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79 | Navigating Dual Practice Dilemmas: Insurance vs. Cash-Based Services
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In this episode, herbalist and nutritionist Camille Freeman addresses a challenge faced by some practitioners juggling insurance-based employment alongside cash-based private practices. Responding to a question from Gabriela, Camille shares a few ideas for navigating clients who find your website or social media feed based on a list of insurance-covered practitioners when you're hoping that folks will enter your cash-pay practice. 

Camille emphasizes the importance of understanding the client's perspective and clearly differentiating between services offered through insurance and those available in a private practice. She offers practical tips on presenting the unique value of cash-based services and suggests ways to optimize your online presence to guide potential clients efficiently.

Thanks for submitting your question, Gabriela 💚

To submit a question for future episodes: https://www.intheclinic.com 

Thanks for listening.

I'd love to hear from you. Leave me a voicemail with feedback or submit a question (click the pink "Send Camille a Message" button on the side of the page) 💚

Camille's Helpful Links for Practitioners

00:03 - Welcome to In the Clinic

01:11 - Navigating Insurance and Private Practice

05:10 - Closing Thoughts and Future Episodes

WEBVTT

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Hi there, welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.

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I am an herbalist and nutritionist. And in this show, I share little tips and

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tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners.

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So today I have a question from Gabriella. And before I answer the question,

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I just want to remind you that I would love to have your question submitted.

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You can go to intheclinic.com and there's a little section on the side there

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that says leave a message for Camille. and if you submit it there,

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I will get it and I will answer if it's something that I think I can answer.

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You are also welcome to email me if you have a question too.

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So let me read Gabrielle's question to you. All right, here it is.

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I'm a CNS. I take insurance at a clinic twice a week, but I also want to start

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my cash-based private practice.

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Every week I receive messages from people that find me on their insurance list,

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Google my name, land on my website or my Instagram, both need to be updated

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and want to schedule to work with me.

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I had a calendar link to book a discovery call, but I took it down because I

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got tired of spending time with people on the phone to not sell my program because

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they wanted to go with their insurance.

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It's frustrating because it seems like all the effort I put into this to actually

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just end up driving people to my job where I take insurance versus to my private practice.

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Okay, so the idea is what kind of tips, what can we do to navigate this situation?

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I totally get how frustrating it is. Most of us, if we have a kind of employee

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or contractor position where we're getting paid hourly, oftentimes the hourly

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rate is way lower than if we run our own practice on a cash pay basis.

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So it's really, it can be really hard to navigate these two streams of a clinical practice.

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So the first thing that I always think about when we're running into a dilemma

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like this is to put yourself in the shoes of the client. Okay.

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Because the people who are coming through their insurance, they do want to go with their insurance.

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And that makes sense. Like they pay for their insurance. They want to do something that's covered.

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I absolutely get why they would want to do that.

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So what we need to think about is, first of all.

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How do you make the case for those people? Like, why should they choose your

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private practice versus just going to your place of employment where you take insurance?

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What is the selling point for them? And that's something that I can't answer for you.

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It sounds like you have a program of some sort. So maybe you say like,

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okay, at my workplace where I take insurance, here's what you get,

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you know, up to X number of visits.

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We, you know, we, whatever type of work you do there, you can say that is one option.

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I also have a program that you can take. It is not covered by insurance.

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And here is why it's a good choice for some people.

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Then what you need to say after that is if you would like to use your insurance

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and schedule with me one-on-one, here is the link, you know,

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go here, sign up. It's done. There you go.

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If you are interested in the program, you can schedule this discovery call to

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talk about it or, you know, click here to schedule.

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So you want to make that differentiation for people so that they can make a choice.

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But really, there's no way to pretend that you don't work somewhere that takes insurance.

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The other thing you could think about, and I am not an expert in this at all,

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but it's just something that occurs to me, is if people are searching your name,

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because it's coming up under an insurance list as your name,

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but you have a business name that is different from your own name.

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So for example, my name is Camille Freeman. My business name is Bloom and Grow.

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So what you could do is if people Google your name, maybe you could do like,

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okay, here's the information about my insurance practice, my cash pay practice.

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Here's why you would choose one or the other. possibly you could have a separate

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website or a separate page on your website that ideally would come up first

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if they google your business name that really wouldn't go into your insurance

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practice and that way if anybody just googled you know nutritionist in stanton virginia and by case.

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Ideally your business would come up and it would be like nutritionist in stanton

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virginia bloom and grow nutrition and that would be at the forefront so i don't i am not a google seo.

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Expert, but there may be a way to do that where you highlight your business

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name versus your personal name.

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But in reality, I think what's going to happen here is that you're just going

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to have to make the case for the difference between insurance pay and your private

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pay practice and make it very clear that people are making a choice.

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If you're going insurance pay, you click here, you schedule,

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we don't need a conversation.

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If you want to do the private pay option and here's why that may be a good choice

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for you then we set up a discovery call you schedule here you you do this but

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that insurance is not accepted at this location,

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So the real work of this for you is thinking through what are the advantages

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for people who may want to work outside of their insurance and how do you make

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it really obvious that people are making that choice first thing.

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Okay, so I hope that helps. If anybody else has ideas, please do reach out and let me know.

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Otherwise, I will be back soon with another episode of In the Clinic with Camille.

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All right, take care, everybody.