• Visit Wendy’s practice website and connect on LinkedIn.

Joe Sanok 00:00:00  You're someone with a vision for your practice, for your side hustle, and for your personal journey. But when it comes to establishing your path and how to get to where you want to be with your practice, things get a little messy. You're also someone who'd prefer to go in person instead of to groups and listening to everyone else's story. To me, it sounds like you could benefit from one on one consulting with our experienced practice of the practice consultants from 595 a month and up, you can work with a consultant that will give you more direction and practical, tried and tested tips matched to you and your goals. For more information, visit practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. Again, that's practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. This is the practice of the practice podcast with Joe Sarna session number 184. I'm Joe Stanek, your host, and welcome to the practice of the Practice Podcast, where we help you build a thriving private practice that you absolutely love. I am so excited to hang out with you today.

Joe Sanok 00:01:14  You know, it was interesting. Just yesterday I said to my assistant, Jen, we were talking about some different aspects of, practice, of the practice. And, I realized that I had read traction and it's a book on kind of operations. And Sam, our COO, had read traction, and I mentioned that, and Jen was like, oh, do you think I should read that? And I was like, oh, wait, how did I miss telling you this thing that has really brought us together in a lot of ways, as we think about operations, as we think about, all sorts of just kind of things within practice, the practice. You know, it's funny how sometimes the operations within our business are just they they aren't front and center for us as much as they should be. And today on the show, we have Wendy McFerrin, who is the co-founder of Emira, which is an innovative software solution designed to streamline the operations of therapy practices. Wendy, a seasoned mental health clinician and group practice owner, and John, her co-founder with his tech expertise, created a tool simplifies client intake, referral management and workflow automation.

Joe Sanok 00:02:14  Together, they're on a mission to empower mental health professionals to focus more on client care and less on administrative headaches. Wendy, welcome to the practice of the Practice Podcast.

Wendy McSparren 00:02:24  Thanks, Joe. I'm really happy to be here.

Joe Sanok 00:02:26  Yeah. Well, I want to start with your clinical work. You are a solo practitioner for a bit. tell us about that solo practice journey.

Wendy McSparren 00:02:35  Yeah, I started my solo practice in 2002. I've been practicing now 35 years, but the last 22 years I've been in private practice, and I shared resources with colleagues like office space, phone systems. We were all independent, just sharing space. And then the pandemic happened, and several of my colleagues, either decided to retire or pivot, or if they were sticking around, they didn't want to sign another lease. And knowing that I had another ten years in me, doing practice, my husband suggested to me that I think about a group practice. And so I started my group practice in 2020, and I've been growing, to 15 clinicians now.

Joe Sanok 00:03:27  Yeah. So okay, so you were in solo practice, and then you decide to switch away from kind of sharing resources with others. They, in 2020, tell me about that transition.

Wendy McSparren 00:03:38  Well, I was overwhelmed with referrals. and it was really difficult for me to keep up with them, which is why I started to expand into group practice and bring, some clinicians on. And you know, when I got to about there were about four maybe going on five of us total. I just was absolutely overwhelmed with trying to keep track of referrals and not let those things slip through the cracks. I was using spreadsheets. I, you know, my husband, being a software engineer, was able to toggle together some, some systems, things like Trello that and my Wix and, you know, tried to build something with duct tape and string and, several of my other colleagues who are group practice owners saw what he was building for me. And they said, we really want this. because it really helped me to start to be able to conceptualize and manage the volume of, of, referrals and other workflows that are necessary to run a group practice.

Wendy McSparren 00:04:55  John felt like he could build a software, given that that's what he does for a living. And he started to to work on that. And we've iterated over a couple of years, and really, brought on, you know, we had a group doing beta testing and have been refining that. And it's been really super helpful, and trying to streamline all of the operations that are before a client becomes a patient and even those back office systems. and issues that and workflows that you need to be able to operate efficiently.

Joe Sanok 00:05:33  Well, yeah. Let's talk about, you know, as you started this group practice, what were some of the operational things that maybe initially you were wearing all the hats for? And then over time you had to start to create systems or people or processes to take them. Kind of take that hat off.

Wendy McSparren 00:05:51  Yeah, well, the client care coordination, was one of the the main hats that I was wearing, being able to respond to potential referrals. We are an insurance based practice.

Wendy McSparren 00:06:06  And so, you know, being able to do insurance verifications up front so that client knew what their out of pocket was going to be. and whether or not they could even afford to come into services or whether we would do some sort of sliding scale for them, you know, so just managing that flow and the insurance verifications, was was huge. and, you know, once somebody, you know, came on board as a client, we could transition that to the electronic health record. And our EHR, you know, handles so much of, the analytics and, you know, sending out appointment reminders and those sorts of things. So once they were a client, you know, the air did so much of it. There's a lot of things the air doesn't do, though, such as, help you manage denied claims or billing errors or missing copayments. from from a client. And, you know, so I was, again, using spreadsheets for those kinds of things. And by sheer volume, you know, you start to go a little bit cross-eyed looking at spreadsheets, trying to figure out, where are you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wendy McSparren 00:07:24  Another piece is, you know, in the hiring and credentialing of clinicians, if you happen to be insurance based, that's that's a huge, cumbersome workflow as well. That was being managed by spreadsheets or pencil and paper. and you know, it things would fall through the cracks. I'd miss things. you know, so in that whole hiring process, the chasing billing, you know, that all I was wearing all of those hats, until, you know, we started to grow more, and then I was able to bring on people to help with that. But then the more people you have in the mix that are touching things, the more coordination you need. because that's another bottleneck that can happen. is, is having tight communication with your client, care coordinator, your biller. If you have a big enough practice and you have an office manager or admin person, you know, there's there's a lot of chefs in the kitchen and, and things can get lost and, and, communication can fall through the cracks.

Joe Sanok 00:08:39  what helped with the communication?

Wendy McSparren 00:08:42  Well, again, working on developing the ad mirror ERA system really was super helpful because you can see everything in the system that who touches what, who's assigned to what you can do mentions to get people to ask people to review something and comment on, a situation which could be a client, who is looking for a specific type of clinician or availability or that, you know, a billing situation like who did what with this billing issue, has anyone touched it? I know exactly where everything is in the process and exactly who touched it last. and and the accountability, for clear communication, you know, has really improved and everybody uses it to talk to one another. And it's, it's one system. You don't have to log in multiple places to figure out what's happening.

Joe Sanok 00:09:50  so maybe zoom out a little bit, and tell us, like, what's the value of having, a CRM be a part of the equation of kind of the suite of things that's helping a practice with its operations?

Wendy McSparren 00:10:03  Yeah.

Wendy McSparren 00:10:04  I mean, a CRM really helps you understand your referral flows and helps you with your marketing, and, and helps you when you have analytics with that, understand potentially where to put marketing dollars. and it also automates communication with clients, potential clients. and, and, you know, keeps that communication clear. you know, when a client was, was, there was an outreach that happened when somebody responded to them. you know, when you have a shared email box, you don't always know who actually sent the last email. this this tracks all of that. A CRM really tracks all of that communication very clearly.

Joe Sanok 00:10:59  Yeah. And I think that, you know, just, you know, moving away from email in general, like we've moved over to slack for a lot of our internal conversations. And it just it's so much more efficient than all the back and forth that happens in email. And, we use acima for our project management. And, so, so when you think about, other operational things, beyond the CRM, what other things would you say have really helped your group practice?

Wendy McSparren 00:11:26  Yeah, I think having, a communication system.

Wendy McSparren 00:11:32  Right. We, we use Google Voice so that that can be very helpful. and, you know, having project Management tools like asana can be very helpful. you know, so that when you're trying to get certain things done, you know, you can keep people on track. I think one of our, one of our goals really has been, as we have built at Mira, is to have it sort of be not only a CRM, but really that communication hub, for your practice and, that project management. So it's almost like Trello and Asana had a baby, to, to sort of put those all in one because it is difficult to toggle between many different systems. I mean, I love slack, I use that, for, a group that I participate in, and it's super helpful to see all of the communication. You know, I think all of those things that project management, that communication tool, that marketing, CRM piece of it is just all of those pieces are essential for being able to run efficiently.

Wendy McSparren 00:12:54  and especially if you're trying to grow your practice, but just freeing up bandwidth so that you can think, and be creative, whether it's being creative with your clients in session or whether it's being creative about what are some other opportunities that your practice may have in your community, or freeing up, freeing up bandwidth to think about other projects or other businesses you might be interested in starting as a as a clinician. you know, it just those those things are important for us to have, space in our minds to, to be creative and and responsive.

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Wendy McSparren 00:14:47  it's really allowed me to, support others in my practice, I think differently with some of their goals and growth. You know, it's really allowed, my husband and I, to really start this second business together, which I never envisioned would happen. and we've been fortunate enough to be able to, participate in an accelerator for this second business which has opened up a whole other community and ecosystem to us, that I never would have had bandwidth to think about or to engage with. so the opportunities it has has presented to me both personally and professionally, I think have been the huge.

Joe Sanok 00:15:44  Now, what about personally outside of the practice, by having things kind of run more smoothly? what does that meant for your personal health or brain health outside of the practice.

Wendy McSparren 00:15:54  Which just freed things up, that I could do things I want to do right and that feed my soul. So, you know, whether that's self-care from walking, getting a walk in with my dog several times a week, and that's helping me sleep better, you know, being able to spend time with our aging parents, because John and I are both in that space where we just launched our last. Our last kiddo, he just got married, but we both have aging parents who also need, you know, some of our support and being able to do that without worrying about the business or being stressed or that causing me to be up until three in the morning to get things done. you know, that's that's made a huge difference for me personally and my relationships.

Joe Sanok 00:16:49  Now, you've been studying AI and technology and the impact of that on operations and ways that people think about their businesses. What have you been learning?

Wendy McSparren 00:16:59  Well, I've been really fortunate to be part of Innovation Works here in Pittsburgh and the Alpha Lab, and they are you know, we're connected to CMU University and some of the mentors who teach there.

Wendy McSparren 00:17:16  And, you know, we're learning about how to use AI to create almost, employees for you. So, for example, today in our session, I was working on creating, a marketing strategy, GPT, and talking with it about both of my businesses. So my private practice and then ad mirror and coming up with content strategy ideas and, you know, how to, think about, a content creation that's more engaging. And it was fascinating to me to be able to create multiple guides for certain functions in the business and what they're capable of with the proper prompts. so and learning that not only can it analyze data, but it can create graphs for you. It can, help you put together a training. and, and it's just it's really mind blowing. So today's session was called cloning yourself so that you can, you know, have some of these supports. You know, my husband, who might be in bed at 11:00 at night is not available when I'm awake thinking about things. And so being able to to do some some thoughts, thought creation with ChatGPT has been really helpful in, in me being more efficient, and getting more stuff done in a shorter period of time.

Joe Sanok 00:19:06  yeah, I, I think that just finding those different ways to shortcut things and brainstorm things is such a like kind of beginning area for people to start. But then some of these advanced strategies really seem to be, lighting up, the potential of just how, how much AI and technology can help reshape how we, we really run our business.

Wendy McSparren 00:19:27  Right, right. And and to eliminate mundane tasks, like even thinking about for my client care coordinator. you know, I don't think that AI is going to replace people's jobs, but what it's going to do is take some of those mundane manual tasks and automate those, which frees up space for people to think and be creative and, and enjoy, the work that they're doing. More.

Joe Sanok 00:19:57  Yeah. Now, where do you see things going technologically? in the counseling world?

Wendy McSparren 00:20:03  Yeah. That's a it's a great question, Joe. I you know, I mean, I am optimistic about the opportunity. I'm also cautious about it. You know, we're dealing with people's vulnerabilities when they're in mental health treatment.

Wendy McSparren 00:20:21  so, you know, I'm a little more cautious on that side when it's client facing. Although I do think that there are some opportunities if they are managed cautiously, and, and have some protection around them. I think the piece that's exciting to me is what can happen for us as mental health practitioners and how it can make our jobs more efficient so that we can be freed up, to really show up in the in the therapy room for clients because we just we're not bogged down by paperwork and treatment plans. And, some of the, the things that we get bogged down in, so I think it's going to be exciting, and I think that there's a ton of opportunity and, you know, I, I go forward with that also wanting to be part of the conversation, to be protective and cautious about how this can benefit clients in therapy, but also being aware of where it could be problematic and making sure that we mitigate those, those issues.

Joe Sanok 00:21:42  Now, the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know.

Wendy McSparren 00:21:49  I you know, just sticking with the I thing I think it's not as scary as you think it is. So, you know, get involved in the conversation. Be a part of shaping it. don't shy away from it. you know, because again, I think it's coming. So, you know, let's influence what how it's used in our space. that would be, I think, what I want people to know today.

Joe Sanok 00:22:20  So awesome. Wendy, if people want to connect with you, if they want to connect with your platform, where should we send them?

Wendy McSparren 00:22:25  So, Admiral. Com, is our our, CRM and operations software. I can be found at Wendy. Admiral. Com or my private practice is, Wendy at WPA therapy.com. We're in southwestern Pennsylvania. So either of those emails, I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all those social media, platforms as well.

Joe Sanok 00:22:55  and you guys have a promo code for 10% off, the first six months for people that are joining at mirror.

Joe Sanok 00:23:01  I think that's promo code is Joe, is that right?

Wendy McSparren 00:23:04  That's correct.

Joe Sanok 00:23:05  Awesome. Well, make sure you use promo code, Joe. if you're signing up for that CRM. Wendy, thank you so much for being on the practice of the practice podcast.

Wendy McSparren 00:23:13  Thanks, Joe. Great to connect with you.

Joe Sanok 00:23:22  Well, you know, conversations like this are what we're going to be having at the group practice boss conference. That is about a month away. So, I imagine if you have your tickets, you already have your hotel room, you've got your flights. May 6th and seventh here in Traverse City, Michigan. We're going to be having shorter kind of Ted talk style talks so that it's really focused. And that comes out of when I go to a conference. If I go to a talk, I bet there's like 1 or 2 big nuggets that I take out of it. and the rest of the time, I just love getting to know people. And so we have really created a conference where you get to know people.

Joe Sanok 00:23:54  We have facilitated ways that you're going to be connecting with others. we have lots of time for you to have deeper dives with others in addition to these shorter style Ted talk talks. so the group practice boss conference, at the time of this recording, tickets are not sold out yet. We're getting close. but, who knows, by the time of the recording practice, the practice.com/conference. and if we have sold out, soon enough, we'll be promoting the 2026 version of this conference as well. We could not do the show without our partners and sessions. Seitz is our newest partner. They help you optimize your website. They help make your website designed for engagement even better. Your site is going to be live in three weeks. So whether you haven't touched in years or starting from scratch, they have an awesome deal going on. Just head on over to session sites.com/joe again. That's session sites.com/joe to get that website we absolutely deserve. Thank you so much for letting me paint your ears and into your brain.

Joe Sanok 00:24:54  Have a great day. I'll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silences Sexy for that intro music, and this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers or guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.