How to Hire for Your Group Practice

Hiring new clinicians to work at your practice is an important step for growing your business. 

Finding candidates who are in alignment with your mission, vision, and values of your business is never a sure thing.

Here are some steps to help you get the information you need to ensure you are finding and hiring the candidates who are the best fit for your practice. 

6 steps for hiring new employees in your group practice

The interview process is something I’ve edited over and over again in my last five years of group practice ownership.

Along the way, there have been some great hires—and some not-so-great ones.

Overall, the process of figuring out what works for you and your practice is something only you can decide. But with that said, here are some steps that have worked for me that you can take to get started. 

Step 1: Identify the position(s) you need to hire

When you start a group practice, you’re often assuming all the roles and doing all the things. You’re running the business, seeing clients, managing new client referrals, doing the marketing, networking, managing people—the list goes on.

One of the best things you can do at this early stage is to track your time spent in different parts of your business. (I highly recommend using a time tracker tool like Toggl.com to keep tracking and reporting really easy.) 

Write down all the different areas you manage, and track the time you’re spending doing those things each day or week. Take inventory of the tasks you want to keep and the tasks you’re ready to let go of. After you feel as though you have created a solid list of tasks you’d like to delegate, review it in its entirety.

From there, be sure to consider:

• What are the positions that can be created to support you in managing those things? 
• What would the title for that role be? 

Once you have those two questions answered, write out the job description.

Think through what this role would look like in your group practice.

Maybe you’re hiring new clinicians to help better manage your caseload. Or maybe you’re hiring for an administrative assistant or a marketing person.

Whatever it is, write everything down, so you and this new person will have a clear expectation of what their role is. Make sure to include the pay structure in this description as well. 

Step 2: Run your numbers

Once you’ve identified the positions that will best serve you and your practice and what they’ll be responsible for, then it’s time to switch gears to think through your finances. When you’re creating these positions, it’s important to consider all the factors related to your new employee’s compensation and the cost of hiring them. 

A helpful rule of thumb is to think through how much it will cost you to hire and onboard a new person, and then ask yourself if you have three times that amount in your business savings.

As your new clinician is acclimating to their role and building their caseload, you want to know that you have the financial backing to pay them for at least 3 months (a 90-day onboarding is standard) without tapping into your emergency fund or compromising the financial integrity of your business. 

But paying your new employee’s salary isn’t the only cost associated with bringing on a new person—there’s a lot of money that goes into a new hire before they even start. One way to estimate your total cost of a new hire is to open up a spreadsheet and create line items for how much it will cost you to market, hire, and onboard one new position in your group practice. 

For example, if I’m hiring a W2 clinician, then I’ll need to consider what it’ll cost to market for this position by posting the job on online job boards, or running social media or Google ads.

Then, since my time is money, I have to estimate how long it will take me to review resumes and then actually interview all the candidates.

Once I find the right fit, there are all the costs associated with actually hiring them, like CPA costs, employer taxes, benefits, and of course their salary.

I also have to think through how I’ll support their onboarding period, which might include things like the savings mentioned above for their 90-day onboarding period, ongoing supervision and consultation, the cost of a group practice EHR, the costs of supplies, etc. 

Before we get too far along, I also want to say this. If you’re hiring someone and you’re still not paying yourself, then you should sit with that and ask yourself why.

It’s incredibly harmful to you and your business to hire and pay new hires to work at your group practice, but not pay yourself for the time, energy, and resources you give endlessly day in and day out.

Pay yourself first. There will always be time for growth later.

Step 3: Identify your ideal clinician

This is so important to the longevity of your new hire. I can empathize with the feeling of needing help fast.

I can also empathize with wanting to keep up with the number of referrals coming into your practice and feeling the pressure to serve everyone.

This feeling of desperation is something you will need to learn to sit with and ask yourself, “What is it going to require of me in order to grow? Do I have the time and energy to hire and onboard someone new? Do I really know who I’m looking for?” 

Pausing to ask yourself these questions is more important than actually hiring someone. Take your time with growth. Group practice is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

The needs and values of your business will change over time, and that’ll inform who you hire. 

When it’s actually the right time for you to hire, it can be helpful to create an ideal employee avatar. Maybe draw a gingerbread person and creatively express who you’re looking for to join your practice. What types of qualities or values do they possess? Just as importantly, who are you not looking for? What’s a clear no for you and a resounding yes? 

It’s also true that you may hire a group of five clinicians and only two or three will end up being the right fit.

That doesn’t mean you need to hire again.

That means you need to reflect on why those candidates weren’t a good fit for your group practice, so that you will step into the next hiring season with clarity and confidence. 

Step 4: Consider Your Application Process

After identifying your ideal employee, then comes the fun part: creating an application process that honors your practice’s mission and values. At the same time, it’s important to do your best to create a structure that allows you to make the most aligned decision possible. 

What are the things you’re looking for when reviewing resumes?

It might be helpful to create a rubric that speaks to the ideal clinician avatar you created. For example, if you’re looking for someone who has been out of school for a few years, has had some clinical experience working with a specific population, and is based in Texas, then you’ll want to be sure that those items are found throughout the resume. 

Overall, understand who you’re hiring so you know what you’re looking for. If there are gaps in someone’s resume, write down those questions and bring them up in the phone screening.

Get clarity before offering a formal interview. 

It’s always a challenge to know exactly who to interview as we can only get so much from a resume and application.

Here are a few indicators I hold close to help me know if I’d like to explore a candidate further: 

• What’s the work they’ve already done? Is there a theme around the positions they’ve held that I think might speak to what we are looking for within the roles we are hiring for?
• What other training and volunteer work have they done? This could help you see if they are someone who is able to manage a few things at once and give back to the community in other ways outside of employee work. 
• If you’ve asked them to submit any supporting documents like a cover letter or a writing sample, review them. Make note of anything that stands out to you. Allow your intuition a seat at the decision making table—follow your gut feelings when reading through.

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  Step 5: Develop a solid interview process

  Your interview process will depend on the size of the interview team and how much capacity you have to interview candidates one or more times.

  It’s not uncommon to start with a phone screen to assess for fit.

  The phone screen can be anywhere from 15-30 minutes long to ensure that the candidate is mission-aligned, clear on the role, and meets the minimum requirements of the job description. 

  From there, you can schedule a formal interview that consists of you, the owner of the practice (if you’re not the owner), and any other staff you have that you think would be important to include. This interview is typically an hour long, and you and your interview team should have a set of questions prepared.

  You should also plan on leaving time for the candidate to ask questions of you as well. 

  After all the interviews have been conducted, you can make an offer if you feel confident that the person is a good fit and meets all your requirements. But, if you’re seriously interested in a candidate and just have a few more questions, or want to have a last informal conversation, you can schedule a third interview.

  Some group practice owners use this third interview as an opportunity to take a candidate out to lunch or coffee, or to invite them into their office space so the candidate can look around, and you can get a sense of how they’ll respond to their professional work environment and potential new colleagues. 

  This entire hiring process is crucial, but the interview especially so.

  I highly recommend going with your gut feeling or intuition.

  Notice whatever thoughts, feelings, or sensations are coming up for you and your peers as you interview and interact with candidates.

  Address any uncertainties you have, and if they persist, move on.

  Not everyone will be a good fit, and that’s okay.

  It takes a lot to hire someone—and it takes even more to off-board someone if they don’t work out. I’ve found it’s more beneficial to invest the time upfront to make sure you’re asking the right questions and finding the right people.

  Here are a few tips for the formal interview process: 

  • Include a variety of questions. Categories I would recommend to include are: mission alignment, clinical orientation, team culture, community building, personal and professional self, and time management and organization. 
  • Leave time for the candidate to ask you questions. 15 minutes is usually a good amount of time. 
  • Include questions that invite the candidate to think critically about the biases they hold and the work they have done or are doing to work through that. 
  • Give yourself permission to contact the candidate after the interview if you have any lingering questions or concerns. 
  • Be sure to get an understanding of how the candidate works in a team setting. You’re building a community. You want to ensure that this person is willing to be a part of something larger than themselves. Think about the work culture you’re hoping to promote. 

  Step 6: Make an offer

  Create an offer package for your new hire to sign, seal, and deliver.

  This package typically includes the offer letter, which should include the salary, a non-compete agreement (optional), a non-disclosure agreement (also optional), and employee or operations manuals, if you have them. 

  Be sure your offer letter has an expiration date. The hope is that the person you hire is someone that is aligned with your practice and is excited to accept the offer right away.

  However, sometimes there are questions, hesitations, or counteroffers.

  Be prepared for all of those things.
  

  I recommend finding a solid employment attorney that you trust, who also knows you and your business. This person can be instrumental in supporting you with these final stages of hiring your next employee. 

  Once someone formally accepts your offer, I recommend sending a small welcome package—something that communicates that you’re excited about having them join your practice and that you look forward to the work you’re going to do together.

  Some ideas are a t-shirt with your practice logo on it, a tumbler with your practice logo, stickers, a personalized card, or a keychain with your practice logo. Small things like this can go a long way to making your new employee feel like part of the team.

  Depending on who you hire, you’ll have candidates coming from all different kinds of work backgrounds. Remember that working in a private practice setting can be a big adjustment for new hires.

  Understand that while you’re learning to lead, your employees are learning to operate under a system that offers a completely different structure than they may be used to.

  There’s tremendous value in building in space and time to allow things to grow organically. 

  How SimplePractice makes it easier to run your group practice

  SimplePractice is practice management software that includes everything you need to run your group practice—from booking and scheduling to insurance and client billing.

  Your group practice clinicians can streamline all of their client engagement—like scheduling and payments—using the client portal.

  Plus, SimplePractice keeps your group therapy practice efficient by offering your clinicians a robust template library of customizable notes and documentation. And, your clinicians can speed up their documentation process by loading any notes they took from a previous session.

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