3 Ways Virtual Counseling Onboarding Can Help You Grow Your Practice

For therapy practices, there’s opportunity to grow. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the burgeoning U.S. mental health industry can continue to expect massive growth over the next decade. With about one-third of the U.S. reporting already struggling with anxiety or depression in 2023, according to Forbes, group practices can anticipate helping an ongoing influx of clients. But such a boom in business is no simple thing to absorb, and growing a practice—like building any business—can pose challenges.

A bigger operation means more people, more paperwork, more demands, and potentially more complicated mistakes. Growth can introduce the unknowns that come with new hires, new technology, and other investments that could be costly if they don’t pan out. Seeing such concerns looming may make a therapy practice hang up the no new clients sign instead of opening the door. But you shouldn’t be put off from giving new clients the help they need. The potential downsides of scaling your practice are more easily avoided than you’d think. The right virtual counseling onboarding solution can prevent many seemingly insurmountable problems of scale.

Virtual onboarding solutions are online video repositories of expert-created content that prepare clinicians and clients to succeed in therapy. If you’re familiar with virtual counseling onboarding, you may already appreciate how it can improve the quality of the therapy experience for your office and your clients. Now, we’ll explore the ways it lets you expand, helping you manage a better, bigger therapy practice. We’ll start by looking at a common, complex hiring scenario that can cause significant problems at scale.

Preventing Clinician Confusion Spirals at Scale to Grow

Imagine hiring a new therapist who comes from a community health background. They’re used to having a whole department to manage administrative tasks. In your smaller practice, individual therapists handle such responsibilities. Your new staff member accidentally bills incorrectly or gives the client incorrect information. Soon, the client is angrily calling the office. Your staff speaks with the clinician about it. The clinician feels attacked. That’s not my job! They say as an argument ensues. Everyone ends up unhappy with the situation.
If you’re growing your practice, you’re potentially bringing on not one but many new therapists, perhaps amid the general chaos of an office relocation. Problems like those above can multiply. But clinician onboarding mitigates that.

Good onboarding videos walk clinicians through the differences between private and community clinic work, billing and administrative responsibilities, and so on. As part of the onboarding process, incoming therapists receive access to these materials. They are guided to take them seriously, to review them frequently, and to treat them as a source of foundational knowledge for internal processes.
So virtual clinician onboarding precludes negative spirals, whether there’s one new therapist in your office or ten. And fewer resources spent on such spirals means more focus on client amenities and adding therapists in different areas.

These days, increasing the number of on-site therapists isn’t the only way to grow your practice. Thanks to telehealth, you may find yourself hiring new clinicians who never or rarely visit the office. Now, let’s explore why virtual counseling onboarding is a necessity for this new virtual way of expanding your practice.

Letting You Effectively Add Staff in the Telehealth Era

Telehealth saw a spike in adoption during the coronavirus pandemic, and it makes sense as a way to take on more clients. It can create a more comfortable environment for both client and therapist, remove the need for an inconvenient commute, and let a practice see more clients without investing in more physical office space.

But the convenience comes with potential pitfalls. Technical mishaps, scheduling mix-ups, and even HIPAA confusion can happen on a video call in ways that aren’t an issue in an office. Bringing on many new remote, part-time/contract clinicians can create unique difficulties. With no one there in person to catch mistakes and no face-to-face rapport to smooth things over, problems can build up longer and go south faster—multiplied by the number of new clinicians working in different locations.

This is why it’s even more important if you’re expanding via telehealth to ensure everyone is on the same page with practices and expectations. Virtual consulting onboarding does that and can be the difference between a telehealth expansion that sputters out and one that helps your practice thrive.

With Onboarding: More Clients, Fewer Problems

It’s a common refrain in the industry and at ShrinkThink that therapy is not a social interaction; it takes work. To benefit from therapy, clients must come prepared with an understanding of their personal goals, their strategy for reaching them, the parameters of the discussions they’ll have, and much more. Virtual client onboarding shows them how. Onboarding videos teach incoming clients what is expected of them. Clients who get how to do therapy don’t spend sessions hitting walls, getting frustrated, or following unproductive tangents. Instead, they pursue personal success and growth.

Successful clients translate into clinician success, too. Clinicians who see progress in clients will be less prone to burnout and happier to do more.

As we’ve seen, virtual counseling onboarding for clinicians and clients smooths over rough spots that can arise when a clinic is seeing fewer clients and can compound to form more significant problems when a practice grows. But the advantages of growth go beyond this.

Getting Set Up to Grow

Client and clinician satisfaction set the stage for expansion. Those happy with their experience may share the news of the value they’re seeing (and show it off in their mood and attitude), attracting, by word of mouth, others who are serious about therapy.

So, if you have a virtual counseling onboarding solution in place, pursuing growth isn’t just a possibility; it comes naturally. While expansion demands planning and strategy, with the right tools in place, there’s no need to fear overwhelming yourself. You’ll be surprised how much more effectively your practice can operate—at any size—with virtual counseling onboarding. Explore your options and open the door to helping more!