Today we’d like to introduce you to Goldie Rabaev.
Hi Goldie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started in private practice close to 20 years ago when I first got my license. I worked in a practice similar to mine now. It was a Management business model so they helped me get credentialed and they did my billing and I paid them a per session fee.. eventually I wanted to learn how to do my own billing and my own credentialing and so I took those pieces over
A few years into private practice, my husband who was working at the time in the corporate banking industry was laid off, and we decided that we should work on a Plan B
Plan B was to start our own management company. We decided on buying our office space versus renting and so the first office that we bought was on the first floor of our current East Brunswick location. It had only three rooms and we were able to bring on 4 therapists.. that that was in November 2016. To help us run the office we started an internship program because I always felt that while I was taught theory and patient practice in school. I was never taught how to actually run the business.
My husband took over all the financial set up of running the Management company as well as the real estate and I handled all of the clinical work, including billing credentialing intakes
Today as I said, we have four locations and close to 30 therapists. We see close to 500 patients a week. A few years ago, we started helping our therapists make a better income by creating their own groups of LS W’s and LAC’s that they could supervise.. we handled all of the logistics, in essence we became their human resources department. Several of our interns returned to us after graduate school to join our LAC and program. It felt very rewarding that are very first intern who started with us as a college intern came back to us as an LSW and is now one of our LCSW Therapists.
Our model is unique because we provide an easy entry point for therapists to start their own businesses. We take care of everything for them. We give them the full infrastructure so they could just come in and practice, but the business is still theirs, unlike headway and Alma, which higher therapists to work for them.
In the world full of companies like headway in Alma, we take a personal approach to our therapist and our patients
I think the field of mental health always carried a lot of stigma and everything about how we’ve run the business is geared towards eliminating that stigma.
Our office spaces are beautiful. We serve chocolates and coffee and a comfortable atmosphere. Our front desk. Staff is friendly people know each other by names.
Our therapists are each in their own individual practice, but we work as a team. We have social outings and we turn to each other for professional and personal support. It could be a lonely island for someone in private practice and at Life Psy we eliminate the loneliness without the sacrifice of income, independence and autonomy.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Nothing is ever a smooth road. Life is full of potholes and twists, and turns.. our actual motto is that Life Psychotherapy helps you along the road of life
We’ve definitely had some challenges. Working with insurance companies is always very challenging.. making sure that our therapist are properly paid by the insurance company.
Covid was a real challenge when we had to navigate the New World of virtual therapy
Internships are not always smooth and it gets hard to train new staff every semester
But I think that we handled each of these challenges quite well and we’ve always been able to support one another through the challenge
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Life Psychotherapy is a management company. We help Therapists step seamlessly into the world of private practice.. we provide them with space and staff, intakes, credentialing, billing, business coaching, all the necessary paperwork, website and a warm environment.
We choose therapists who are as passionate as we are about eradicating stigma from the world of mental health.
It’s important for us that our therapist value our patience and their time.
We create a space that’s warm and inviting where patients feel that they are doing something really good for themselves
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
I’ve learned that nothing is easy and that things can change on a dime. I’ve learned that we can’t stay stagnant. We have to keep up with new l technologies in order to stay in the business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.lifepsy.com
