How much does it cost to start a private practice?

Obtaining a registered agent for your business

Next are going to want to obtain a registered agent for the year, which is about $30. The registered agent is going to serve as the legal address for the entity, on the documents that get to the secretary of state. And so whenever anybody wants to reach out to serve any paperwork. They need to have an address that has somebody who can receive mail at it. And that’s called the registered agent.

Then you’re going to want to set up a mail address for your own mail. That’s not legal mail. That’s not associated with the secretary of state.

Obtaining a business address

So if you’re virtual, you need to have some sort of business address for insurance practices for your bank, for your vendors, for your EHR system, for any other company that you’re working with, you’re going to want to give them that address so that they can send you mail to that address, not to the registered agent address.

For example with a company called anytime mailbox. It’s about $15 a month. And about an extra $10 for a notary.

Then you’re going to want to obtain a tax ID number or an EIN number with the IRS and that’s free.

Remember to keep track of all of your NAICS codes and your date of incorporation.

Obtaining a business bank account

Then you’re going to obtain a bank account checks, a credit card, and this is all free. And in fact, if you go through chase, they give you $300 to open a business checking account, and you just need to make a few transactions on the debit card. So that’s an extra $300 in your pocket.

Then you’re going to want to register for a group NPI number and that’s free.

Next you’re going to choose an inexpensive EHR system to chart in a HIPAA compliant way. If you go with charm EHR system, let me know. I’m a reseller vendor of charm, and I do get commission. If you go through charm, they charge 50 cents per encounter and an extra $20 per month for tele-health through zoom.

So that adds another $20 per month.

Secure systems: email, EHR, phone

Next you’re going to want to choose a secure email system. I would suggest Google workspace, so that way you can have the most options of who to integrate it with. If you go through another vendor, they might not be integrated with Google workspace. If you go through Google workspace, at least you’ll have all of the features of Google and that’s $12 a month.

While Google internally is HIPAA compliant. If you store data there, if you’re sending out emails, that’s not HIPAA compliant. So you’re going to want to add on a secure email system, which is Paubox and for the first 10 accounts, it’s $29 a month. So add another $29 a month and you have secure emailing and you can use the link below in the video description. I’m also a referral for Paubox box and I think their system is great.

Then you’re going to want to obtain a phone system and I use 8×8. I think that’s more than what you need. Now you can start off with RingRx. That one’s very inexpensive. It’s only $15 a month for a HIPAA compliant phone system.

You can obtain a free fax system through Doximity and you can go onto Doximity to sign up for that.

Other business expenses

You’re also going to need a monthly bookkeeper. And then at the end of the year and accountant. The cheapest bookkeeping that I could find is about $89 a month. And usually it graduates upwards as your revenue goes up. But to start off, it’s probably going to be just $89 a month. So add another $89 to that.

At the end of the year, it’s probably going to be about $300 to $500 to submit your taxes through the accountant.

Everybody’s malpractice is going to be different. But I would suggest doing a claims made policy part-time because you get a cheaper price at a discount for part-time work versus full-time work.

You don’t need to obtain EPLI or employment practice liability insurance, because you don’t have any employees yet.

If you don’t have a brick and mortar setup, you don’t need liability insurance either.

Most likely you need to obtain workers’ compensation insurance, but since you’re the owner, you can apply for an exemption. And that’s usually the only time you can apply for an exemption is when you’re the owner. But if you have more employees, all of those employees are going to need workers’ comp and every state has different rules, depending on how big the company is to need workers’ comp insurance.

I would also suggest obtaining disability insurance while you’re young, while you’re healthy. Because it’s going to just keep going up year after year. But you don’t need to do this yet to get started on your virtual practice, developing consent forms and your intake forms, you can do all that on your own.

Charm has a way of sending out consent forms and intake forms to patients through that system.

And you can also develop internal clinic policies and procedures too.

If you’re interested in taking my course on how to start a private practice, I’ll put a coupon in the description below, but hopefully this can start to get you off the ground without being too expensive. Hope you find this video helpful, please subscribe. And hit the notification bell for future videos.

I make a lot of videos on psychiatry, psychiatry as a career path, therapy as a career path and how to start your own private practice. So if you’re interested in that, please subscribe.