Guide to Becoming an EAP Provider

Hey, welcome back. This is Dr. TK, clinical psychologist and number one branding coach for mental health providers. And so in today's episode, I am actually on part two. I decided to talk about a topic regarding how to become a EAP provider and also giving tips about how EAP practice. actually started my private practice with being able to build my caseload. Now, this question, if you haven't saw the previous episode, you definitely want to go check it out. It's called the three reasons why I chose to become an EAP provider is I'm doing a three-part series because a lot of clinicians are wanting to, or have the desire to open up their private practice, but they really don't know where to start. They don't know where their clients are going to come from. And some clinicians have had a private practice for quite some time. But maybe depending on the demographic that they serve and or where their office is located or who their target niche is or target audience is, they may not be attracting the client that they want. And so sometimes it may be easier for them to potentially get on a panel. OK, and that's not required. But I just wanted to share with you some of the benefits of what I have found to be useful for the EAP panels that I have chosen. to be on and to stay on because all of them, I'm not going to do more. Okay. So in today's episode, I want to talk about the three tips about becoming an EAP provider. Okay. So just as a summary, why I got on the EAPs was to create consistent client flow. I really liked to see the referrals coming in on a consistent basis. And then after I saw a good number of clients, I started to recognize how I can use it. of my benefit to be able to continue treatment even outside or beyond the EAP rules. Typically, EAP, it's given through your job. Your HR purchases it through your employer. And some jobs can give one session for free to their employees. And then some jobs, I've seen them give up to 10 sessions. And you get those per calendar year. Now, typically, the calendar year is from January to December. And so I loved it because it provided consistent flow of new referrals. And then it also gave me the opportunity to practice solution-focused short-term therapy because most of the jobs that I had had before private practice was at minimum six months unless the client prematurely terminated from therapy. And then it can go up to a few years because I was working with children. And as we all know, if you've worked with kids, that means that you also work with the family and sometimes the child. It's not the identified client, which then it seems like it drags out the length of therapy because we're really not seeing the person who we should be seeing, right? So today I'm going to share the three tips as an EAP provider. And so tip number one, when you become an EAP provider, if you choose, I would highly suggest actually EAP or no EAP that you always do a consultation. Now, even though you may choose or elect to be on an insurance panel and take EAPs, you definitely still want to build up your brand, which means that you still want to serve and target your ideal clients. And so just like an insurance panel for EAPs, you can actually on your application form put, I only want to see this age group. I only want to see, because of my specialty area with anxiety, I only want to see clients who are battling with anxiety, trauma, OCD, anything in the anxiety spectrum, for example, okay? Okay. So the reason why you also want to do a consultation from what I learned, and I talked about this a little bit in the previous podcast, is that the consultation also gave me the opportunity to assess to see what type of insurance, if any, the client has so that when the EAP sessions run out. And let's just say we're not done because they may. We may open up Pandora's box by the time they actually come in, you know, start to feel the vibe of therapy, whether it's in person or online, and they may realize that they have to work through a lot more than they anticipated. Okay. And so the consultation allowed me to ask the client about their regular insurance. And then of course, if I took that insurance at the time, then I would tell them we're going to start with EAP because it's covered. You don't have any copay. And then after EAP is over, we'll close out that referral. And then I would need to get your insurance information right now, preferably, so I can go ahead and do an eligibility check. So there will be no gap in treatment. So that's why a consultation is very imperative because it also gave me the opportunity to provide psychoeducation to clients who didn't know these two different systems. And I had maybe a handful of... Clients say, you know what, because you're not in network and I believe that after doing this intake today or this consultation, I'm definitely going to need more than the three sessions. And sometimes this would even happen until the physical intake beyond the consultation, because maybe they had time to think about everything we had talked about on the consultation and the work that I would be doing with them. And so I had a handful of clients or less than a handful. tell me that they rather go to someone within their network because they did not want to disrupt their therapeutic process, which is the goal of the consultation. So if you haven't been doing consultations, even if you don't take EAPs, I would highly suggest it so that you can provide psychoeducation related to your framework of how you do therapy. So that's tip number one is the consultation. Tip number two is that It allows you to do the short-term therapy in terms of, I'm going to say, increasing your skill set. It does take a different skill set to do short-term therapy compared to long-term therapy. And so we were mostly all taught this in some frame or form of another in graduate school. But if you didn't have a practicum, internship for psychology, doctoral students, a postdoc in short-term therapy, then odds are you're going to be learning as you go. And I would encourage you that, of course, if you're licensed, then you should be investing in continuing educational courses that will refresh your memory on what short term therapy should and can look like. So that way, when you get these clients, even if you can't see them based on maybe a small presenting problem, not all of them, then you can help them through that one particular arena. OK, so number three is. I've realized that being an EAP provider also, and I spoke to this in episode one, but I'll give you more details in this one, is that it allowed me as a provider to truly assess who is my ideal client. Now, one of the things about EAPs is that the employee can request the services, but they can also get services for their child. So I'll give you an example. A mom called me and said she wants services, but she also wants... family therapy and potential individual therapy for her child. And so she asked, could I do all of those? And through EAP, we technically can. What happens is when we do the billing for the EAP, usually it's on the computer, we'll go and check off, was the employee present? And sometimes they don't have to be present for the sessions. There's no mandatory guideline that they have to. And were any other family members present? And then we have to identify for some of these EAP panels. Who are the identified family members? So was it a child or a dependent? Was it a spouse or a partner? You know, other family members. And then we would also have to identify what problem were we working on during that session. And so that's really what I love about EAP is that it kind of weeds out any issues with a client calling you and saying, I want to get therapy for my child. And technically they should be getting therapy for the child. but also therapy for the parent plus family therapy for everybody. So EAP really has given me the ability to assess all the different dynamics within the family and then provide clinical recommendations once EAP is done. And if they can and if they choose to stay with me as a provider, then they can. So let me just recap three things that I like about being on EAP panels is that. I can provide a consultation so that I can determine if a client can stay with me after if they need it. Number two is that I like the model of short term therapy because not everybody needs to be in therapy for a long time. And I tell all of my clients, therapy is not going to last for the rest of your life. If you want therapy as a companion, I'm not the right match for you. And a lot of my clients actually get very excited because some of them have received mental health services and it just felt like they didn't have any structure. This is from what my clients have told me. Any structure, no guidance, and they feel like they're just free flowing through therapy. And that's not really helpful for them because they can never feel like they're getting better for the most part. And then tip number three that I share is being able to truly assess who your ideal client is so that that way, if you, of course, give clinical recommendations at the end of the EAP services, the right person or the right group of people will be receiving therapy services. So... If you have questions, please make sure to drop them in the chat box. Let me know what was your biggest takeaway from this particular episode. If you are a mental health provider and you're on an EAP panel, please share that with me and let me know your experience. But I would love to hear from you. And so if you really want to manifest a profitable private practice and you want to learn how to brand yourself and how to show up in the marketplace and stand out from other people, I would highly encourage you to check out the show notes. And. Take my private practice quiz. It's completely free. It takes you through about 28 questions. And what it's doing is assessing either if you're in the beginning stages, your understanding of certain business things that need to be in place to grow and scale a private practice. Now, if you've already started, this will be a good tool for you to assess the level that your business truly is at. Because some clinicians say, oh, I want to grow my business or matter of fact, I want to scale my business. And those are two different words that people use interchangeably. So growth is you continuously, you know, having a consistent flow of revenue generated in your practice or you and or you're increasing your caseload and it's stable. But scaling is maybe you start to hire other people to do the work and then you work on your business is not in your business. Or you start to hire people to do the administrative task because you're the only one that can do the therapy. And then your revenue goes up because you're focused on the higher level paying task, which means that you're walking on a path of your genius zone and not just doing random tasks. And you can hire other people to do that for you. So I really hope that you enjoy this episode. Let me know your biggest takeaways and I will see you in the next one. Bye.

actually started my private practice with being able to build my caseload. Now, this question, if you haven't saw the previous episode, you definitely want to go check it out. It's called the three reasons why I chose to become an EAP provider is I'm doing a three-part series because a lot of clinicians are wanting to, or have the desire to open up their private practice, but they really don't know where to start. They don't know where their clients are going to come from.

And some clinicians have had a private practice for quite some time. But maybe depending on the demographic that they serve and or where their office is located or who their target niche is or target audience is, they may not be attracting the client that they want. And so sometimes it may be easier for them to potentially get on a panel.

OK, and that's not required. But I just wanted to share with you some of the benefits of what I have found to be useful for the EAP panels that I have chosen. to be on and to stay on because all of them, I'm not going to do more.

Okay. So in today's episode, I want to talk about the three tips about becoming an EAP provider. Okay.

So just as a summary, why I got on the EAPs was to create consistent client flow. I really liked to see the referrals coming in on a consistent basis. And then after I saw a good number of clients, I started to recognize how I can use it. of my benefit to be able to continue treatment even outside or beyond the EAP rules. Typically, EAP, it's given through your job.

Your HR purchases it through your employer. And some jobs can give one session for free to their employees. And then some jobs, I've seen them give up to 10 sessions.

And you get those per calendar year. Now, typically, the calendar year is from January to December. And so I loved it because it provided consistent flow of new referrals. And then it also gave me the opportunity to practice solution-focused short-term therapy because most of the jobs that I had had before private practice was at minimum six months unless the client prematurely terminated from therapy.

And then it can go up to a few years because I was working with children. And as we all know, if you've worked with kids, that means that you also work with the family and sometimes the child. It's not the identified client, which then it seems like it drags out the length of therapy because we're really not seeing the person who we should be seeing, right? So today I'm going to share the three tips as an EAP provider.

And so tip number one, when you become an EAP provider, if you choose, I would highly suggest actually EAP or no EAP that you always do a consultation. Now, even though you may choose or elect to be on an insurance panel and take EAPs, you definitely still want to build up your brand, which means that you still want to serve and target your ideal clients. And so just like an insurance panel for EAPs, you can actually on your application form put, I only want to see this age group.

I only want to see, because of my specialty area with anxiety, I only want to see clients who are battling with anxiety, trauma, OCD, anything in the anxiety spectrum, for example, okay? Okay. So the reason why you also want to do a consultation from what I learned, and I talked about this a little bit in the previous podcast, is that the consultation also gave me the opportunity to assess to see what type of insurance, if any, the client has so that when the EAP sessions run out.

And let's just say we're not done because they may. We may open up Pandora's box by the time they actually come in, you know, start to feel the vibe of therapy, whether it's in person or online, and they may realize that they have to work through a lot more than they anticipated. Okay. And so the consultation allowed me to ask the client about their regular insurance.

And then of course, if I took that insurance at the time, then I would tell them we're going to start with EAP because it's covered. You don't have any copay. And then after EAP is over, we'll close out that referral. And then I would need to get your insurance information right now, preferably, so I can go ahead and do an eligibility check.

So there will be no gap in treatment. So that's why a consultation is very imperative because it also gave me the opportunity to provide psychoeducation to clients who didn't know these two different systems. And I had maybe a handful of... Clients say, you know what, because you're not in network and I believe that after doing this intake today or this consultation, I'm definitely going to need more than the three sessions. And sometimes this would even happen until the physical intake beyond the consultation, because maybe they had time to think about everything we had talked about on the consultation and the work that I would be doing with them.

And so I had a handful of clients or less than a handful. tell me that they rather go to someone within their network because they did not want to disrupt their therapeutic process, which is the goal of the consultation. So if you haven't been doing consultations, even if you don't take EAPs, I would highly suggest it so that you can provide psychoeducation related to your framework of how you do therapy. So that's tip number one is the consultation.

Tip number two is that It allows you to do the short-term therapy in terms of, I'm going to say, increasing your skill set. It does take a different skill set to do short-term therapy compared to long-term therapy. And so we were mostly all taught this in some frame or form of another in graduate school.

But if you didn't have a practicum, internship for psychology, doctoral students, a postdoc in short-term therapy, then odds are you're going to be learning as you go. And I would encourage you that, of course, if you're licensed, then you should be investing in continuing educational courses that will refresh your memory on what short term therapy should and can look like. So that way, when you get these clients, even if you can't see them based on maybe a small presenting problem, not all of them, then you can help them through that one particular arena.

OK, so number three is. I've realized that being an EAP provider also, and I spoke to this in episode one, but I'll give you more details in this one, is that it allowed me as a provider to truly assess who is my ideal client. Now, one of the things about EAPs is that the employee can request the services, but they can also get services for their child.

So I'll give you an example. A mom called me and said she wants services, but she also wants... family therapy and potential individual therapy for her child.

And so she asked, could I do all of those? And through EAP, we technically can. What happens is when we do the billing for the EAP, usually it's on the computer, we'll go and check off, was the employee present?

And sometimes they don't have to be present for the sessions. There's no mandatory guideline that they have to. And were any other family members present?

And then we have to identify for some of these EAP panels. Who are the identified family members? So was it a child or a dependent? Was it a spouse or a partner? You know, other family members.

And then we would also have to identify what problem were we working on during that session. And so that's really what I love about EAP is that it kind of weeds out any issues with a client calling you and saying, I want to get therapy for my child. And technically they should be getting therapy for the child.

but also therapy for the parent plus family therapy for everybody. So EAP really has given me the ability to assess all the different dynamics within the family and then provide clinical recommendations once EAP is done. And if they can and if they choose to stay with me as a provider, then they can. So let me just recap three things that I like about being on EAP panels is that. I can provide a consultation so that I can determine if a client can stay with me after if they need it.

Number two is that I like the model of short term therapy because not everybody needs to be in therapy for a long time. And I tell all of my clients, therapy is not going to last for the rest of your life. If you want therapy as a companion, I'm not the right match for you.

And a lot of my clients actually get very excited because some of them have received mental health services and it just felt like they didn't have any structure. This is from what my clients have told me. Any structure, no guidance, and they feel like they're just free flowing through therapy.

And that's not really helpful for them because they can never feel like they're getting better for the most part. And then tip number three that I share is being able to truly assess who your ideal client is so that that way, if you, of course, give clinical recommendations at the end of the EAP services, the right person or the right group of people will be receiving therapy services. So...

If you have questions, please make sure to drop them in the chat box. Let me know what was your biggest takeaway from this particular episode. If you are a mental health provider and you're on an EAP panel, please share that with me and let me know your experience. But I would love to hear from you. And so if you really want to manifest a profitable private practice and you want to learn how to brand yourself and how to show up in the marketplace and stand out from other people, I would highly encourage you to check out the show notes.

And. Take my private practice quiz. It's completely free.

It takes you through about 28 questions. And what it's doing is assessing either if you're in the beginning stages, your understanding of certain business things that need to be in place to grow and scale a private practice. Now, if you've already started, this will be a good tool for you to assess the level that your business truly is at. Because some clinicians say, oh, I want to grow my business or matter of fact, I want to scale my business. And those are two different words that people use interchangeably.

So growth is you continuously, you know, having a consistent flow of revenue generated in your practice or you and or you're increasing your caseload and it's stable. But scaling is maybe you start to hire other people to do the work and then you work on your business is not in your business. Or you start to hire people to do the administrative task because you're the only one that can do the therapy. And then your revenue goes up because you're focused on the higher level paying task, which means that you're walking on a path of your genius zone and not just doing random tasks.

And you can hire other people to do that for you. So I really hope that you enjoy this episode. Let me know your biggest takeaways and I will see you in the next one. Bye.

Transcript for:Guide to Becoming an EAP Provider

Transcript for:
Guide to Becoming an EAP Provider