89: How to Price Your Nature-Based Therapy Services
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Therapy in the Great Outdoors, the podcast where we explore the business and practice of nature based pediatric therapy of all kinds. If you're an outdoor loving pediatric practitioner in the fields of occupational, physical, or speech therapy, social work, or mental health, this podcast will help you start and grow a successful nature based practice or program.
I am the ever honest, always a hundred percent real. You'll hear it all on this podcast. Dr. Laura Park Figueroa. I'm a pediatric OT with over 20 years of experience and I run a thriving nature based practice with profitable locations in two different states and multi six figures in revenue. I also host the free online community at therapyinthegreatoutdoors.
com to help you pursue your nature based therapy dreams too. Are you ready to take action on those dreams? Let's jump in.
[00:01:00] Hello friends. All right. As promised last week, we are going to talk about pricing your nature-based therapy services this week. I am actually going to make this into a little bit of a series because I have a podcast that I produced for many years called Mind Your OT business. And there are several great episodes on that podcast about pricing. And so I am actually going to share them on this podcast as well, because I don't assume that anyone who listens to this podcast actually even knew I had another podcast before this.
And I went back and listened and there's some really great information there for all of you. So this week, I'm going to talk about how to price your services. And then in the coming weeks, I will share a mini series. I think it's three episodes on pricing. And go a lot more into like pricing psychology and things like that. The reason for that is that I am actually at the time that this is published, which will be mid to late [00:02:00] October. I will be about a week or so away from going on an almost month long trip to Nepal and Indonesia with my 20 year old son.
And it is. Just, a chance of a lifetime to do this, his friend. Has a mom who has worked in Nepal for many years off and on. And so she speaks Nepalese and we are going to travel with his friend and his parents. We're surprising his friend, which I think is probably fine to say on this podcast because his friend will never hear this.
So we're going to surprise his friend. His friend does not know that we're going to come. And so his mom and dad and I, and my son have been. Conniving behind the scenes to plan all of this without my son's friend, knowing that he's coming. So it's really exciting. It's going to be so fun. So we're going to go to Namche Bazaar, which is one of the stops on the way to Everest base camp. We will not be able to get to Everest Base camp [00:03:00] in the time that we have scheduled there, but we will be able to see Everest from afar, which is just, I get goosebumps sitting here talking to you all about it.
It is such an epic. Epic trip. I'm like. Dumbfounded that I actually even get to go do this and I am just. Full of gratitude for my life right now. Like that I get to go do this. There are so many things that had to. Align in order to allow me to leave for that long and things have just fallen into place.
So I've hired a COO in my practice who is going to be running things along with my CFO, the chief financial officer. So chief operations officer, someone who kind of runs and manages a business. And then my executive assistant and CFO, chief financial officer Nicole, is going to be running the business with this new COO. As I am gone. And I also. [00:04:00] Feel really grateful for my husband who is going to be home with my youngest.
Who's going to be 14 by then. And manage his homeschooling and all of that. So I'm a little sad to be away from them for almost a month, but it's going to be so worth it. And I'm also. I just, my heart is full of gratitude that I have a 20 year old son who even wants me to travel with him for that. So it's just, I'm super thankful for this phase of life.
I just am in this fall, where I'm feeling. Grateful and excited and just really looking forward to doing this trip with Lucas and having the time together and also just seeing incredible parts of the world where I haven't traveled a lot. I've never had a lot of money in my life.
Like I didn't grow up wealthy. My husband and I, for many years, my husband worked in churches. And so we just did not have a lot of money and. So, this is a real just [00:05:00] gift to me. I cannot wait. I'm so excited. So sorry to go into that big, long. Description of everything. But that is the explanation of why I'm going to be doing this kind of series on pricing, because I do feel like those episodes from my old podcast could be really helpful.
So I'm going to repurpose those over the coming weeks. And if you had listened to them, gosh, it was probably, I started that podcast in 2018. So it's been over five years now. All of it is still relevant about pricing. But if you had listened to them a long time ago, well-worth another listen.
So. All right. Let's talk today though, about how to price your services. The first thing I would say is. You don't have to set your prices really high to start. Okay. Now I should. Back up. What does that sound? A little rewind sound. I'm totally dating myself from when we had tape players and you would like hit rewind and the rewind sound would [00:06:00] go.
Okay. So yes, I'm 48 years old. You will see that here as I'm talking. Okay. Rewind a minute. To start out. I need to say. I am speaking to those of you right now. Who have some way to have control over the prices that you charge for your services. Now, obviously, if you are taking insurance, For your nature-based services, you don't have much of a say over what you get charged, but I do think that listening to these pricing psychology episodes coming up and to this episode, We'll be helpful, even if you take insurance, because it might give you ideas for things you could offer that are outside of the insurance-based model to bring in some extra revenue into your practice.
So that's the caveat before I jump into all of these. Back to don't set high prices to start. When you are a brand new business in the area, you do not have any social proof. That you're. Methods or your therapists? Are good. I [00:07:00] think when you start out, it is very wise to do some research in your area and find out what are parents pain when they pay for therapy services in your area. This might involve you having the uncomfortable situation where you have to call a therapy clinic and ask them what their cash pay rates are, because you need to know this information in order to. Price your services appropriately for your area. Prices are going to vacillate widely depending on where you live and what your market can handle.
So my practice in California charges over $200 an hour for therapy services, and my practice in Madison charges 150. So that's a large difference in. In. Rate per hour of skilled therapy services. You need to know your area and you need to know what is appropriate for your area. Price your services to start average for your area, but do not go lower than that.
There's no reason that you need to discount your services just because you're a [00:08:00] new business. Okay. People that will get into this some in future episodes, but people value things based on the price that they hear for them. So if they hear that something is. Lower price than other things in the area.
They're going to wonder if it's even valuable, what you have to offer. When you set your prices and you're telling people your prices, or you're having a conversation about your prices. I want you to practice saying your price. And then shut up. Do not keep talking. Do not immediately say, I know it's expensive.
Do not say, but I have scholarships if you need it. Do not say that. Just say your prices. Explain the prices to the family. And then be quiet and let them respond. Now if their response is. Whoa. We could never afford that. I just, I really want to do this, but I'm just not sure how to make it happen. I think you can judiciously. [00:09:00] Offer scholarships.
If you are cash pay now, I don't want you to offer so many scholarships that you are not paying yourself or able to pay your employees and you run your business into the ground. A business needs to make money in order to be a business. And this goes for a therapy practice too. Like, yes, you're helping people, but it's okay to make money in your business.
You need to make money in order to survive, to help more people. So I feel like I say this all the time, so sorry if you've heard my soap box before. It's just true. And I will fight forever against this idea that we should just be giving away our services because we're nice people because we're therapists like no, if you're offering a valuable service, you need to be paid for that service.
Other professions do not have this issue we do in our profession. And. Along those lines too. I feel like we, this is going to go down a rabbit hole, maybe off, off topic of pricing, but. Y'all also need to be comfortable investing in yourself and in your business, like this is something that people who serve therapists [00:10:00] with an offer, like any kind of coaching program or, copywriting services or like website design or anything like people who specialize in serving therapists.
Like we all know that this is the thing like therapists have just a really hard time investing in themselves and paying money in order to. Invest in their own professional development invest in their own business. And the therapists that do that, the therapists that are willing to invest in themselves, they actually end up being the most successful people.
You have to invest in yourself. In order to grow your business. Okay. Sorry for the little side. Topic there, but back to pricing. Okay, you can offer scholarships if you're cash pay. That was the next thing on my list. I already said that I would definitely say that price your services appropriately for your area. And then offer the scholarships if needed. The other thing you [00:11:00] can do is to think about finding different payers in your area that may like we had a grant for awhile in the bay area that was providing services.
Like the regional centers sometimes provide services that are like the early intervention programs or there's all different kinds of scholarship funds that are out there. Do some research in your area and see what's there. In order to offer funding for people in your practice. But my point is you can keep your prices high or average, at least for your area. And then get those funders to pay your actual price.
If you offer scholarships to families. Back to pricing again. Sorry. This is all kind of related to pricing, but also to funding your services, things like that. It all melds together. When I start talking about business. So once you have a proven concept, once you have a handful of clients, it doesn't have to be a lot.
It could be five or 10 people that are paying you. Your actual rate that you have said for your services. Then you [00:12:00] can raise your prices. Once you have clients returning, once you have a proven concept. Raise your prices. You should at least raise your prices based on cost of living adjustments.
And these are published by the social security administration in the United States. I'm sure if you're in another country, there's something similar, some kind of. Cost of living increase that is recommended. And you can look at that number and raise your prices. That amount now. For a while. I was doing raises in my business based on the cost of living adjustment.
And I was giving them like every year, no matter what people got them. And I think I'm going to move away from doing that and move towards like a performance-based kind of system where employees move up in steps in order to get different raises and different bonuses. But that is a whole other episode.
I'll probably do an episode on that actually, once I get it set up or we're working on that right now. I do think looking up that cost of living adjustment, it's called Cola for short C O L A. [00:13:00] That is a good kind of metric to see, because it'll show you how prices are going up in general, wherever you live. And we'll allow you to raise your rates accordingly, because if you don't raise your rates ever, you basically are going to be well under priced in five, 10 years because you, if you never raise your rates, you're not keeping up with inflation.
And like just the cost of living goes up over time.
All right. And then finally, the last thing I would say is when you're pricing your services, think about what value you could offer to clients besides just the typical therapy model of you pay for these minutes of therapy. If you offer ad-ons that add value for families so they can really see why they're paying you their hard earned money versus going to their insurance and paying their $20. Deductible or whatever, and having a 30 minute visit at a clinic, then you need to really [00:14:00] illustrate that value for them.
So basically you can offer these ad-ons like a weekly update or progress notes that you send them more frequently maybe than they'd get in a clinic based setting. You could offer, use as you wish consult minutes. Like with every month you get a half hour consult call or whatever.
You have to. Adjust your prices accordingly. You need to get paid for these things. And as I mentioned, in a previous episode, you could even do, on-call like call a therapist as needed and you are on retainer and people are calling you when they need your help in a specific situation with their child.
Now that should be a very high cost service because you're on call essentially. But if you think about these add ons that you could offer. That really shows people the value of what they are paying for. And it allows you to price your services accordingly. Okay. Hopefully you guys got some ideas from this episode and I will be sharing some more pricing episodes over the coming weeks, and I [00:15:00] hope you enjoy those two.
I love this topic. It is so important for us to think about. Because I want you all to value yourselves and the services that you provide, which are connecting kids to nature and helping them to have full and meaningful lives, you're impacting kids for the rest of their lives, by the work that you're doing by getting them outdoors for therapy.
And so I want you to value that and feel super confident and proud of that work and to get paid what you should for your services. All right, I'll see you next week. Bye.
Hey, before you go, if this podcast has helped you in your nature based work, will you take one minute to leave a five star review for the podcast, wherever you're listening right now? It helps me keep producing free content for you when I see that it is actually having an impact in the world. So thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much for doing that. And now go get outside and enjoy [00:16:00] therapy in the great outdoors. See you next week.
