How Do You Make Money in a Private Practice?

[DukeDevils9192]

Everytime I ask people about pay in a private psychotherapy practice, people say that money can be made, but no one explains what sets apart these psychologists making six-figures with the $60,000 a year guys at the community centers.

I'm still torn between psychology and psychiatry (leaning towards psychiatry) and was wondering what needs to be done to make the good money in psychotherapy.

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[ckent]

The psychologists who make the most money have upper-income clients who can afford to pay them exorborant ($100-500) fees per session. Obviously, you have to be particularly good and you have to be lucky enough to stumble upon such a clientele. Those that do moderately well are those that are able to be picky about which insurance co's they will accept, as different insurance companies reimburse different amounts. People who belong to HMO's, medicare, may reimburse psychologists $30-70 per hour, while other insurance plans (traditional ones) may reimburse at higher rates so that their customers have a wider base of psychologists they can choose to see. Of course the lowest paid therapists would be those that work in the inner city or work for the state or in academic centers, I'm not even sure if medicaid reimburses psychologists for their services. It's kind of ironic, because people who have psychological/psychiatric problems typically make less money then those who don't, and they are the least covered in terms of psychiatric services. Probably one of the reasons why there's so much crime in this country, if everyone was assigned a psychologist to look after them, there'd probably be a lot less violence.

 

[Sanman]

hey Duke,
Ckent is pretty much right about the pay scale. Also, it depends what niche you are treating. Serious pathologies, i.e. schizophrenia, DID, etc. will mostly require hospital work and pay less. Deal with anxiety and more commonplace disorders and may be able to charge better rates if you serve people in higher income brackets. You will also make more if you don't accept insurance and simply provide fee-for-service care. There are niches out there (weight loss, smoking cessation, ADD, etc.) that have large private pay markets. It all depends on your luck and business sense in settin up a practice. In essence, you make your own way, same as any other career. There are family docs out there making 90k and those making 500k, it all depends on you. And FYI, if you choose psychiatry don't plan on making psychotherapy a mainstay in your practice if you want to make the big bucks. Nowadays it's mostly med checks and a referral to a therapist. Psychotherapy in general isn't where the money is at because there is becoming a lower fee and stadard of care as far as insurance companies are concerned. However, if you really want to do psychotherapy and make the big bucks, you could probably make it happen.