now we're going to kind of turn the corner a little bit like I said, this is ot month, and summer's coming up, right around the corner. And so for some of you that may be interested in having your own, you know, either not necessarily a full clinic, but you know, see a few, a few patients on the side, or something, this is going to be the perfect podcast for you today. Today we have on special guest Scott Harmon, who is the host of the start of therapy practice podcast, which can be found on iTunes or anywhere else. Podcast can be found. Scott is also the face behind started therapy practice.com where he helps OTs pts and speech therapists start therapy practices, whether it be from the you know, just seeing the first few clients all the way up to building a clinic. He actually owns two clinics down in Arkansas, so he's here to talk a little bit about that today. Can't wait to share this with you real quick before we get started, be sure to check out the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com. Forward slash, Episode 27 and with that, we're gonna get started with this episode. I can't wait for you all to hear it. Here is Scott Harmon from started therapy practice.com. Hey Scott, welcome to the OT school house podcast. How are you doing this evening? Jayson, I'm doing good. How about yourself? Not too bad. Can't complain. It's been a been a cold few days here, but it's very nice. How's it over there? Are you in Arkansas, right?
Scott Harmon
I am in Arkansas. And then you say cold few days in Southern California.
Jayson Davies
Oh, very bad. Yeah. Well, I mean, we had some snow in places. We don't usually get snow, but I've heard you guys have had some cold down there as well. Is that true?
Scott Harmon
Just a lot of rain. You know? I told somebody today I saw an old man pairing off animals and followed them into a big boat. Get worried.
Jayson Davies
There we go. Everyone. Pack up your bags, right? So, well, I'm really happy to have you on the show today, and I'm glad you're actually the one who reached out to me about being on your show, which was awesome, but I'm glad to have you here, because I think I might have told you already, but I actually came across your website. It's gotta be like, three years ago now, before the OT school house even existed, when I was thinking about starting a private practice. And so it's, yeah, it's just crazy how the world kind of spins. OT is a small community, and it is what it is, yeah.
Scott Harmon
It's kind of cool. Yeah. Well, I'm glad, I'm I'm glad you stumbled across me. So yeah, it's it. The technology is, I'm a little bit older than you, so the technology always floors me. When somebody says, hey, oh, you have a podcast. You know, they reach out to me somehow. My it was, it was funny here not too long ago, my grandma, who's 92 she she needed some OT, and so she lives in Missouri. I'm from Missouri originally, and so there's an OT who does home health down the road from her, who was, who's providing the OT. So she came into my grandma's house, my aunt's there, and they just got to talk. And that's what you do with home health, right? So the OT mentioned that she wanted to start a practice, you know, she wouldn't start her own practice there in the small town that I'm from. And so my aunt, she said, Well, you should, you should look up my my nephew, he might be able to help you. And so she started putting two and two together, you know, the last name Harmon? And she said, Is your nephew? Scott Harmon? And she's like, Yeah. And she's so honest to his podcast all the time, like, Wow, what a small world. What a great use technology.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, what I'm gonna usually, I wait till later. But for this, I mean, you have a podcast, you have started therapy, practice, com, you have the course that you have over there, as well as many blogs and stuff. What's been the coolest thing that has happened for you? Like, one of my cool things was someone from like, Macau China reached out to us and was like, keep doing what you're doing. That's awesome. I mean, that sounds like a pretty cool story you just shared. But is there another one where you're just like, floored by what has happened because you have a website?
Scott Harmon
I think it's, it's somewhat, it's the everyday, not the everyday things, but it's the things where just which is the total reason I did this, starting a starting a podcast about starting a practice, was therapists who reach out to me and just ask some of the simple questions, or the questions that I think have simple answers, just because I've done this for a While. But when a therapist reaches out and asks that, that simple question, and I'm able to help them through that, that situation or that with that answer, that always kind of floors me, like, Wow, you really didn't know that, not that they're dumb. They just didn't they didn't know what. They didn't know know what questions to ask, really. And so here recently, I had one of my classmates from ot school. She She started a hand therapy clinic, not up the road from me, you know. And, oh, she's probably an hour for me. And so she got online and started, how do you start a therapy practice? Well, that's exactly why I chose, you know, the website how to start? Yeah, because what are you going to type in? How do I start a therapy? Yep. And so she comes across me, and she Facebook messaged me, and she's like, Scott, I want to start a practice. And who do I come across? I come across you. So we're kind of in conversations about her starting her own hand clinic, which is that's, it's small world, big world kind of thing. That's that floored me.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, it's just the OT community is definitely tight knit. We're closed, we're friendly, we all get along. Pretty cool stuff we got going on, yeah? So let's take a step back, and we kind of already skipped the whole Who are you part and so, so Scott, tell us you owned, obviously started therapy practice.com you do everything there with the podcast, but obviously you were, you had a practice before you started that website. So share with us a little bit about how you started the practice.
Scott Harmon
Yeah, yeah. So I did out of OT school, which I've been an OT for 25 years now, which is hard to believe, because I'm only 30 years old. You know, that's.
Jayson Davies
Five year old product. Yeah.
Scott Harmon
No, I've been around the block a few times so out of OT school, I worked developmental preschool for 12 years, and I was driving almost an hour one way to do my work, so I got kind of tired of that. And as we had a growing family at the time, I've got six kids. So at that time, I probably had four kids, and they were really young. So we, at one point, we had three kids under the age of three, which there's, you know, several months out of my life I don't remember, because you don't sleep, I'm sure. So as as the family started growing, I got, I got to where I was, like, you know what? I don't want to drive one hour, one way to work, you know, on the road, two hours a day. Plus, what if, you know, something happens at home, I'm that far away from the house. So I floated the idea to my wife, who is also an OT about starting a clinic in our hometown, which we don't live in, a big town. We live. Our hometown is five to 7000 people, so there's not a lot of people. Now we're only 20 minutes away from a bigger town, so I floated the idea to her. So we just started, we started praying about that, and started thinking, Could this happen? Could would this work? And started asking around, do you think this would work? And that's that kind of got us on the road to that. So we pulled the trigger on that, and, and, and, you know, we rented a space and started a clinic, and my wife was the clinic for a little while, because she was staying at home with the kids. She was she was answering the phone and being a therapist. She was able to speak the language and make arrangements if somebody had had questions about what we provided or setting up therapy.
Jayson Davies
So she was really so she started the business. You were just the employee,
Scott Harmon
that's it. Yeah, sounds fair. Nothing's changed. Jayson still the same, and I wouldn't have it any different, any either. So, yeah, no, but we collaborated, obviously, and started to practice. But it was, what was interesting is. Uh, speech therapy was the first need for somebody who reached out to us. So I had to, had to find a speech therapist to hire. And eventually we found a PT to hire. So we provide OT, PT and speech and we did that. We started in 2006 so, and then we branched out and open it a second clinic in that in that bigger town that we're closer to, that we're close to, and we started that a few years after we started our initial clinic. And so now it's, it's, you know, every day, every day is new and different. But, yeah, I wouldn't have it any other way. Now my my older kids are able to help us out in the clinic. And it's there's benefits of having my own practice that I didn't even foresee, because now my kids are learning skills by helping us in the clinic. And it's, it's benefit on top of benefit. It's been a very it's been a huge blessing for my family to have come this far with it. So it's, that's, that's how it began, began, how start a therapy practice began. Is one of the one of my wife's students, or not students, but they went to OT school together. Wanted to start our own practice in the northern part of the state, and she knew we had to practice, and she wanted to come down and kind of spend half a day and ask me questions about how to start a therapy practice. So her and a few of her colleagues, some fellow therapists, came down and hung out with me for half a day and took the tour and just asked all kinds of questions. And at the time, I was listening to a lot of podcasts, and so I had created a little bit of margin, little extra time in my day at the clinic. And I'm not one just to sit there and watch the world go by. I was like, well, maybe I could start a podcast, and just maybe people would be interested in starting a therapy practice. And these people seem to gain a lot of knowledge just by asking me questions. I could kind of do an information dump, you know, on on this podcast. So that's what started the the podcast, start a therapy practice podcast. And I think it's been five, maybe five or six years. I can't remember. It was 2018.
Jayson Davies
Really? So the podcast came first?
Scott Harmon
The podcast did come first. I Well, that you have to have that, yeah, at that point you had to have a website for your podcast. So,
Jayson Davies
so you had a makeshift website to, kind of yes, the podcast, basically, that's it.
Scott Harmon
That's what I did. And that was in 2013 I'm pretty sure, yeah and yeah, so I guess that's five, six years. Yeah, later that. It's hard to believe it's still doing it, still loving it, still I love doing the podcast. It's I'm trying to find somebody to do a little more editing on it. My kids have edited, edited the episodes for me in the past, but you, being a podcast owner, know that the devil's in the details, and you want control of exactly what you sound like.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And it's a little almost too much control. Sometimes you know you're you're deleting. You go back and forth. Wait, do I delete that little pause, or do I leave it in there? Do I delete? No, okay, I'll delete it.
Scott Harmon
That's it. Yeah, you sweat over the over that, and people probably, they wouldn't know the difference, dude, I do. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
So if you've had to estimate, how many people, how many clinics do you think you've helped start up over the years?
Scott Harmon
Wow, that's a good question. I wish I knew that, if you're listening right now and you started a clinic, email me and say, Hey, I started a clinic, Scott, and after I listened to your pot, that'd be
Jayson Davies
cool, right? I'm sure you've helped. I mean, hundreds probably. I mean, I would hope so.
Scott Harmon
I mean, if the Academy of private practice is my membership side of start a therapy practice. And so I would say, you know, just estimating, there would be at least 100 you know, yeah, hopefully they've started a practice because of me. So that's, yeah, that's fun to think about.
Jayson Davies
I mean, I'll do this for you, because I didn't know anything about OTs being online at all until I did come across your site. And no, I didn't start a therapy practice, but I did start the OT school house, and that was in part about knowing that something that OTs were going online to look for stuff. Yeah, and so I'll give you a little shout out, because I did get a lot of information. You had a lot of free information on your website. And I you had your kind of your your template of how to keep track of therapy notes and stuff like that. And I was like, whoa. Like, that's super cool. And so that inspired me a little bit and other stuff that you had on there. So I'll say thank you, and that you helped me start ot school house. So thank you.
Scott Harmon
I appreciate that. That's. Definitely humbling. Thank you.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, so let's dive into a few questions. If we can't help anyone out there who may potentially want to start a practice, a lot of school based OTs, I feel like we get a lot of questions about burnout and OTs get burned out. And so why do you see people wanting to start, start a private practice?
Scott Harmon
I think there's, there's different reasons. One of them can be burned out, just like you said. They're like, I can, you know, I'm going to invent a better mouse trap here. I don't, I don't have to put up with this over here. So they might be disgruntled with where they're at, or just burn out. I have some therapists who come to me and say, You know what, Scott, I've been out of therapy for a while. Maybe they had a child and stayed at home for a little while with their child, and the thought of, you know, working full time for somebody, doesn't appeal to them. So maybe they try to they're interested in seeing just some clients on the side, and that that necessitates starting a therapy practice, even if it's just small. They've seen a couple of clients, it still started a therapy practice. And that was that's very much who I am trying to target is not that franchise type therapist who wants to start multiple clinics. We might get there. That's what I do, but it's very much targeted to that solo therapist who's just like, You know what? I want to dip my toe in this, or maybe I do want to open my own clinic. And that's, that's kind of, that's kind of my wheelhouse right there. I really like speaking to those therapists and helping them get that off the ground. But, yeah, there's certainly different reasons people are motivated to start their own practice, but a lot of it is an OTs. I think especially are this way they would like to have control of how we provide our therapy, because it is so individual, individualistic as far as what we're trying to do and what we're trying to provide and to I remember working at the facility that I was working before and there. You know, every place has rules. You just you can't just do anything you want. You could certainly ask. But I remember when I first had my clinic, and so OTs, we like swings. And so I walked in, you know, walked in there, and I said, I can hang a swing anywhere I want. And I was like, if I wanted to hang a swing in the waiting room, I could hang that appealed to me. So, yeah, there's different reasons. I think.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, no, I think, like you said, everyone has their own reason. You were a school based therapist. You weren't not employed by a school district, right? But you did work in the schools, correct?
Scott Harmon
I have before, so we've done school contracts through our clinic before, and so it's been a it's been a brief period that I have been a school therapist, but yeah, I've done enough of it to speak the language. I guess.
Jayson Davies
You know what an IEP is, and you know how to get through all that stuff, exactly. So if there was a school based OT and they kind of were thinking, hey, summer's coming up. What could I potentially do it? Could I make a few extra dollars through seeing some private, private, uh, patients? What would you recommend? Kind of that first step that they really do.
Scott Harmon
Get a business card. There you go. Get a business cards. The I just did a solo podcast episode on getting a business card and what to have on a business card. But it's a very tangible thing that that you can always carry around with you should always carry around a business card, because when you run into people, you're gonna have a conversation. You know, hey, what do you do? I'm gonna I'm a school based therapist. I'm a school ot here at the school. Oh, really. Well, my child has has autism. Oh, okay, then, you know, the conversations off and running at that point, they can't stop at the business card. Your business card has to point somewhere. So it nice to have a website, but if you're a school based therapist, and you're like, I don't, Scott, I don't want a website, but, you know, I don't have time for that, at least a business card. And then, you know, obviously that's got a way to get a hold of you. I think people, I think your potential clients, get confused on the steps that it takes to get the therapy. Now, some states have more regulations. California has a few regulations about getting therapy, whereas other states, like Texas and even Arkansas, where I'm at, they don't have as many regulations. So you might just be able to set up therapy with a client during the summer and they pay you cash and you don't have to do any. Anything. It might just be word of mouth. Hey, Jayson is an OT and he'd be willing to see your kid this summer, and then you might be off and running, but you got to make some connections, and you got to have a way for people to get a hold of you. So I would, I would certainly. I mean, if you can have a website, you need a website, you know, even if it's just a one page website, just to let people know who you are and what you do.
Jayson Davies
And to be honest, it's too easy to create a website nowadays not to have one if you're going to do something that simple, you There's ones out there that you don't even have to pay for, and you can put your information out on So, so definitely do that. So again, still talking about that one person that may want to go out during during summer and maybe get a few clients. Do you think they need to go full force into it if they're going to do it? Or, like you're kind of saying a second ago, just dabble with a few students, one or two students for the summer, and then go back to school based OT.
Scott Harmon
I think it's, you know, people are in different situations, but from I can give myself as an example here, and my wife too, in that, as I was working at the developmental preschool, I took some clients on the side as as contract. And so I contracted with our State Department of Health to see these clients, or you might contract with your state early intervention program, which is, I don't know if I would recommend that there's a lot of there's a lot of paperwork early intervention, but you know, you can, you can put your services out. My wife contracted with the State Department of Health to see adults. She was doing she's she was a pediatric therapist at the time, and she really had fond memories of her she also did a level two field work at the the VA. So she really enjoyed her time at the VA, and she missed treating adult clients, so she started seeing a couple of after, after work clients through the Department of Health. And she she loved treating stroke patients, and so she did that on the side that was really dipping our toe into the world of private practice. And so the next step after this, you know, you're kind of getting used to the idea. So then the next step is to go find a client all on your own who's willing to pay you, maybe cash out of their pocket for therapy. There's there's sort of a barrier or a mindset that a lot of people have that insurance should pay for the therapy. So to get beyond that is difficult, because once you start down that road of accepting insurance as payment, that is kind of a whole new ball game. You know, there's a lot of hoops to jump through to get credentials with insurance. So if you're just wanting to see kids for the summer, and you don't want to do that through a clinic or through another outpatient facility, you're probably kind of relegated to, you know, accepting cash payment. So then you have to convince, you know, your potential clients, why that's a good move for them. You might have to, you might have to think of some good reasons why they it's okay to pay cash out of pocket. And some of those might be, you know, what? We could access your insurance. But what's your deductible? Oh, you got a $2,000 deductible. You're not going to eat through that in summer therapy, so you might as well pay me cash, and I'll do you know, you can get a Well, some people call it a super bill. I don't like calling it a super bill invoice, because it sounds terrible, doesn't it? Who wants to pay? I don't want to pass.
Jayson Davies
Like an evil villain.
Scott Harmon
You're gonna charge me a super bill that's gonna be terrible, that's gonna be a lot of money, but no, you can you can tell people, Look, you can pay me cash, and I will give you an invoice with the CPT code, the diagnosis code. You can turn that into your insurance. Insurance can reimburse you for that, so that way you don't have to be on the hook for all of this therapy. Now, you're going to pay me cash. You got to pay me all of it, but if you want to get reimbursed from insurance, you certainly can seek that out on your own. And I will help as much as I can. You know, I'll give you a copy of the evaluation report, of the progress notes and whatnot. But that's that's one way around that. And over at start a therapy practice.com in my if you click on Free forms, there's a, there's a super bill template you can use for free over there if you're if you're interested in doing that.
Jayson Davies
I had never thought about that, but that that's a good idea, because that was one of the things that I did get hung up on when I was thinking about doing it. Because basically, all these questions I'm asking you, let's be real. They're all about me, I mean, but no, I mean, I kind of had different ideas. I was like, sitting around, you know, and like, I want to do something over the summer, and I had never thought about, like I was hung up on cash. I don't have the. Ability to take insurance. So who's going to who's going to come see me when I can't take your insurance? But you just kind of gave away around that. And it might, it might not work for everyone. I don't know all that good stuff, but if it works for a few people, awesome. So.
Scott Harmon
Yeah, and I think you at least have to give parents, if parents need the option, you know if, if they're really seeking that out, and they know that Jayson is an awesome school therapist, and their child needs an awesome school therapist. They've, it's just for summer. Well, that that's a good that's a smart connection to me, you know, and you're willing to come to the home a lot of a lot of clinics, practice owners, they don't want to go to the home. I don't want to go to the home. I mean, I've got a nice clinic. I want you to come to my clinic, but you, you don't have a clinic, and you're willing to go to the home, it seems like a good critic. So they you might actually be doing that parent a favor and maybe even a disservice if you don't offer them that.
Jayson Davies
potentially. So let's say I find the client. What would you say are a few things that kind of got to be in your private practice OT bag?
Scott Harmon
Hmm, okay, so I think if you're if you're charging them cash, if they're paying you cash, education is a big part of that. Why do why should they pay you cash when they can go to the outpatient clinic and they're going to access insurance? Well, first of all, you can come to the house. That's, that's a that's a big plus. Second you they can get reimbursed from their insurance if it's going to be out of network. So though they're going to need to see what that's all about, also in my free forms, is sort of, is it's a checklist. So what I found was parents would ask me, Hey, your your your clinic's not in network with my insurance. What can I do? Because I can't find anybody who's in network with my insurance, and the reason for that is because your insurance stinks, because they don't like therapy, and that's why we're not in that nobody's in network with your insurance because they don't pay for therapy very much. So what I what I had created, was a checklist to give to parents and say, Look, I'm not in network with your insurance, so I can't call your insurance and check on benefits. Here's the questions to ask, and so I just created that and print it off, and it's in my free forms at the website. So I give that to them, and then the key there is to follow up. The money's in the follow up, you got to call the parent back. Hey, did you call the insurance? What did they tell you? They told me they're not going to pay for therapy at all. I hate to hear that. Well, you know, I'm willing to see your child. You know, I would probably recommend twice a week. But you know, if you're paying out of pocket, let's just start with once a week. Let's just start see how it goes, and you can cut it off and let them know they can cut it off anytime. You know, because I think some parents are like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be on the hook for twice a week for three months this summer. That's gonna they start racking up the numbers. You know, I can't, I can't afford that. So start small, and then go from there. That's, it's one option to give them.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. And so what about evaluations is, is it required? Do you need to do an evaluation before you start to see a kid in a private practice.
Scott Harmon
So there's probably some state regulations that you might think aware of each state have so that would call your licensing board and say, Hey, what's what's the regulations for me doing private practice? As far as, Do I need an eval, an initial evaluation? Do I need a prescription? That's a big one, don't you know, are you? Do you have to have that prescription from the doctor? Some states you don't have to have a prescription, then you're good to go. If you're accessing insurance, you're probably going to need a prescription. But if it's cash, and your state doesn't require it, you don't need a prescription. I would do even if our state didn't require which, honestly, I don't know if our state requires it or not. I just, I go by the strictest guidelines or regulations, which is our state Medicaid. So Medicaid requires an initial evaluation. So we always do an initial evaluation, even if they're paying cash. So I would recommend that evaluation just, I mean, you want to get the baseline scores of a standardized assessment to see where you're at. That way, when you work your OT, you know, you work your therapy magic, you can say, hey, we were here. Now we're here, and that's because you decided to come see me for OT. That's, that's, those are two good reasons to do an initial evaluation.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, so I mean, that might mean that someone who's going to do this over the summer, they need to go out and purchase an assessment or two, a kid or two. Maybe, I don't know, what are some common evaluations you use over in the clinic?
Scott Harmon
Well, we. For that there's, there's some options there. So if you're close to a university, sometimes we borrow tests from a university. So I mean, we have a lot of evaluation kits at our clinic, but there's some that are kind of obscure, especially when it comes to speech tests. So sometimes the speech therapist will, you know, we're, we're in the same town as the university who cranks out therapists. So the speech therapist will call them and say, Hey, can we borrow this test kit? Sure, come on over and get it. You can borrow it. That might be an option, you know. So you might not actually have to be out any any money on a speech kit. You don't want to abuse that you know, but it might be something that you can look into if you're doing kids. I mean, I have sort of moved away from the Peabody two, and I like the Mullins. I like the bot bought two. Are they on the bot three?
Jayson Davies
I don't think so. I'm still using the bond too.
Scott Harmon
Think they're on the bot three. So the melons is for a little bit younger crowd. You know, you're probably zero to five, and your bots gonna be probably five years and up. Those are probably two of the main tests that I would recommend. If you do, you know, a lot of parents might be, you know, an OT world. They might be concerned about handwriting. So then you can look at the ths handwriting, handwriting Test, test of handwriting revised, I believe it is
Jayson Davies
the th or, yeah, the thsr test of handwriting skills, revised.
Scott Harmon
We have that one. The VMI is a good, you know, is a good test. It's probably some of the, I'm sure it's some of the same tests that you're using there.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, yeah, bought ths, VMI, ravma.
Scott Harmon
Now, if you go buy all those, I mean, the Mullins itself is almost $1,000 so you can, you go buy a bot kit. It's been a while since I bought mine. You probably three $400 yeah, you're you could be out some money.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. So you're probably best to buy them as needed, and not don't go out and spend buy them all. And then next thing you know, you're a few $1,000 in debt already. You haven't even seen your first first kid.
Scott Harmon
That's it. Yeah, and yeah. And you want to know that you're going to try this for the long haul. You know, if you're going to do this every summer for the next 10 summers, it might be a good investment, and it might be something that your ot buddy in the next town, you know, they're not competition for you, but maybe they'd go in have these on a on a bot kit. You know that you could split that up.
Jayson Davies
There you go. In fact, that actually kind of brings up something that I'm seeing out here in Southern California. I don't know if you've seen it out there, if anyone else has seen it anywhere else, but there's starting to be places where you can almost rent a space in a therapy gym. And so you are your own contractor, and you are renting out a space from basically another therapist to use their gym to see a few clients. Have you seen that yet?
Scott Harmon
So when you say gym, are you talking more gymnastics gym or an actual therapy gym? Well,
Jayson Davies
actually, both. I have heard of people going to a gymnastics gym, but I'm talking more about a therapy gym. So it's almost like a hair salon. You know, where each hair salons their own individual entity, basically, but they all rent the space. So you might have four therapists there in a small type of clinic, but they none of them actually own the clinic, and they're all kind of renting space to work there. Have you heard the heard of this?
Scott Harmon
I like the idea. I've had that idea over the years. But what's kept me from doing something like that is, in my mind, you sort of has to be a metropolis to pull that off. You know, you'd have to have some flow of kids, which, like I said, I live in a small town. I couldn't eat that off. I mean, you might. I guess you could run other things through there. You know, you could work if you're doing gymnastics. There's a friend of mine. He owns a gym, gymnastics gym in the town, the bigger town that you know that we have our clinic in, and it's a huge facility. So I approached him, even before we opened our second clinic, and I said, Hey, what would you think about me opening, you know, a therapy clinic inside your gymnastics gyms. And we talked about it went back and forth a little bit, but he was, he wouldn't, he didn't want to do it. That was fine. But, you know, at least I approached him with the idea. So if you're talking about, like, you said, like a salon type of right of arrangement you're renting a chair in a salon. It could be the same concept for renting your therapy space. And I do suggest that in when I talk to potential practice owners they want, they're thinking about, I'm like, Well, think about sub. Seen in somebody else's space? Yeah, you know, if somebody has a gymnastics gym or they have, you know, Pts do this quite often. They'll approach a gym, you know, for adults, and they'll say, Hey, can I sublease some space here? I actually have a PT who subleases space in our pediatric facility. She's in a she treats adults. She does is it called Red needling. I think that's what it's called. And she needed a space in in our small hometown here, dry needling. I'm sorry. I'm thinking red line, red line. There's two different PT treatments there. So she does dry needling, and she does that after hours in our pediatric clinic, so she's she's done that. She's subleasing for me, and everybody wins.
Jayson Davies
There you go, Yeah, and like I said, I You're right where you need that steady flow. This was down in Orange County, California, where I've heard about these clinics where multiple therapists are all kind of subleasing a time and a space in there. However, a recent therapy friend of mine was actually talking about a contact she has who is doing exactly the other side of it, where she's paying not too much. I want to say it was like maybe $10 to see a kid in a some sort of gymnastics gym or something. And so she had worked out this deal that basically she's paying $10 an hour to see a kid in a gym that she obviously doesn't have to pay for all the mats. She doesn't have to pay for everything, and I don't know what she has access to in there. It's obviously not going to look like a world class sensory integration type of gym, but there's going to be a lot of good stuff in there. So that might be an option for anyone out there that.
Scott Harmon
I think that's a great option to approach some facility that you're that you think I could treat somebody in here and this would be awesome, and approach them and say, give them, give them some options, and say, I could pay you per month. I can pay you off the top per for each kid. Like, there's a big trampoline, indoor trampoline park in our town, you know, Oh, that'd be fun. Could you could do you, could you could do groups in there. You could do, you could say, Look, I'll you could rent the whole facility for an hour. And then, you know, do some group therapy, it's really you have to, you know, to use the cliche of thinking outside the box, but to come up with some different ways of maybe subleasing or using a space that that would be conducive to therapy, like the there's a community center in our in our town, and they, they have a room that they'll charge you $25 I think it's just like half a day. $25 for a half a day. Can't be that huge room. And downstairs, they have basketball courts. They have an elevated track. You could do, you could do therapy in you know, they do, like, exercise classes in there. Why couldn't you do therapy in there?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, good idea. So, like you said, you you've dipped and dabbed in a little bit of school based. And you know, some of the culture, you know, some of the things that go on with school based. And one of those common things, and they seem to be on the rise, at least here in Southern California, as I ease and so what do you know about potentially being an IEE, independent evaluation, if you want to call them a provider, I guess, or an evaluator?
Scott Harmon
Yeah, yeah, we've done that in our in our clinic. I did one here fairly recently, but it was, it was two hours away. It was, it was not a it was not a district that was even remotely close to us. And my thinking was there when they approached me, is you're far enough away that the optics of this are not going to hurt me if something goes bad. And because I had, and did you tell me, from your end, the image I had me coming in as a independent evaluator is I'm the gunslinger. You know, I might be perceived as the bad guy here, coming in, evaluating this child, because something has not gone quite right. And yeah, in our instance, it was. There was a lawsuit pending. So we were the independent evaluator in this lawsuit action that the parents brought against the school. So I really had to think about you really have to think about how that's going to look, as far as perception, and then how that potentially could come back on your reputation, right, wrong or indifferent. You have to think how that's going to play out after you do that evaluation, after you sit in on that IEP meeting, what's mom and dad going to say to the school district? How is that going to play out in the lawsuit? And so I would be interested from your side of the table, how that's perceived from the school based therapist.
Jayson Davies
So. We get both sides of it, because it really depends on why the EE, why the IEE, is really being held, and also who gets to pick the IEE provider or evaluator? Because sometimes the district says, okay, yep, here's a list of people that we have on contract with. Go ahead and pick one, and typically those are IEE providers that the district likes and will have no problem with. But then, every now and then, there's that IEE provider that comes in, that the parents advocate knows and they're coming in, and those are the ones where it gets a little dicey up in the air, and people get, you know, nervous, and everyone's kind of well comparing ot reports. You know, it's like, this is my school based ot report. Well, this is my clinic based ot report that's that's in schools, in and what is what, and all that good stuff. And it's unfortunate that it happens, but the reality is it does, and so it's kind of got both sides. And I think we're going to have another podcast about this soon, but just talking about we need to just keep the child in our best interest. And I think everyone is doing that, and as long as we can do that, and you come into an IE meeting with that in mind and that this report is about the child and not about me versus you, him versus her, District versus parent, then we can all be civil about it and make amends and figure it out what we can do to best help the kid. And I think that's the route we should take. Does it always go that way? Not necessarily,
Scott Harmon
yeah. Well, and I think as therapists, we really have to be careful whatever side of the table you're on, to not let, not let the parent in that situation, or the school for that matter, draw you in for to bad mouth one side of the other. We, as a therapist, you have to take the high road there, because you have to be there has to be some sort of sanity in that situation. And the therapist, the OT is in the perfect position to play that, that role. We don't want to. We don't want to bad mouth our our co workers, our fellow therapist, or really the administration or the parents, for that matter. Do we want to do like you said? We want to do what's right, but by the child, and we want to bring light to that situation, and not so much heat, because those situations can be contentious. In the situation I was in, the mom was, was the wild card, and she was, she was explosive. It was, it was a difficult situation, and so I honestly, I just, I said, I gave my report, and I sat back and watched, you know, if they asked me a question, I would answer it. But I was not putting my nose in that situation, because I really, honestly didn't know the history that much of the situation. I came in as an independent evaluator, did my job. Kind of got out. If they asked me a question, I'm going to answer it honestly, give some suggestions. But yeah, they can get, you know, they can get heated. Yeah, yeah.
Jayson Davies
I've been pretty fortunate to not be in too many of them, but I've heard many stories, and yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't wish it upon many people like at all, because that is just not not a good situation or not a fun situation. But if we can keep the kid at heart, I'm sure we'll all be good going on. What about contracting with districts most so with school based therapists, there's a wide variety of the way that we work for the school. Some of us are directly employed by the district. Others are contracted through a third party agency, through maybe even a clinic like yours or something, to work at a school district. That may mean going to the school, or that may mean that the school busses kids or has their parents bring them after school. But still, some people, I think, are trying to be their own contract and contract their own services to a district. Have you ever experienced that? Or did that yourself?
Scott Harmon
Yeah, it was, it was my goal, when we first started our practice, our clinic, to not need, not have to have a school contract because they're in our state. It's a rural state, you know, it's very there's very rural school districts, and so school districts, the smaller ones, especially, will will contract out that therapy, or at least part of it during the year, so that there's opportunities out there. And we've had those opportunities throughout the years of providing the school contract, what I had determined pretty early on was I didn't necessarily want the school contract for this for the school in the same town that my clinic was in, because for. Couple reasons there could be some conflict of interest there. Yeah, you know, because honestly, the first, well, actually, the second location that we were at, we kind of outgrew our first one. We were right across from the school. I mean, you know, I could just right across the street from the school.
Jayson Davies
That's got to be hard to turn down parents.
Scott Harmon
I'm sure. Well, it was, it was one of the I had to bid on that school contract when it came open. We didn't get it. I knew I had outbid anybody else, just but I didn't, I didn't get it. Now, looking back on it, I'm thankful I didn't get it, yeah, because what can happen as a school based therapist is, I mean, it doesn't have to happen, but it could happen that I got, I got, or a therapist that I hired would get some sort of reputation in the school. Well, then it's, it reflects back. It's a small town, you know, word gets around, then it gets back to, well, that's that, that's our clinic doing that, and don't go to see them because they did this in the school. So we've avoided that because we didn't get that contract in the same town. Now that being said, I've got, I've got school contracts in different towns that my clinic are not in, and that that works out fine. And and it's not to say it couldn't work out fine, but then you also have, if you're in the same town, getting that that school contract, and you have a clinic in that town, there potentially could be conflicts of interest, or perceived conflicts of interest, yeah,
Jayson Davies
for what, one of my colleagues actually was just sharing a story with me, the other I don't know, a week or so ago about how a parent of a student that she saw in school, actually, I don't know if she stopped her in the parking lot or asked her she would see the same kid that she sees in school privately. And she, you know, she kind of did what you did. She thought about it, but she's like, No, that's that's a conflict of interest. I can't do that. Where does it turn from school based to home model based, or whatever you want to call it? And she absolutely just kind of said, Sorry, I can't do it. It's too close to too many lines, and had to turn it away. So definitely have to keep that in mind when, when you're a school based therapist, potentially trying to get some extra work, yeah.
Scott Harmon
And I would say that for any, any therapist who are listening, who, who are not doing school based therapy right now, and you have the key notion of, well, I know the school down the road, they have the contract coming up. I'm going to bid on that, because I can be my own private practice and have a school contract. If you have not done school based therapy, you laugh because,
Jayson Davies
well, maybe that's why they're listening to this podcast.
Scott Harmon
You don't want to, you don't want to go, you don't want to do that if you haven't done school based therapy, and think I'm gonna, I'm gonna start my own private practice by getting this contract, that it's a good way to get a bad reputation.
Jayson Davies
All right? Well, obviously, part of the reason you're on this podcast, we kind of were touching on at the beginning, but I want to go back to it, is you have this fantastic resource available online, and it's, I think it's opening up soon here, and so I want to give you the opportunity to kind of share. We've already talked about a lot. You've already given a lot of great value. But what? What do you go further into detail in this academy you have?
Scott Harmon
Yes, thank you for asking. So the Academy of private practice, after I'd started the podcast and the website, you know, people, people wanted more. They wanted more. More of me directly, as far as some some hand holding, they also wanted some more resources, and so I created the Academy of private practice. For that reason, it opens the first quarter of each month. So four times a year it opens. So the middle of that first month of the quarter, you can enroll into the Academy of private practice. I only open it four times a year, and really it's only open the enrollment period is like five days. So that helps me control the flow of new new, new therapists coming in. So I can give everybody personal attention in the Academy of private practice, there's video lessons, there's resources that one the relevance here of talking about getting school contract, there's there's a an RFP in there, there's a school contract in there. So as I've you know, contracted with schools. Some schools, they don't have a contract that they've created to contract out therapy. That's kind of crazy to me, but I've come across that, you know, I've had a school district say, you want to see some kids for us, sure, and I'll say, Send me the contract. We don't, we don't have one can. So, yeah, I've created the school contract. Over the years, and just some kind of some cover paperwork of what to put with that. But then, not only that, but also how to find school contracts, how to find what they call RFPs. I didn't know what an RFP was when I started my private practice. Is a request for proposal. That's common government like, but yeah, if you, if you don't know, you don't know, and if you don't know the terminology to get on Google and search for that, or the different websites of where to find that, or how to approach a school with that notion of, hey, do you have any RFPs or how to find that? Over the years? I'm like, Well, how do I find when these schools are open for an RFP. So that's one aspect of the Academy of private practice. That's one lesson in there. And then there's some paperwork that goes to back that up. But not only that, if somebody wanted to open, you know, a brick and mortar clinic, I've got, I've got some lessons on that. And then what we do once a month is we have masterminds. So members of the Academy of private practice, they're invited once a month, the fourth Thursday of every month, to set in on a mastermind, and you bring your questions, and we all help each other out with answering those questions. And I've learned a ton from that I'd love doing mastermind, because I get to help, but then I get to learn from these other practice owners. And want to be practice owners in their ideas of how to start a practice, how to grow a practice. Of I get to learn too, and it's a great benefit for for me. And then the other therapist also, of course, we got a private Facebook group, everybody, you know that's everybody's on Facebook. So we're we're over there also. And then for Academy members, I offer a consultation with me. So actually, I, just before you and I jumped on this call, I got off of a call with an Academy member. Her dilemma was she was in a 300 square foot space. She has some contract therapist working for her. She she's really she's going moving up in size 1000 square foot. So her question to me was, how do I get she's doing a lot of home health clients, a lot of early intervention. How do I wean myself off early intervention and home health and get more kids in in the clinic, because I got a bigger clinic now. So we had that conversation. I gave her some some ideas that have worked for me over the years on how to, how to help her out with that. So that's a benefit of being a member, is you get to schedule time with me and work over some things. So there's, and it's, you know, I'm putting sometimes we do a book club, like, hey, let's read this book and talk about it. We'll do that sometimes. And it's, it's, it's a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed the Academy of private practice and helping out therapists, you know, start their own practice. And if they have more questions on that, I'm sure you can maybe put a link over there on the show notes. Maybe.
Jayson Davies
It'll be everywhere. It'll be on the show notes. It'll be if you're listening on iTunes, if you just kind of scroll up a little bit, it'll be right there. It'll be everywhere. So be sure to check out, start a therapy practice.com, and remind them all again, once more, of the name of the actual Academy.
Scott Harmon
Yep, it's the Academy of private practice. And I also want to tell everybody if over at start of therapy practice, com, if you go to start a therapy practice.com, backslashot school house, I've got a special checklist for you if you're interested in starting to practice. This is, I call this my super duper start a therapy practice checklist, and it's you can't, you don't find it on anywhere else, on my on my website. This is not, this is not one of my freebies that I give away on the freebie page. So thank you. Yeah, do that just, just for your listeners there. Jayson.
Jayson Davies
Thank you so much. So that was startup therapy practice.com, forward slash ot school house. That's it. Great. We will, of course, obviously link to that as well, make sure everyone can find that. Oh, man, you answered like, I had a lot more questions, and you answered like all of them. So I've got nothing left. Is there anything else you want to kind of give a shout out to or or say anything else tonight?
Scott Harmon
Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be over here. I've listened to you for a while now. Jayson, you do a great job on your podcast. And you know, if people want some some more podcasts to listen to, it's they can search, start a therapy practice on iTunes. Stitcher and your other podcast players, and that way you can kind of see what I'm up to. I think, at last count, I don't know, I'm up to around 90 different episodes. So if you want to listen to the first episodes of the podcast and start there, just know it gets better from there. I had to start somewhere, right?
Jayson Davies
That's absolutely the hardest part is, is getting, getting to starting. That's it. Yes. Well, Scott, thank you so much. We appreciate you taking your time out of the day and come. It on I want to definitely recommend to everyone on here, if you are even thinking about starting a private practice, whether you just want to see one client, or work your way up to 100 that's the place to start out. That's where I kind of started out a long time ago, I never got around to actually starting my private practice. For everyone out there, go over there, sign up, get if nothing else, he has so many freebies and a special one just for you, so be sure to head on over there and guys, yeah, thank you, Scott, and we'll talk to you next time. Yeah, we'll talk soon. Hey everyone, thanks for listening. This is Jayson again. Thank you. Huge shout out to Scott Harmon from start of therapy practice.com for taking the time to come on here and share with us everything that he does and how he helps our Occupational Therapy community to get started with our own practice. So the reason that today's podcast was, you know, in April is because summer is coming up. So if anyone is interested, and you know, potentially seeing some clients during the summer, I highly recommend that you check out Scott's website. Started therapy practice.com. His podcast, started therapy practice. Podcast, and yeah, you know, he's just a great mind, great resource. Definitely check it out with that. Be sure to check out the show notes over at ot schoolhouse.com. Forward slash episode 27 we do have links over to his website there. It's pretty easy to remember start a therapy practice, but if not, we do have those links over there, so check that out, and we will see you next time on the OT school house podcast, take care. Bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
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