Therapy business plans
A successful business of any kind needs a business plan. A counseling or any type of therapy kind of private practice is no different. To build a strong and successful private practice, you need a therapy business plan.
Summary
- A therapy business plan acts like a treatment plan for your practice, guiding your goals, strategies, and growth over a 3–5 year period.
- Creating a detailed business plan helps organize operations, clarify your niche, and secure funding from banks or investors by demonstrating financial viability. Download my free business plan.
- Essential components include a mission statement, service offerings, market research, legal compliance, and a financial roadmap to support sustainable practice growth.
- Reviewing and updating your plan annually ensures it evolves with your practice, while tools like TheraPlatform can support daily operations and long-term success.
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What is a therapy business plan?
A therapy business plan is like a treatment plan for your practice. It outlines your business goals and how you plan to reach these goals. A therapy business plan typically looks at your goals for your practice and your game plan to reach them over a three to five-year period of time.
The therapy business plan will help direct your steps, actions, and progress through the various stages of your business. It will serve as a guide, accountability partner, and checklist through the various stages of developing, launching, and running your practice. The time you spend writing your plan also serves as a mindful opportunity to focus on your map of what you want to achieve with your practice and how you plan to get there.
Why do I need a business plan for a therapy or counseling practice?
Graduate school most likely did not teach you about running a business. Taking the time to create a well-thought-out therapy business plan can help to ensure that you have a profitable practice and will address the many components of your practice. The therapy business plan will outline for others how you plan to grow and serve as a benchmark for you.
Creating a therapy business plan will help create focus, actionable steps, and organization to reach your goals. It will help plan out the growth of the practice which makes it more likely that you will achieve financial goals and business success.
Your therapy business plan should serve as a guide that continues to live. You should review it annually and make any necessary changes or revisions. Then, as your practice changes, your life changes, or your plans change, the therapy business plan can serve as the foundation for guiding you through whatever happens in the future.
A therapy business plan will also help you to qualify for any funding you may seek to run your practice. Most banks, investors, and the Small Business Administration (SBA) will require a business plan to prove that you have financial worthiness and a plan to return your funding.
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What to include in a therapy business plan
Business plans are unique and individualized to each business. You will uniquely tailor your business plan for your practice to the goals, visions, and steps applicable to your practice and growth. Most therapy business plans include some specific components.
Mission statements
Your practice mission statement defines your purpose for the practice. Some areas to address or consider when writing your mission statement include:
- Why do you want to do counseling?
- How can your practice help other people?
- Who do you want to help?
- How do you want to help?
Description of your business
This section should include information regarding the structure of your business as well as information about your practice:
- Type of business entity/structure
- List of owners, partners, etc.
- Specific niche of the practice
- Specialized treatment approaches
- Potential caseload
- Individual or group practice
- Number of therapists
- Any staff members
- Any information related to the history of the business
- Your background
- Background of other relevant owners, partners, etc.
Services offered
What services do you plan to offer in your practice? The information should include how much you plan to charge and how these services relate to your business growth and development. Do these services present you as an expert? Do they set you apart from your competition? How do they best help your clients in your niche?
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Market research
Research and describe what you learned to demonstrate the need for your services. Research should demonstrate a need for your practice services in the geographic area you would like to have your practice.
Information to research, consider and describe in the plan includes:
- Statistical information regarding the target population in your geographic area
- Are there other practices that target your niche?
- Are there other practices that offer similar services or specialty treatment modes?
- Can you demonstrate a need for your practice in your geographic area?
Marketing plan
What marketing strategies do you plan to employ? How will you market your practice? How much money will you spend on marketing?
You can incorporate various strategies for marketing in your business plan such as:
- Networking memberships and events
- Social media marketing
- Website development and maintenance
- Branding
- Therapist’s directories
Plan of operations
The business plan should describe how you plan to run the business. It should include all the procedures and systems you have in place to keep the practice operating smoothly.
Some information to describe here includes:
- Hours of operation
- Location of the practice
- Face-to-face sessions, telehealth, or a hybrid model
- Important roles of team members within the office (administrative, receptionist, etc.)
- Important roles of team members outside of the office (accountant, attorney, website developer, etc.)
- Electronic health record
- Safety information
Legal plan
You have many legal obligations in regard to running a practice.
The business plan should address how you plan to protect the business legally:
- Attorneys on retainer or accessible
- Insurance (liability, commercial, cyber)
- Maintaining licensure
- HIPAA
- Contracts
- Lease agreements
Financial Plan
The financial plan component of your business plan describes the financial picture of your practice. It should outline the expenses and earnings of the business. It should also project your financial outlook for the next five years based on your expected growth.
The details in this section will vary depending on how long your practice has been running.
If you have already been running your business, then you incorporate business reports such as:
- Earnings
- Profit and loss
- Balance sheets
- Debt
If you have a new practice, project this information on a monthly or quarterly basis for the first year and then annual projections for the remaining years.
The financial plan should clearly outline the earnings potential of the practice which also includes if you plan to accept insurance or run a self-pay practice. You should list the expected rates of income for the different types of sessions based on insurance or your self-pay rates.
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Goals and growth
The concluding section of your business plan should describe specific goals you have for the future growth of the practice. You should write specific and measurable goals.
Goals could address:
- Number of clients served
- Adding other therapists or providers
- Adding staff
- Expanding into new populations, modalities, or specialties
- New certifications or trainings
A therapy business plan serves as an important foundation for growing a secure and stable practice. Take the time to research business plan examples online. You can visit the Small Business Administration for some examples. While it can seem like an overwhelming process, take some time to allow yourself to imagine how your practice will grow as it builds.
Streamline your practice with One EHR
- Scheduling
- Flexible notes
- Template library
- Billing & payments
- Insurance claims
- Client portal
- Telehealth
- E-fax
Resources
TheraPlatform is an all-in-one EHR, practice management, and teletherapy software built for therapists to help them save time on admin tasks. It offers a 30-day risk-free trial with no credit card required and supports mental and behavioral health, SLPs, OTs, and PTs in group and solo practices.
More resources
- Therapy practice names
- Building a private practice through caseload management
- Identifying your ideal client
- Private practice marketing
- The Ultimate Guide to Insurance Billing for Therapists
- The Ultimate Teletherapy E-book
References
- United States Small Business Administration. “Write Your Business Plan.” Accessed November 20, 2022.
