Upon completing the 6-week JUMPSTART coaching program, most therapists can recover their investment in less than a week's worth of assessments, allowing them to allocate the rest of the year to generate income for their practice.

Guidance and Accountability

Are you a therapist in private practice, or looking to make the jump to private practice, and want to fill your case load with higher paying, motivated clients that you only need to be seen for an assessment?

Looking for more flexibility with your schedule, looking to stop seeing clients on nights or weekends?

Looking for short term, cash paying, assessment based only clients?

Feeling burnt out on week to week, long term clients and are curious about assessment only style therapy?

Do you want to skip the marketing on social media, have a clear consistent referral source that brings the clients to you?

Don’t want to deal with the hassle of insurance, easily finding highly motivated cash paying clients? Or you already accept insurance but want to be able to charge extra without going against the rules of your insurance contracts?

And do you have a special interest in helping clients prepare for bariatric surgery?

This 6 week Jump Start coaching program can help you create a bariatric focused practice.

What you receive with the 6 week Jump Start Coaching Program:

  • The clarity of knowing how to conduct bariatric assessment with confidence and the ability to market yourself to implementing a success bariatric assessment based practice

This Program Includes:

  1. Self paced, online training on how to complete bariatric psychological assessment ($450 value if purchased separately)

  2. Templates so you can work smarter not harder, leading to move room for more clients and more money coming in. These templates were years in the making, you don’t need to recreate your own, they are already provided ($525 value if purchased separately)

  3. 3 Live One on One sessions with an expert in the field, leaving you with clear instructions and how to launch your program ($600 value) but also saving you time not trying to figure out what might work or wasting time on marketing or strategies that isn’t fruitful.

  4. Unlimited email communication to problem solve quickly and leaving our 1:1 sessions to be more efficient ($1200 value if purchased separately at approximately 1 hour a week).

In this training you will learn:

  • How to provide bariatric assessments including templates, education series, and marketing materials. Our complete self pace 4 hour online course.

  • Using templates, you can complete the paperwork concurrently while in session, less wasted time outside of session

  • How to market to bariatric surgeons who are a consistent source of highly motivated clients

  • Step by step instruction with an expert in the field, to get your practice launched at the end of the 6 weeks of coaching

  • Unlimited email communication throughout the 6 weeks to answer any questions or problem solve, leaving one on one sessions for deep dives

  • 3 one on one live sessions, leaving each session with a specific, written plan of what needs to completed prior to the next session, for accountability and to get you to the finish line

Coaching sessions can help you:

  • Build an assessment only practice

  • Add this niche to your already established practice

  • Understand and reduce liability concerns surrounding conducting these types of evaluations

  • Increase your income while working less hours

  • Reduce the reliance on insurance based practice, increasing cash for fee service

  • Improve your life balance, reduce your schedule to daytime normal business hours

  • Gain confidence and learn how to establish yourself as an expert

  • Set goals, receive support and accountability to achieve them

By the end of the 6 weeks you will have:

  • Clear understanding on how to conduct bariatric psychological assessments including templates, scripting

  • Have a clear marketing strategy

  • Be able to attract highly motivated clients while also having a better life/work balance

Why therapist find assessment only practices a better way to do business

  • Reduce reliance on slow insurance payments and increase self pay motivated clients

  • Clear, consistent referral sources with bariatric surgeons, who need therapist to assess their clients so they can move forward with surgery, which motivates both clients and surgeons to

  • Clients don’t expect evening or weekend hours, they assume medical business hours

  • You chose the days or times you work, could be only a few days a month

  • You can do this temporarily while deciding your next career move or building a practice

  • You can take the time to focus on your own health or mental health if needed while still bringing in enough money to support yourself

What are therapists saying about adding bariatric assessments to their practice?

“ Bariatric assessments have transformed my practice. I was feeling so burnt out, I was going to leave the profession. But this style of practice has helped me find myself again, while also making more money then I did seeing clients weekly.”

“I felt before I was working 24 hours a day, trying to market and find clients for my private practice. Now having a clear marketing strategy is helping me spend less time working, and more time with my family.”

If you are ready to JUMP START your practice, while having more flexibility, sign up today

You may have some questions… and I have some answers:

Who is this coaching for?

Bariatric psychological assessments should be completed by fully licensed mental health providers, including psychologists, clinical social workers, counseling professionals, marriage and family therapists, or mental health therapists. According to the ASMBS: It is also expected that evaluating clinicians hold a professional license that authorizes them to formulate a clinical diagnosis according to DSM-IV criteria. Additionally, their license should authorize them to conduct psychological evaluations, perform psychotherapy or counseling of adults with an Axis I or Axis II clinical diagnosis or other psychological conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention as outlined in the DSM-IV, and administer and interpret psychological tests.

ASMBS does not endorse nor require this training to be able to conduct bariatric psychological evaluations.

What is included in coaching?

  • 3 one on one, hour long, coaching sessions concluding with detailed step by step plans on what to complete in between sessions to optimize time, and get your practice launched in 6 weeks, verses months of coaching commitment.

  • Unlimited email communication, run into an issue or question in between coaching sessions, no problem email me and we’ll make a plan.

  • Online self paced training for bariatric psychological assessments. Included in this training is 3-4 hours of educational content related to bariatric psychological assessments, including assessment of readiness for surgery, how to complete a biopsychosocial evaluation and a surgeon’s letter, and education for the client that includes a patient-facing PowerPoint and scripting. You will also receive templates for the surgeon’s letter, biopsychosocial evaluation, and client questionnaire. You will also receive documentation examples for the documents listed above. The goal of this training is for you to go from little knowledge of bariatric psychological assessments to being able to perform your first evaluation once you complete the training.

  • Marketing plan and strategies, marketing scripts and templates.

  • Support (and cheerleader!) by an industry expert in the field of bariatric therapy.

How long is the commitment for coaching?

Just 6 weeks! No long term coaching contracts or commitments, you’ll only need 6 weeks to get your practice off the ground or add this niche to your established practice.

More questions about bariatric psychological assessments

Where do you get referrals from?

The majority of my referrals come straight from bariatric surgeons. It is important to find the bariatric surgeons in your area and contact them to find out if they have internal evaluators. Even if they do have someone conducting evaluations internally, they need to find someone to use for second opinions or for conflict of interest cases. Some clients will find me on their own through Google searches. I have a separate website deducted to bariatric evaluations, so I am easily found. Lastly, I get referrals from other therapist who do not conduct bariatric evaluations.

What do clients pay for evaluations?

This varies depending on the area, the number of providers who provide this service, and the wait times for those who are providing these evaluations. You will need to figure out your market tolerance. Many clients have a hard time finding providers who provide bariatric evaluations, so they are more tolerant of higher prices to get them done correctly. Some clients might have already seen a provider who stated they could do the evaluation and then submitted them without the letter, making them unusable. At the very least, it should be 2 hours of your regular therapy rate, as these evaluations can take up to 2 hours.

Can I do these evaluations if I take insurance?

Yes, though there is not a separate code for these evaluations. You would bill with a normal intake code. You can also charge a fee for the letter to secure additional funds that cover the time that these evaluations take while still staying inside your insurance contractual agreements. Many clients are used to using insurance for the other aspects of the bariatric process, so they often expect to be able to use insurance for these evaluations.

Can you provide these evaluations as a self-pay only provider?

Yes. Many clients are eager to get their evaluations done quickly and are often willing to pay to get them done quickly and correctly the first time.

Do you find any ethical concerns when providing these evaluations?

Like in all therapy, there are ethical concerns. This is why consultation is important while conducting bariatric evaluations. It ensures you are conducting yourself in a way similar to other providers who provide this service. However, know that these evaluations are only saying that you do not believe there are any concerns that would heavily impede the client’s post-surgical success (and this knowledge is solely based on what clients tell us). You are not saying the client is a good candidate for surgery or that you believe the client should have surgery. That is for the surgeon to decide.

Are you concerned you might get sued for providing these evaluations?

Anyone can sue you for any reason at any time, so it’s best to do what you can to protect yourself. Only practice in states in which you are licensed to practice, do not allow your liability insurance to lapse, work to the fulfill best practices as set by the ASMBS, seek consultation to ensure you are conducting these evaluations as others would, and work together with surgeons and their teams for high risk or concerning clients in order to liability share.

Still have questions?

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