Group Practice Management: The Service Every Psychotherapy Practice Owner Should Know About
Do you ever feel overwhelmed as a group practice owner? Maybe you set out to create more freedom for yourself by expanding, but now you’re feeling trapped and bogged down with endless administrative and operational details.
You started your business because you had a vision. You wanted to do things differently and create more freedom for yourself and your team. You wanted to reject old ideas about sacrificing your own well-being for the sake of your livelihood.
But here you are, hustling to wear all the hats in your business, feeling overwhelmed and getting closer and closer to burnout every day.
I know you tell your clients this all the time, so I’m here to reflect it to you: you don’t have to do it alone.
While it may seem like you’re the only one who can carry your business on your shoulders, there are actually services available to help you manage the day-to-day operations in a more streamlined, sustainable way.
Recently, I met Brie Chrisman, founder of BossCo, a business operations and systems strategy agency built specifically for mental health private practices. I was so excited to learn about this agency because, unlike an admin assistant who can help with daily tasks, BossCo goes deeper into the structure of your business to help fix foundational bottlenecks and build a sustainable system for your practice.
Here are some things that BossCo can take off your plate:
Process Streamlining & System Integration
Operations & Growth Strategy
Tech & Software Support
Business Auditing
SOP Creation
Project & Team Management
Staff & Client Onboarding Logistics
I had a feeling my readers would want to know more about BossCo and how they help their clients, so I sat down with Brie to ask her a few questions about practice management and how her business came to be:
What are the most common operational bottlenecks you see in group private practices, and what's one quick fix owners can implement this week?
The big three bottlenecks we see in almost every group practice are unclear roles, bottlenecked decision-making, and a complete lack of documented systems. Everything flows through the practice owner, which means nothing moves without them, and they’re usually buried in a mix of clinical and admin work.
A quick fix: Write down every task that comes across your plate for three days straight. Then circle anything that doesn't require your specific brain/skill set/etc. That’s your delegation starting point!
You mention helping practices get unstuck from the "back burner" - what's the first step a burned-out practice owner should take to regain control of their business operations?
Step 1A: Stop pretending you should be able to do it all. That guilt is the fuel for burnout. It’s OKAY to ask for help. In fact, we encourage you to.
Step 1B: Create awareness so that you can get out of survival mode. Block one hour - seriously, put it on your calendar - to look at what’s actually clogging your day. Is it team emails? Billing questions? Constant Slack messages? Once you know what’s eating your time, you can start to remove or restructure it. You can’t fix what you haven’t named. No more ostrich time (burying your head in the sand).
For therapists who are wearing too many hats, how do you recommend they prioritize which tasks to delegate or systematize first?
Start with what’s costing you the most time and energy (and/or sanity) without directly making you money. That usually means admin work, intake coordination, client communication, and billing follow-ups. If you’re still doing all of that, delegation isn’t optional anymore—it’s necessary if you want to stay out of burnout and actually lead your team.
If something is repetitive, reactive, or rules-based (aka it doesn’t need your specific license, brain, skill set, or gut instinct to do it), it can and should be delegated or automated. These are the tasks that are probably keeping you up at night and the ones that are keeping you busy. All. Day. Long. The goal isn’t to offload everything at once — it’s to stop being the bottleneck.
What's one system or process that every mental health practice should have in place before they try to scale?
Client Onboarding. This is, in our opinion, the most important process to have in solo and group practices (and honestly any business). If you do not have a clear client journey that provides clear direction (for your team and your clients) from inquiry to last session, it will make it very hard to attract, convert, and retain clients. An exceptional onboarding process makes clients feel welcome and safe in a potentially scary new process. Plus, as a business owner, you can track and measure the success of your practice at so many pivotal points throughout your clients’ journeys if you have a standardized process.
How can practice owners identify whether they need to focus on growth strategies versus fixing operational problems first?
If you’re getting more inquiries but your team is overwhelmed, clients are waiting weeks, or your systems are duct-taped together… growth isn’t the problem—it’s the lack of infrastructure. (Aka you’re constantly reacting and not planning.)
Revenue can’t fix what messy operations will keep breaking. So, if you feel stuck despite being busy, it's time to pause and fix the foundation before pouring more on top. Busyness does not equal success. You’re just busy.
What inspired you to specialize specifically in mental health practices rather than general business consulting?
We actually started in general business management and because we initially grew completely off referrals, our clientbase ended up being 90% therapists. In 2023, we took a hard look at our business model and realized that serving a variety of industries was holding us back from going deeper into the mental health field. So, we let go of our non-therapist clients and went all in on all things mental health.
I’ve lived the overlap of both worlds - business operations and mental health. I’m a longtime mental health advocate and have experienced the amazing work of mental health professionals. I’ve seen firsthand how the people doing the most emotionally taxing work are often the ones carrying the heaviest business burdens too.
Therapy practices are doing life-changing work, but most owners were trained to be clinicians, not CEOs. They end up exhausted, overbooked, and overwhelmed by the business side of things. We are working to fill that gap so that practice owners don’t have to choose between helping people and running a sustainable, scalable company. We do both — without burning out in the process.
You emphasize being "partners in your corner" rather than just consultants - how does this partnership approach play out in your day-to-day work with clients?
We don’t just throw a strategy at you and walk away. We don’t come in to take tasks off your plate just to get on the hamster wheel with you. Analogy time: we don’t just write you a prescription to treat the symptoms. We get in the weeds with you, figure out what’s broken, and help you fix it. (AKA we figure out what the root cause of the problems are and we start there, THEN help you with a strategy to solve the leftover symptoms.) We’re deep in the work with you. We co-create systems, map out realistic goals, give feedback on actual team communication, and stay in regular touch.
Our clients get strategy and implementation support—plus a human on the other end of the screen who actually gets what it’s like to run a practice and carry that weight.
What's the most rewarding transformation you've seen in a client's practice, and what was the key breakthrough moment?
One of our clients has been running their practice for 8 years and had never taken a non-working vacation. They were very stressed about the day to day and did NOT want to give up any control. When we started working with this practice, we were supporting their day-to-day operations in a very small capacity and after a year, we were really handling their entire clinician operations (they are a growing team with a long waitlist so they were onboarding clinicians regularly). Pretty much right after we celebrated our year anniversary with this client, they took their first TEN day vacation sans computer. They didn’t check in, they didn’t log on. They truly were able to enjoy a vacation away from the practice and spend time with their partner. Since then, this client has taken several more non-working vacations and has been able to fully step away so that they aren’t the main contact for their practice any longer.
If you’re ready to streamline your group practice operations while protecting your time, energy, and well-being, BossCo might be a good fit for you.
Whether you’re getting ready to scale or you’re already there, Brie and her team at BossCo can help you get things running smoothly so you can continue to build the business of your dreams.
