Business consulting for therapists going private pay and beyond
You are allowed to make real money doing this.
Most therapists were trained to be excellent clinicians and left completely alone with the business part. So they undercharge, overgive, and feel ashamed for wanting more. Aren't you tired of that?
Going private pay
Getting off panels without gutting your caseload, with a fee you can say out loud.
Growing beyond the session
New revenue streams and a brand that sounds like you, planned so they pay you back.
The money work
The beliefs underneath your pricing, because a new fee without a new belief snaps back inside a quarter.
A practice that feels like you
Hours, caseload, and model shaped around your life instead of the one you inherited.
Why private practice feels harder than it should
Nobody taught us the business side of private practice
Grad school handed most of us one practice model. Fifty-minute sessions, a caseload as full as you can stand, and a fee somebody else set. Then it left us alone with the rest: pricing, marketing, paperwork, and the whole back office of a small business.
So we guess. We say yes to the reduced-fee request we can't afford. We rewrite the website at midnight and still don't know what to charge. Most of that is a skills gap nobody filled for us, and skills can be learned.
Or, you build the practice, the offers, and the brand on purpose, around the life you want, with someone who has already done it.
For therapists coloring outside the lines
Business consulting for therapists making big leaps
You're defining your own version of this work. Maybe that's leaving the panels. Maybe it's a group, a course, consulting, speaking, or a brand that sounds like you and nobody else. The strategy and the money work have to come with you.
Going private pay
The exit plan, the fee, the words for the clients you already have, and the marketing that brings in new ones.
Join the Insurance Exit Plan waitlist →Adding revenue streams
Groups, courses, consulting, and products priced and sold so they grow your revenue and pay you back.
Building your brand
A message, a website, and marketing that bring in new clients and audiences, and feel like yours when you read them out loud.
You know what you want, but can’t seem to do it.
You've read the posts, run the numbers, maybe bought the course. Every time you get close to raising the fee, leaving the panel, or launching the offer, something stops you. That something is where we start.
Take the money script quizYou’ve had success, but then you stopped growing.
The first big move paid off. Then everything stalls right at the edge of what feels okay for someone like you to earn or build. The next leap takes new strategy and a new picture of yourself.
See Building BeyondThe money work
Your fee is how clients care for you
You care for your clients emotionally. They care for you financially. You're helping each other, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that is how a community works, through mutual care.
Therapists are taught to give and give and never receive. Clients can't support us emotionally, and they shouldn't. They can support us financially. That's what pays for the rest, the vacation, and the life that lets you show up well for them.
Receiving that care is part of the job. Most of us need practice.
The income gap
What your panel rate is costing you
Same therapist. Same 46 working weeks. One fee is set by a panel, and one is set by you. Here is what that does to a year.
On panels
Private pay
$20,240 more a year, seven fewer sessions a week
That is 322 hours of your year back (a little over 13 full days). Now put your own costs, your own panels, and your own caseload in.
Where these numbers come from: $112 is the average insurance reimbursement per session, and $180 is the low end of the rate most therapists named as their ideal, both from The 2025 State of Mental Health Insurance and Marketing Report by Beacon Media + Marketing and Thrizer. The caseloads and the 46 working weeks are an example. Gross figures are before expenses and taxes.
How I work
Business strategy and financial therapy for therapists
I'm a financial therapist, a consultant, and a fellow entrepreneur. My process bridges the practical and the emotional: the business decisions, and what your body feels about them.
The embodied side
As someone with a deeply attachment-focused and somatic practice, I help you listen to what your system is actually saying. We spend so much of our life attuning to our clients, while rarely attuning to what's going on inside of ourselves and how that affects every decision we make with our business.
The business side
As someone who landed three national accounts by twenty-three, long before I ever sat in the therapist chair, I help you look at your practice like the business it is. We're trained to read people closely, while rarely reading the numbers, the market, or what makes someone say yes to working with us.
The process
We build the fee from your real numbers, work through the story that makes receiving it hard, and check it with your body before it goes live. You decide where this journey goes -- I just help you get there.
This is business strategy. When something clinical comes up, it goes back to your own therapist.
Ways to work together
Private practice consulting, your way
Business strategy sessions
A 60-minute consult for the one decision you need to get right, or a 2-hour intensive to rebuild the whole model.
60 min $400 · 2 hours $950 Book a session →Mentorship
A monthly call, weekly check-ins, and someone tracking your growth between them.
$900 a month Explore mentorship →Building Beyond
A 12-month group for therapists with a big goal. Five people per cohort, your own yearly plan, and a monthly call to get it built.
$300 a month · By application Apply now → Coming fall 2026The Insurance Exit Plan
A fillable workbook for getting off insurance panels without gutting your income: the numbers, the money work, the marketing, and the exact words for every conversation.
Join the waitlist →Accessible Private Pay Toolkit
A calculator, 13 scripts, and a 58-page workbook for a sliding scale that still pays you.
$47, instant download Get the toolkit →Website audits
Your therapy website reviewed for clarity, search, and bookings, with a prioritized fix list.
Mini $145 · Full $399 Get an audit →
Therapist CE retreat · February 21st to 26th, 2027
The Money Shift Therapist CE Retreat in Belize
Five nights on the Caribbean coast, up to 10 CE hours pending approval, and room to do your money work and decide what you build next.
See the retreatWhy Jessica Good for private practice consulting
Built one embodied yes at a time
I'm a therapist with a background in sales and marketing, and my clinical lens is rooted in somatic work.
I had a rough start. So I built a soft life on purpose, by noticing every no and turning toward a yes.
100% private pay, no panels
Sometimes a third, 10:00 to 3:30
Jessica Good, MA, LPC, EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Trauma of Money Certified, Member of the Financial Therapy Association
Read my storyWhat my consultees say
“Jessica made a huge impact on my business even after meeting just once. … Jessica came prepared, offered direct and constructive feedback, and helped me gain the confidence to make some necessary changes to my business.”
“I reached out to Jessica with a desire to transition my practice to private pay with extended sessions. Jessica helped me to organize my thoughts and, importantly, stop underselling myself. … Jessica has a gift for helping ideas feel possible and bringing clarity to what already exists.”
Free tools for therapists in private practice
Private pay fee calculator
See what private pay would pay you
Start from your real costs, compare your panel rate to a private pay fee, and see the gap in dollars. It takes about twenty minutes.
Run the numbersMoney script quiz for therapists
Find the money script running your practice
Twenty-four statements, less than five minutes. See which of the four money scripts is loudest for you, and what it's doing to your fees.
Take the quizThe free Facebook group for private pay therapists
Come hang out. No money shame here
A group for therapists moving off panels, raising their fees, or rebuilding a practice around how they're wired. Say you want more. Nobody here will make you smaller for it.
Join the groupPrivate group. Therapists only, licensed or pre-licensed. 1,000+ members.
What we talk about
Start here: private pay reading for therapists
Why therapists are leaving insurance panels
Therapists are leaving insurance panels because the math stopped working and the disrespect didn't. Shrinking reimbursement rates, clawbacks on sessions you already delivered, algorithm-driven denials, and warning letters for billing a full hour have pushed more than half of surveyed clinicians to plan their exit within a year.
Read more FeesWhat should therapists charge?
Most therapists set their session fee the same way: they look at what other therapists in their area are charging, pick a number somewhere in that range, and call it done. That number is almost never right. Here is how to calculate one rooted in your real life.
Read more Money scriptsMoney scripts and private practice
Someone announces they've raised their rates, and within minutes someone else fires back: "It should be unethical to charge that much per session." That's not a pricing opinion. That's a money script parading around as a values statement so you never think to question it.
Read more PricingWhy charging too little is costing you therapy clients
Something happens when a therapist who has been undercharging finally raises their rates. Suddenly there are more people filling up the calendar with consultation calls. This is not a coincidence. It's a price-quality bias, and once you understand it, you will think about your fee differently.
Read more MarketingWhy marketing advice isn't working for your private practice
If you're doing everything the marketing advice told you to do and your practice still isn't filling, you don't have a marketing problem. You have a strategy problem. Generic advice hands you a list of ingredients. Strategy is knowing what to make with them.
Read more RetreatsWho goes on therapist retreats?
Therapist retreats attract six kinds of people: the one escaping, the one testing whether they are allowed to do this, the one chasing a destination, the one focused on investment, the one picking the room, and the one who has simply decided. Knowing which one you are changes the week.
Read moreQuestions therapists ask about going private pay
How do I go private pay as a therapist?
Start with the math: what your life and practice cost, and what fee covers it at the caseload you want. Then plan the exit panel by panel, with the words for your current clients. Read the step-by-step post. Or join the waitlist for the Insurance Exit Plan, the workbook that walks you through it.
How do I get private pay clients as a therapist?
Three things do most of the work: a clear message about who you help, a website that says it in your clients’ words, and referral relationships you keep warm. Start them before you drop a panel. Read why generic marketing advice stalls. Or get a website audit and see what your site is telling people now.
What should I charge for a therapy session?
A fee built from your costs and your income goal, not from what panels reimburse. The free calculator does that math for you.
Can I go private pay and stay accessible?
Yes. A three-tier sliding scale your clients self-select into, or a set number of reduced-fee spots, priced so your practice stays above its floor. See the toolkit.
Is this therapy?
No. This is business strategy for therapists. When something clinical comes up, it goes back to your own therapist.