Day in the life of
Clinical Social Worker – Wendy Pitts, LCSW-C
I am Wendy Pitts, LCSW-C, a clinical social worker. In my day job, I work as a School Mental Health Therapist at an alternative public school. In the evenings, I run my own private practice, Guiding Insight, LLC where I primarily see adults for therapy.
I begin seeing clients at 4:00 pm and the latest I begin an appointment is 8:00 pm. Most evenings I see 2-3 clients, but there are occasions where I see 5 in a night. I meet with therapy clients for 50 minutes, giving me 10 minutes to write notes and take care of billing their insurance before meeting with my next client.
Providing therapy is the easy part of my job. A lot of the time not spent with clients is spent on advertising and outreach. I participate in multiple forums with other therapists so that I can get referrals. I am constantly looking over my business listings to see if the wording needs tweaking in order to attract the clients I want and deciding which therapist listings are getting me enough clients to be worth the price of the listing.
In order to maintain my license, I have to participate in 40 hours of continuing education every two years, so part of my time is spent looking for trainings that fulfill this requirement and are affordable. Many agencies will pay for their social workers to take classes or trainings, but being in private practice, this is all on me. In addition to the trainings required for licensure, I have to do a lot of reading to keep up to date on industry standards of therapy. The more treatment modalities I am trained in, the more clients I am able to serve.
The largest part of my non-therapy time is spent on paperwork. Every time I meet with a client, I have to write a note. After the first meeting, I have to write a treatment plan outlining why they are coming to therapy and how I plan to help them. This treatment plan gets reviewed every 3 months. Before my first meeting with a new client they fill out a lot of forms, and I spend quite a bit of time going over them to learn their psychiatric history and if they will be using insurance to pay for my services, I have to call the insurance company to insure their coverage. After each appointment, I have to fill out claim forms to submit to their insurance company for payment. At the end of each night that I work, I spend time going over my bookkeeping to make sure I list how many clients I have seen, how much they have paid if they are private pay clients or have a copay and how much their insurance company owes me. I also track when I receive a check from the insurance companies.
Pros
I feel that everything is a pro. The pride I feel running my own business can’t be beaten. There is a sense of satisfaction that comes with knowing I have helped someone dealing with problems in their personal life. I am honored every day that people trust me to hold a safe space for them to open up and share their most personal thoughts, fears, and needs.
My favorite thing about working for myself is that I get to choose the people I work with. Not every therapist is the right one for every client. When a client comes to me for whom I don’t believe I’ll be a good fit, I make a point of giving them referrals to other therapists who may be better suited to their needs. This is why I can honestly say that I really like everyone I work with.
Cons
If I have to pick a con for being a therapist in private practice, it would be the pay insecurity. It is challenging to set a budget based on my projected income when many factors that are out of my control can change the amount of income I receive. Insurance companies can decide to not reimburse for a service. A client can cancel an appointment or just no-show. My practice is completely virtual, so if I have internet issues or there is a storm and I have a power outage, I have to cancel my appointments for that day. These sorts of issues make financial commitments a scary proposition.
