The Private Practice Success Podcast

11: Greatest Hits of 2024 in Private Practice

• Gerda Muller • Episode 11

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As we wrap up 2024, join Gerda in this special episode of the Private Practice Success Podcast as she reflects on the year's greatest hits.

In this Episode, you'll learn (amongst others):

  • Business Milestones achieved in Private Practice Success Australia. 
  • Behind the Scenes Projects in The Psych Professionals. 
  • Biggest Allied Health Private Practice Trends & Impacts of 2024. 
  • Personal Celebrations & the Importance of Support.


Tune in as Gerda shares her personal and professional journey throughout 2024, offering inspiration and guidance for practice owners as they prepare for the year ahead. 

Whether you're reflecting on your own achievements or seeking motivation for the future, this episode provides valuable insights to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about.

Connect with Private Practice Success & Gerda here:

Well, hello there fabulous private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast. And this is episode number 11.

The Greatest Hits of 2024

I've titled this episode, the greatest hits of 2024 - and no, you have not accidentally stumbled into the middle of some musical countdown show. It's still the PPS podcast, but I thought I wanted to share with you some of the greatest hits that I've experienced in private practice and in the world of business over the last 12 months. Now, I have seen a lot of other people doing end of year reflections across social media and on other podcasts – something I don't normally do (I don't know why) – and I wasn't intending on doing one for this podcast or for anywhere else for that matter. But then something happened, which I'll share with you. How I got to be sitting in front of the microphone right now is the fact that I was actually busy wrapping Christmas presents.

So I am sitting in my home office, and I'm surrounded by Christmas presents and wrappers and stuff everywhere. I'm sure you know what that feels like because we've got 10 people in my house - family and friends that has come up for the holidays. 

And I was doing the wrapping, it's a pretty mindless exercise. As I was doing that, I was thinking about a meeting that I had in the week with my team. And it was the last meeting with my EA and my VA before they went on annual holidays, and they surprised me. They are so sneaky. They said, Oh, do you have an extra couple of minutes for our meeting today?

I went, yes, sure and then they presented me with a recorded video presentation of slides and photos and numbers and stats - everything - with background music even - to showcase and show me what I've done this year. And I was just sitting there watching it and I just had a smile on my face the whole time because I was going between Oh my goodness, it was one hell of a busy here, now I know why I'm really tired at the end of this year versus going, Oh my goodness, I've got such amazing team members that took such initiative and did this for me without me even asking. I feel so seen and cared for by the fact that they did that. It was really very special and honestly, it's probably the best present that I'm going to get this year is that video that the lovely Kelly and Gia put together for me.

So I'm very, very thankful of that and I was thinking of that, as I was wrapping the presents and then I went, you know what? Gerda, you need to share that type of stuff because this was a hard year.

And that's the thing. When you are in the trenches doing the work, it's really hard to see the big achievements. It's hard to see the stuff that you are ticking off your list, because we all know that freaking to do list never gets ticked off, but more what you're ticking off your project list. Those big projects that you've been working on day after day, week after week.

Some of those even take months and you don't always give yourself the credit and ‘well done’ that you need and deserve. So I thought what I might do to put this on record for myself and I thought some of you might enjoy hearing it so I'm going to give you the greatest hits.

So this is the highlights. It's not all of the things, but it's some of the stuff that really stood out for me. And I'm going to take you through what I regard to be my greatest hits for Private Practice Success, Australia, which of course is my private practice, business consulting, mentoring, and coaching business.

I will also then take you through some of the greatest hits at my own group private practice called The Psych Professionals, and then I will also at the end share a couple of personal greatest hits. So you will have to stick with me to the end to hear all of those. 

Alrighty, so let's kick things off by looking at Private Practice Success, Australia and I'm just going to start in January because that's how my brain works. I've got a very structured, systemized brain. I'm going to start in Jan and just talk to you about, what happened when.

Relaunched the Founders Club

So January was significant in that it was the relaunch of the Founders Club, previously called the Inner Circle. So I started running the Inner Circle, I think it was back in 2016. I ran it for about six years and then I took some time off because the Inner Circle was 12 months of non-stop work. It is my highest level of consulting that I provide, which means that people in the Inner Circle, now Founders Club, have one on one access to me on a weekly basis.

They have daily access to me like 24 seven, although they're all really good - they've got amazing boundaries, but I'm literally on call 24 seven via Voxer, which is a messaging app that you have on your phone. You can also use it on your computer so whenever the paw-pay hits the fan, they can message me at any point in time and I will be there, and I will answer it and help them.

So it was a full on six years of really intensive support. However, I love doing it. Absolutely love it. But I felt like I needed a break. So I took a break of 12 months during 2023. And then at the end of the year, I went, Yeah. Okay. That was more than enough. Thank you very much. I rebranded it, instead of calling it the Inner Circle because it feels like, a lot of people started using that word for other types of groups and stuff, which is perfectly fine. But I also thought to myself, all right, I like to be different, and this is an amazing time to rebrand it because I had that break.

But I also wanted to clearly demonstrate who this very small masterminding group was for, and it is for seven figure practice owners. The majority of people in Founders Club already are at seven figures. Some aren’t but are aspiring to it and they're like 100 percent certain that that is what they want.

So it is really for people that want to engage in a higher-level conversation when it comes to the business of allied health. So a lot of the stuff that we do, for example, in my Academy is very much operations based like, business models, systems, framework, marketing, all the how to stuff. And yes, there's also a lot of planning involved and thinking ahead, but there's that next level of strategy and strategic thinking that needs to happen in your business, and we do a lot more of that in the founders club.

So, there's a lot of innovation that happens there. It's about practice owners who really want to build more than just a business. They want to leave a legacy for themselves, for their family and for their general community and that's what we do there. 

So in January this year, I relaunched the Founders Club and I've been loving every minute of being back in that level of involvement with the businesses that I work with in Founders Club. So that was a, a pretty big thing for me personally to kick that off again. February and March were your run of the mill, everyday business in PPS.

Revamped The7-Figure Practice Book

But in April I did another important thing. So these are really things that's out of the normal, out of the ordinary. In April I updated and reprinted my book called The 7-Figure Practice. So the book was first published back in 2016 and honestly, if you were to ask me, what is some of the stuff that I'm most proud of in PPS, it is that book, because the amount of people that have come to me in person at events, who has written to me, who has messaged me, who has emailed me to say, Gerda, you will never know how much this book has helped me from things such as just making me feel less alone, to make me feel less isolated, to actually giving me practical stuff that I can do.

The fact that it's, it's not a textbook, a lot of times the books out there and especially business books, it's like, it's a textbook. It feels like hard work to just read it, get your head around it. It's a textbook. The 7-Figure Practice book is not like that. It is made to be easy to read in plain language, cutting through all the nonsense, but being very practical, giving very clear mindset recommendations, but giving very clear actionable strategies that will change your business.

That book has changed businesses. I know that there are people, the only thing that they've ever bought from me and my business is that book and it has changed their business and when your business changes, it can change your life. It just is what it is. When you are a business owner, those two things are directly correlated and linked.

If you've got a shitty business, you're going to have a shitty life because your business is going to impact your personal relationships. If that doesn't happen, you are superhuman or you've got nobody in your life. If you've got no relationships, then you'll be perfectly fine. But if you've got relationships, that's important to you and you are a human, your business challenges will impact your relationships.

So I'm pretty proud of that book and the impact that it has had, but you know, things change. 2016 to 2024. That is eight years. And although a lot of things remain constant in business over an eight-year period, because eight years are actually a very small period in business, a lot of things change as well. So it's actually a really long time in business as well. And I know those two things might sound contradictory, but it's not. It all depends on what you're looking at. So I thought it was really important for me to really look at the content. 

This is not a new version of the book. It has been updated, and I went through it, and I made sure that everything that's in there is still relevant in 2024. I updated a lot of data numbers related stuff. So I did make the time to go through it. I reprinted it in my new branding colours, so it looks totally different. The book came out in April 2024, and I'm super excited to have that available.

I'm looking forward to it, helping and supporting maybe a new generation of group practice owners. Even solo practice owners. There's a lot of stuff in there for solo practice owners as well, and I'm very confident that every practice owner in Australia should have a copy.

The APS Business of Psychology Symposium

So that's what I did in April and then May was another interesting month. In May, the Australian Psychological Society ran the first ever business of psychology symposium. Now this was a two-day symposium and it was the first time that I know of, and I've probably, been a member of the APS since I first arrived in Australia, so that's many, many years now, and I've never seen them run an event over two days that was just on private practice and the business side of private practice, no clinical stuff, just business related things. And I was very chuffed when they asked me to MC the symposium, which I declined.

I was just thinking, Oh my goodness, that's such a huge responsibility and I am so busy, and I just felt that I couldn't give it the attention it deserves, because if I'm going to do something like MCing an event then I need to know that it is going to be amazing. I will want to rock that event as an MC.

It's such a big responsibility being an MC. So instead what I did is I recommended somebody to them, and they actually went with the lovely Valerie Ling, and she did an amazing job of MCing that event. But long story short, they still wanted me to be involved. So what ended up happening is I agreed to offer attendees free 15-minute mini mentoring sessions.

And I just thought, people are there for these speakers and I don't know if I were going to go to an event that I've paid to attend as an attendee and I have an opportunity to get 15 minutes of mentoring, yeah, that sounds great, but it's like 15 minutes, right?

How much can somebody help me in 15 minutes? I'd rather just stay in the presentations and not have my attention interrupted. So I thought, Oh, if I get, five, six people coming, that will be good, and I just assume that most people will want to book that during the breaks.

So I just went, okay, just keep the whole time open. Let's start at 8:30am all the way through to the end of the day and people can just randomly book in. Well, I was pretty surprised in that each and every 15-minute slot was booked out from when we started at 8:30am to when we finished, and I think on the one night I went straight through the networking event as well.

I ended up doing seventy-four 15-minute mini mentoring sessions. Now, if you go into the numbers, because I did, I did 18- and three-quarter hours of mini mentoring. That's like nine hours each day of mini mentoring, and I did not have a break.

The only chance I had to go to the toilet was when somebody was running late, and my lovely EA Kelly was there with me. She would just bring me food so that I could eat when it was lunchtime or morning tea or afternoon teatime. If you were there at the symposium, you would know that this is the truth because people came to me and they would just stop and go, Wow, you're still going?

Wow, you're still going? I would go, Yes. And it was just crazy. I couldn't believe it. We even had a waiting list. We literally had a wait list of people so that if somebody cancelled, Kelly could put somebody else into that slot. 

Which meant that I got to speak to 74 people, which was just amazing. The range of people that I got to speak with was from students that are studying psychology and going, just tell me about private practice, I just want to know more about private practice to people that has been group private practice owners for many, many years.

I also spoke to a lot of solo practice owners, and I really enjoyed those conversations because there was so much that I could share with them. I really feel like solo practitioners are probably, the most unsupported segment of our market - not that there's no support for them. It's just, they are so stuck in the day-to-day stuff of being a solo practitioner that they just don't have the time to look up and go.

Hang on. I need help. I need somebody that can tell me that, Hey, you've not increased your prices for the last two, three, four, five years. It's time or somebody that can tell them, did you know that you are undercharging significantly, that you are below, below, below, below what is even close to market rates for what it is that you do as a psychologist? 

Some of them just looked at me and went, what? This can't be, it's like, yes, this is what you, what you should be charging. And that is just, one common theme that kept on coming up. So needless to say. The reason why this is on my greatest hits list is that from an impact perspective, it was 15 minutes, but I feel like because it was 15 minutes, people came prepared with their questions. They knew exactly what they wanted from the 15 minutes. And I could give them very clear, very direct insights and input based on what it is that they've asked. 

Those two days went by so quickly, so quickly. I did not even notice I was working as hard as I was. I only noticed that when I would get back to my hotel room and gone, what? Is this the time already? I've not even had dinner yet. But yeah, it was full on, but it was exhilarating. Yes, that's the word. It was an exhilarating experience being able to give back. Because that's how I looked at it, right? Yes.

I didn't pay to be at the symposium, and they said that I could attend for free. However, I did not see a minute of presentations, because between them and me, we were all thinking, I'm just going to be doing these in the breaks because who would want to leave the presentation and come for mini mentoring.

So they said, you come, you get to attend for free, but I did not watch one presentation, not even for one minute, because I was busy the whole time. So for me, this was really giving back to the community that is private practice by having those, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That was May, June, July, August.

The Private Practice Success Academy Business Intensive

Those were all my standard run of the mill PPS months. And then I had another fast in August. So in the Academy, as part of what we do is I run two annual business intensives. So the academy started back in 2020. We are now in our fourth year and every year in March and August, I run a two-day business conference, we call it a business intensive, and the members have been going, Oh, it would be really nice to do something in person, all of that type of stuff. 

Well, it finally happened in August 2024. We went to a beautiful part of Melbourne. It's not really Melbourne. I think it took us about 90 minutes by car from Melbourne airport to get to this beautiful place called Hepburn Springs, and we stayed in one of the best locations that I've ever stayed in.

It's called the mineral Springs Hotel, and the customer service was amazing. Everything about this venue was amazing and I'm going to take all the credit for choosing this venue because I agonized for months about the right venue because it was the first time that we're going to do this in person.

The members requested it – I’m sure they didn't care where we went, but I cared a lot and I wanted it to be the most amazing experience, which I freaking regret now because it turned out to be the most amazing experience and now I need to top that next year. But anyway, I will deal with that later - January, I will start thinking about the August business intensive and start making those plans. But it was pretty special, and we had the majority of our membership was there. It was just the best two days. There was a lot of amazing content that was covered, but it was really the networking and connections that was happening that I really loved and enjoyed, and I think our members also loved and enjoyed. 

After the event was done, we actually asked our members for feedback because obviously this was the very first time we did it and I was thinking, I'm sure there's stuff that I could have done better and I want to know what that is so that going into next year, I can take those learnings and make sure that the 2025 event is even better.

We had like a whole little survey that members could complete and as I was going through it, like the one section asked about overall experience, and then it asks about aspects of the event that exceeded your expectations and there were four areas that people scored the highest. 

I looked at the first one and it was food and venue, and I went, they are so my people because if the food and venue is not okay, I don't care how great the content is, I'm not happy. So food and venue, big tick from the members. The second thing that they loved the most was presentation and resources. So that was the actual content that was being presented. So that was a big relief. 

The third thing was organization and structure of the event program. Which the system person in me loved that as well. And then the, the fourth thing that people highlighted as, something that exceeded their expectations was the company - not the company that is PPS, but the company, the people, the community, the company that they were in during the skill sessions and during the actual event around the dinner tables, the company they had at the breakfast table, during the breaks, and just the openness and the warmth and the support of colleagues, not competing, not holding back, but giving everything and sharing very openly, but also being very vulnerable in sharing things that might not be going so well.

So that was really, really awesome. And what really made me even happier was the question where we asked, would you recommend this event to another practice owner and a 100% of people said yes, which is amazing. This was an anonymous survey - so people could be as open and as honest and as brutal as possible. So that was really amazing for me to receive.

The Private Practice Success Awards

What made the August Business Intensive super special was that on the last night we had a Celebration Dinner and during that celebration dinner I hosted the first ever Private Practice Success Awards. So we handed out quite a number of awards during the course of the evening. But my favourite awards were the Level 5 status award.

So if you've read my book, you would know that I talk about the five levels of private practice. Level 1, that is your Start-up Practice, which is your solo practice. Level 2 is your Step-up Practice. Level 3 is your Expanding Practice. Level 4 is your Successful, AKA Demanding Practice.

And then we have a Level 5, which is what I refer to as the Ultimate Private Practice. And Level 5 is of course, your gateway into what I refer to as the Self-Running Practice, that practice that can run in your absence. And on that night, I was able to award 5 x Level 5 status awards to practice owners that has achieved Level 5 status with us in The Academy.

So that was pretty, pretty special. The awards night was. Loads of fun. I laughed so much, and it was so great to just spend this quality social time with other practice owners and of course the teams as well as some people brought their practice managers, practice principal. It was just so much fun. so that is why that made it to my greatest hits list. 

Relaunch of the Private Practice Success Planner

Okay, so fast forward then to November and I relaunched The Private Practice Success Planner. So if you were in my world way back when in 2018, you would know that I launched a planner then. So that was the very first PPS planner. You could get it in a black cover or in a purple colour back then.

Those sold like hotcakes back in 2018. They all sold out. I do still have one or two here at home that I hang onto as keepsakes. And of course, then we all went into COVID and all those things, and it just fell off my radar because it wasn't something important for me to do. I only do things that I feel is really important, but my community and my clients needed other things from me, and I always want to be as in tuned as possible as to what my clients need. 

So anyway 2024 comes around and I've gone, you know what? It's time. It's time to bring back the planner. And what prompted me to do that was my work in the Private Practice Success Academy. So we do a lot of great stuff in there, but I wanted something that my actual members can use and that aligns to the way that we do things in the Academy. So I literally designed the planner for my PPS Academy members, but obviously I do also make it available outside of the Academy in very, very limited numbers. I basically do one print run once it's out. It's freaking out. So yes, I launched that in November.

I posted it out to all my Academy members and Founders Club members, of course. So that is their Christmas present for this year and that felt really good because when I look at the old planner and the new planner, the old planner was amazing, but the new one is just so much better. Again, also rebranded it. 

Some content inside has stayed the same, like your calendar can only look like one way January to December, you know what I mean? But there's other stuff that I added in that wasn't in before. So we really brought that into 2024 and into the way that we are doing things and how we are running things within the Academy. So that was pretty special for me. 

The 10-year Anniversary of Private Practice Success

More generally the year of 2024 was the 10-year anniversary of Private Practice Success, Australia. So yeah, it was back in 2014 when I first registered the business name and I started going, there is not enough support for practice owners out there, specifically psychologists.

And I thought I need to start sharing with people what it is that I've learned through a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. And that's how I started it. PPS started as a little side business. It was my little thing that kept me busy whilst my practices were running, and it just grew and grew because there was obviously a need in the market.

So yes, I've been doing this thing called private practice, business coaching, consulting, and mentoring now for 10 year and I just love every minute of it. 

Something that I'm really most proud of when it comes to Private Practice Success Australia is the fact that I'm still very much involved in it. A lot of businesses generally, but even in the allied health business coaching, mentoring field, very often the founders are the face of the business in terms of the social media, stuff like that but that's where it stops, and I've very consciously gone about the way that I built Private Practice Success Australia. I mean I built my group private practice for it to be a Self-Running Practice, and it would be really silly of me to start another business that becomes this huge machine that needs to be managed 24 seven.

I don't want that, and I've never wanted that. What I want PPS to be is a lean business because I want to lead by example in that doesn't matter if it's your private practice or any other business that you start on the side of your private practice - like I did - and whatever that is for you, that ultimately you still want your time freedom.

We build our business to give us time freedom, to give us financial freedom, but ultimately it's freedom. You don't want to be a slave to your business. Now, I must say it's hard being a slave to your business when you love what you do. So that is a plus of course, but I wanted to make sure that I'm not a slave to my business, but that there is a continuous thread of my personal involvement in everything that I do, from Ignite Your Practice to the Academy to at the highest level in the Founders Club. I want to know each and every practice owner that is in my Founders Club, my Academy and also in Ignite Your Practice.

That has always been important for me. As a Clinical Psychologist first and foremost, the relationship is extremely important to me, and I am really happy that that is something that I've been able to maintain in Private Practice Success Australia. Yes, I might not meet with every practice owner in The Academy every week - that's what I do in Founders Club - but I know who they are. I know about their practice. I know what they are working on. What their goals are for their time in The Academy, and I know what their right next thing is. I know what projects they are working on right now and I'm very proud of the fact that I've been able to maintain that me, the actual founder of Private Practice Success Australia, and 100% that this is how things will continue into the next 10 years. So happy birthday to Private Practice Success Australia. 

The Psych Professionals’ 2024 Achievements

Alright, so let's shift gears a bit and let's talk about the Psych Professionals, which is my group private practice, located in Brisbane. So, When I look at what we did, I think there's three main things that really stand out. I mean, The Psych Professionals have now been operating since 2007 when I started it.

So, we've got a long history. Of running the practice as a business. I think we know what we're doing and a lot of times where I see practice owners going wrong is in wanting to do new things. Finding a new or different way is sometimes just because we get bored. Other times it's because we so used to have crises that when things get boring, we create new crises. We create new challenges to overcome. So I'm very mindful in my own business that we don't need something new.

I'm not going to fix something that's not broken. Doesn't mean I don't look at it and ask myself, how can I do this better? And you would have heard me talk so many times before, if you've been in my world for, more than a couple of months that I always ask, how can we help people in better and more efficient and more effective ways?

And that is about looking at what we're already doing and asking, is this still the best way to do this? How do I tweak this? Maybe make a slight change that can have a big difference in a positive way and that can increase the outcomes that we want here. So three things that we did in that area and through that filter at my practice this year are…

Optimised Marketing Strategy

The first one is that we optimized our marketing strategy. So personally, as a business owner, I have always loved doing marketing for my group prior practice. I see marketing as a game, and I compete with myself in terms of the outcomes that I want to achieve when I do marketing. But back to the practice.

So we optimized our marketing strategy to a point where we can easily turn the flow of clients on and off like you could a tap. So obviously, we've got a team of clinicians, we've got employees, and we've got contractors, and we also have a telehealth only team. So we have optimized our marketing where we can let's say take a new telehealth contractor on board, they start in three weeks’ time, and we can turn open the tap so we can fill that diary. And I can't tell you the confidence that gives you as a business owner knowing that that is how your marketing strategy works, that you can actually do that.

So that is something that we really dialled in even more than normal during 2024. 

Optimised Conversion Strategy

The other thing that we worked on, which was really important to do on the back of optimising our marketing strategy, and that was to optimise conversions. Because it doesn't help if you work on your marketing strategy and then those inquiries or referrals isn't converted.

So those two things are always going hand in hand. Marketing and Sales are two distinct business functions, but they go hand in hand because I can tell you if sales aren’t happening, the people at the front desk will say it's the marketing people, whomever that is in your small business. In other words, there are no appointments in the diary because the marketing hasn’t been happening and marketing will say, no, there's no appointments in the diary because the salespeople, the front desk, whoever’s doing the sales in allied health, which are your front desk person booking in inquiries, they're not doing it right.

So as a business owner, you need to always look at those two business functions as highly dependent or as highly correlated to one another. So I didn't want to just focus on marketing if we're not also simultaneously optimising conversions. So that is also something that we did by really making sure that whilst we're optimising the marketing strategy, that we also doing the same thing when it comes to conversions of those inquiries, referrals, all of those things. 

Established a Permanent Assessment Service

The third thing we did is we put a big focus and therefore achieved a big result in having increased assessment services at my practice. So my practice has traditionally been a therapy only practice which, from time to time, would hire clinicians that had experience in doing assessments and who wanted to continue doing assessments, and then we would do that. We would market them during that time, and they would do the assessment, how much they wanted to. But we have now established ourselves as really having a permanent assessment arm to the business, which was a big change. I'm not saying this is something that you should do. It just really worked for us. 

One arm of our business has always been child and adolescence, but we did mostly therapy. And that's normally where we'd do some assessments over the years. If somebody came in and they were trained in, let's say, autism assessments - but it would normally be like one person at the practice or maximum two that would do assessments. 

Now we always have a team of clinicians that can actually do assessments in the business, and we want that to continue going forward while still having the therapy arm of the business. The other part of the business have been very much focused on trauma, complex PTSD, all that type of presentations, which of course got a therapeutic focus, yes, there's some clinical and structured assessments that will happen as part of the diagnosis and treatment of those type of presentations but when I say assessments, I'm really talking about cognitive assessments, educational assessments, autism assessment, ADHD assessments, and we also do functional capacity assessments.

So yes, that was pretty exciting in that we increased our capacity to offer it on an ongoing basis. We really worked on standardising the processes behind it in terms of marketing converting, how we roll out the assessments, all of those things. Also making sure that it was the quality that we wanted.

I can't tell you how many assessment reports clients have brought in to us as therapeutic clinicians – after having had their child assessed elsewhere - and then they bring in highly questionable quality reports.

From a business perspective, I can’t but wonder why the quality wasn't there. Often it is because they would go to providers that would charge them a couple of hundred dollars for something that should be double that price, so they skimp on the report, and then it's not appropriate for what the client needs, and it doesn't serve its purpose.

So we wanted to ensure that given we are now going into assessments with a full commitment to making this an arm of the business, that the quality of any assessments, any reports, any work that we put out there meets the standards that our client community and our referral community has become accustomed to. I would rather not do assessments than put out shitty reports and I'm very excited to say that that is exactly what we've achieved, and we are really excited with what that's going to look like in 2025 as we continue to build on the work we've already done.

So that was the three things that I wanted to share with you from the perspective of my own group private practice. But I want to add a little bit in here for you guys as well, because obviously I'm a private practice owner myself and I will continue to remain a private practice owner. I really feel that me having skin in the game at this level is what gives me the edge as a business consultant, coach, and a mentor that I really get it.

And when things are happening in the industry, I'm experiencing it as well. I need to problem solve it as well at my practice. And when I say I, yes, that's the royal I because it's my team on the ground and, and me, but only for 45 minutes once a week, but I know everything that's happening, and I support them in problem solving those things.

Biggest Changes in Private Practice in 2024

So I thought I would also share with you what I think has been the biggest change in the private practice industry that I think, or let's say, I suspect a lot of people might not have noted over the last couple of months, because unfortunately there's a lot of group private practice owners, particularly talking about group private practice owners in this instance that are just so busy fighting fires and stepping into the operations when somebody else's dropping the ball, or they so overwhelmed that they never get to just breathe and look at what's happening in the industry. Or, if they do, because Gerda might've posted something on social media or in Gerda's Facebook group, they go, Oh yeah, that sounds interesting, I will have to think about that later, or I will read more about that later. Or I would look into that later, but you know what, later never comes. Well, when later comes three years down the track when it is too freaking late.

So I wanted to share that with you because I think that is really my responsibility to make sure that once again, if you've missed this somehow over the course of the year, that was 2024, that this might be a final reminder before we start tackling 2025 changes and trends in our industry. So the first one's got all to do with contracting.

The Changes to Allied Health Contracting Arrangements

So if you only have employees and you never, never, ever think that you want to have contractors, then this does not apply to you, but if you have contractors in your practice, even just one contractor, you need to pay attention. And I will preface this with saying that when I say contractors, I'm talking about true independent contractors.

I'm not referring to a services / facilities agreement. It just blows my mind that people actually use the word contractors when they refer to people on a facilities / room or services agreement. They aren't contractors. And when you use the word contractors, and services, facilities, agreements in the same sentence, you're just confusing everybody.

One of the biggest issues we have in our industry is confusion around terms and concepts such as this. Just like you should never use the word KPI and contractor in the same sentence, you shouldn't use the word contractor when talking about somebody with whom you've got a room or facilities agreement in place.

They’re not your contractor. They are your business associate. You are doing business with them. Yes, you and a contractor still have a business-to-business relationship, but it's a different level and the client dynamics are different. Now I'm not going to explain that to you here. If you are uncertain about what the differences are, just reach out to me and I'm happy to send you something that sets that out. I've got like a mini training that talks through the differences and that goes like for 10, 11 minutes. So, I don't want to use the time here to do that, but now I'm talking to independent contracting. 

So, if you are still referring to your contractors as part of your team, that's a red flag that you are not aware of the changes that's happened in the contracting landscape, because I can tell you they are not part of your team.

And I'm not saying be nasty to them or ostracize them. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that is no longer an accurate reflection of the relationship between you, your business, and their business. And it can have negative impact on your business down the track. Your team are employees.

Your contractors, and I've got a lot of contractors in my practice, they're not part of the team, per se. The employees are the team. The team are the people that you pay a set salary or set wages. You've got employment contracts with them.

Your contractors, they are your service providers. These are the people that come in to see an overflow of clients at your practice that your employees can't see. So it's really important. So if you're still calling them a team, you need to do some research into why that is no longer okay. That's a red flag.

If you are not aware of the change in definition of a contract for results, that's a red flag, which impacts when you have to, and when you don't need to pay super. There's a lot of stuff that has changed. If you do not know what I'm talking about, reach out, but contracting and the way we do it in private practice, not is changing, has changed, and it should have changed by now.

And if you're not made the changes, then now is the time to start. Don't freak out about it. Don't panic about it. It is about as soon as you become aware of something that needs to be updated or that needs to change, you just do it. You don't now again go into avoidance mode. That's, that's the thing you don't want to do. All right, so contracting has evolved most certainly. 

NDIS Impact on Allied Health

The second trend I want to talk about is the NDIS, And this generally has most relevance to people that has employment models. Yes, you'll probably also have contractors doing NDIS work, but I found that the majority of private practice business that is NDIS registered providers have employment models.

I'm generalising there a bit. But that's how it is. So if you are a NDIS registered provider, I really want you to start thinking about the viability of this for your business going forward. I'm not saying deregister yourself or anything like that. I'm just saying, as a responsible business owner that needs to have a long-term view and that has to look at the financial viability of your business, I think you've got a responsibility to look at that and to seriously start thinking about adding new and or additional income streams to your business.

If you're not doing that, you at the very least will need to do a deep dive into your financials in your business in order to ensure the financial viability of your business over the long term, because there's a lot of people working in the NDIS space and if you're going to avoid thinking about this, if you can avoid running the numbers, you might find yourself one day when it's too late and then it's not just you that's going to lose out and that's going to lose your business. It's going to be your entire team that's going to lose their jobs, clinicians and admin, not to even mention participants that will no longer have access to services. Every allied health business that closes down is one too many in my eyes.

We already have a shortage of services. We cannot afford this to happen to your business. So please make sure that you do not have all your eggs in one basket. That is a rookie business mistake. Yes, a lot of people have built really highly successful businesses on the back of the NDIS when it first started rolling out but as with most things in life there's trends. There's always an upward cycle and there's always a downward cycle and it is in how you manage the downward cycle that's going to either get your business to survive this downward cycle or not.

But how about you make sure that your business not just survives but thrives. By making sure that there's additional revenue streams coming in. 

Personal Greatest Hits

All right. Last but not least, a couple of personal greatest hits that I've had in 2024. 

First thing was my youngest, my 13-year-old Ethan. He started grade seven , which is like high school in Australia, so where a lot of times it's a new school if the school doesn't offer all the way to grade 12. So that was pretty exciting for him. My middle child, Henno, started grade 12. Yes, grade 12. Which meant that there was an amazing formal that we got to go to as parents. 

The parents were invited. I couldn't believe it. When my daughter had her grade 12 formal, it was only for the students. The parents couldn't go. And it's like, Oh, with Cassi-Dee, I had to stand like outside the building and you could only see them, getting out of the car, going inside, and then you had to go home and hope for some photos.

No, at my son's school, the parents actually got to attend. It was absolutely amazing. I got to have a dance with Henno that I got on video. It was so super cool. Of course that also meant grade 12 exams, but you know, Henno's a cool dude. He did not stress about it at all. I did not see one fleeting moment of anxiety.

He's my cool dude. I've been calling him that since he was little. That's just his personality and of course, lots of parties for all end of year events for grade 12, which means a lot of sleepless nights for me as his mom. And yeah, he actually just had his 18th birthday yesterday.

So it was a really, really big year for Henno and so super excited that he's going to university next year. He's going to go study allied health, of course, going into physio. So yeah, it was a really big year for him as well. 

My daughter who's my eldest, Cassi-Dee, she finished her Master of Social Work this year, which is another big achievement. Yes, it's been a big year and I'm so, so super proud of her and the work that she does. She's already got a job. She's like finished and went straight into her job that she has. She works with an NGO, helping people with disabilities, and she just loves that work. 

Of course, in May, I turned 50. Can you believe it? Yes. So that of course meant that the birthday bonanza that I run every year in Private Practice Success was even more awesome than normal. So yeah, 50 feels good. That's all I'm going to say about 50.

I didn't have a big party or anything like that. We just went to the pub, and it was a nice and low key. That's exactly how I wanted to go into my fifties, just another day, just another decade. And I still feel 25 anyway. So who's counting the years and talking about 25. It was my 25th wedding anniversary this year.

Can you believe it? I got married when I was 25 years old. So it's been 25 years since then and still going strong. I can tell you marriage is one hell of a ride, but yeah, very, very happy. 

It's interesting when I reflect on the 25 years of marriage. I feel like there's been like three stages in my married life. There was the pre kids It was when the kids were young like little and the stage where we're in now where they, the youngest is 13 and it's a completely different stage. And then I think the next stage will probably be when they've all left the house. 

In each of those different phases of your life and therefore also of your marriage you need to work on different things in your marriage. And of course, as long as you can see the challenges that each of those phases bring, and you can work together to get through that, you will get to the other phase.

The hardest phase thus far most certainly was when our kids were younger, because when they were younger is also when I was building my business. So Cassi-Dee, I think was five. She had just started prep and I just had Henno that now turned 18 and I had him in December and I started my practice - officially registered it - in February the next year. So that was really tricky juggling, having little kids while starting a business. But I can tell you, I could not have done it without my husband. I could not have done it without his support, without him listening to me all the time complaining and whining and crying on his shoulder because I didn't know what I didn't know it was freaking hard. 

When I tell you that I had made every mistake in the book, I mean it. And if it wasn't for that type of support that he gave me, I don't know how I would have done it. So most certainly I take my hat off for anybody that builds a business whilst having to be a single parent, or if you are in a relationship where you don't have good support, where you don't have a partner or a spouse that supports you in any way, shape, or form that you need, and that those needs will change from time to time.

And of course it goes both ways, right? You can't be in any relationship where that person just has to do all the supporting. It has to go both ways, but it's about going that today. I need more support that you might need, right? It's not 50/50, some days I needed a hundred percent of support, and he got zero from me.

But other days, I was good again, and he needed 100 percent support in his job, for example, because he had a highly stressful job as well and then I had to give 100 percent of the support. And I think a lot of times people have that expectation that everything needs to be 50/50 and, all of that stuff.

But it's about giving one another what you need when you need it. How did this turn into a bit of a marriage counselling session? I'll just stop it right there. This is getting way too personal for a freaking podcast. 

I guess what I'm saying is that marriage is an amazing thing. I highly recommend it. If you don't want to get married, just being in a long-term relationship is amazing because I've always known that if things fall apart in the business that I had, I would be okay because my husband will be there for me. 

Doesn't matter what happens. He will be there. Even if we lose everything, he will be there for me. And that has always given me enormous courage in that I can try my hand at anything because he will never judge me for it, and he will never blame me for anything.

And I have stuffed up a lot. Let me just say that and he's always been that's okay. You can do this. What do you need to do next? What needs to happen now? How can I help? And that's all I needed to hear He rarely did anything between me and you, but he asked, he offered, and I would always go, just need a hug – then I'm good and then I would go off and go do my thing.

So having the right person in your corner, whether that's a husband, a wife, a partner, I don't know, it can probably be a best friend. You just need somebody in your corner who's going to be there irrespective of what happens. 

Well, I hope that was helpful. If it wasn't really helpful, I hope at least it was interesting to listen to and get a bit more of a personal experience from my side. Yeah, I think this is going to be the last actual podcast for 2024 and next time you will hear from me, we'll probably be on the podcast in 2025.

So whatever you're doing these holidays, I hope it involves a lot of rest, relaxation, recharging, reflection, just doing nothing and doing whatever it is that you want to do. Maybe doing all the things.

Each of us needs different stuff during our downtime. Just do stuff that feeds your soul. Even if it's just sitting at the beach, watching the ocean, which is what I intend to do.

Okay. I'm going to love and leave you. Thank you so very much for joining. Please share this podcast with any practice owner who you think might be isolated right now, who you think might benefit from hearing the topics that we are discussing on here.

Thank you again, and as always remember that I am here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about.

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Gerda Muller

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