Show Notes

Welcome back to The Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host, Kayla Das.

In today’s episode, we’re going to be discussing something that at some day most of us will have to do, whether we’re retiring or we’re moving towards a new career opportunity or a goal, and that’s closing our private practice.

Now, some of us may actually sell our private practices, and that’s beyond the scope of this particular episode, but there are many reasons to close a private practice. Maybe you’re moving out-of-state or out-of-province. Maybe you’re retiring or preparing to retire. Or maybe you’ve accepted a full-time job elsewhere and no longer interested in running a business. Whatever your reason is, you’ll want to know the specific steps to ensure that you close your practice ethically and effectively.

Now, I want to give a disclaimer here that it’s important to follow guidelines within your regulatory body, standards of practice, code of ethics, or even your local legislation when it comes to closing your practice or business. Depending on your regulatory body and your jurisdiction, there may be additional policies or regulations with respect to providing continual client care or closure of a business entity. So always follow your regulatory body and local legislation over information provided in this episode.

So, although I’ve never personally closed a private practice, I have helped therapists close their private practices for various reasons. And we’re going to discuss some of the key steps that I think are important to consider when you’re preparing to close your private practice.

1. Choose a Closure Date and Provide at Least 3 Months’ Notice to Clients

So first of all, choosing a closure date and providing at least three months’ notice to your clients.

Now you may want to choose a closure date beyond three months, and depending on your life circumstance, you may have less than three months. But it’s really important to provide your clients ample opportunity to be able to meet with you, to have a termination or conclusion session, as well as providing information and support for clients who may be having a difficult time with this transition.

So how you might want to provide notice of a closure of a practice is you might want to send an email crafted towards your active clients. Now it’s important to understand what you identify as active. Is it someone that you’ve seen within three months? Is it someone that you’ve seen within a year? And it’s important to understand the relationships that you have with people.

If you’ve been in practice for 10 or 20 years, you probably wouldn’t notify every single client if you haven’t seen them in a very long amount of time. However, you may want to reach out to people that you’ve seen within the last year or two. It’s important to understand the type of clients you see, how often you see them, and then of course, your own policies and regulations regarding how often you see clients. There are some clients who may still consider you as their therapist even if you haven’t necessarily saw them within the last six to eight months, for instance. And although typically we close a file between three and six months, it doesn’t mean that in the eyes of our clients that they see that therapist as no longer their therapist.

So, it’s really important to consider, and this may be important to look at some of your regulatory and ethical standards if they apply in this case. But if not really thinking about what is active? Is it a year? Is it two years? Do you meet with people on a short-term basis and they’ve had their conclusion or termination session with you? Really considering some of this.

But how you may provide this announcement is through email. You might also have an email auto message when people email you for the duration of that transition period. So, if you give three months, you may have an auto message on your email that when people email you that they see that you’re closing your practice. You might include this on your voicemail. Your social media platforms or other marketing platforms that you use. Also, with your active clients that you see frequently, you’re going to want to also inform them face-to-face. Some clients are going to have some difficulty with transitioning to a new therapist, so being able to have that opportunity to meet with you and discuss this in session can provide ample time and space to be able to process this new transition and what it might look like for them.

2. Offer a Wrap-up or Conclusion Session During the 3 Months Closure

So, the second piece, and this kind of goes into the first piece a little bit, is offering a wrap up session or a conclusion session during this three month of closure. This provides the opportunity for the transfer of files if they want to see a new therapist. Also, that transition period to be able to discuss what their options are as well as terminating the session as a whole.

And you may even want to provide this opportunity to clients who you haven’t seen regularly but you still consider active. So for instance, going back to if you consider the last year of your clients active, and even though you may have saw someone 9 or 10 months ago, you may notify them that they can have the opportunity to be able to have a wrap up or conclusion session with you. And this gives them that ample opportunity to be able to transition their care in whatever way that looks like for you and them.

3. Give 3 Referrals to Clients for Therapists Accepting Clients

The third piece to closing a private practice, and this is usually connected with our standards of practice, now again, every standards of practice is a little different, but the third piece is giving three referrals to clients for therapists accepting clients.

Now, some regulatory bodies might just require two referrals. I’ve always given three referrals, even when I’m referring out. So, making sure that you have therapists who, one, know that you are leaving and that they can expect an influx of clients due to your transition out. So, even when we think of giving three referrals, the first step here, even before giving them, is reaching out to three therapists that you trust. Three therapists who work in similar areas that you work in so that you can transition your clients confidently. Therapists, who have space and are ready to accept clients.

Going back to providing three referrals. So, this you may provide in session. You may also put it on your email. You may notify people. You may even have this on your social media platforms, just in case some clients may be inactive, especially if you’ve been in business for five plus years. Some clients still may consider you their therapist, even though they haven’t saw you in several years. But if you have this on your social media or your website or your email, all of these. People can have access to these referrals as well. But of course, you want to be able to provide these referrals to people in-person as they conclude with their wrap up sessions and conclusion sessions as well.

And there’s a few things you might also want to do here as well, you may also want to have an opportunity to be able to talk to both the client and the therapist so that you can transfer the files and their case in a collaborative and supportive way. So, there may be an overlap session between you, the new therapist, and this new client. Of course, if the client is consenting to that and has provided all adequate written consent to this.

4. Maintenance of Client Files

The fourth thing to consider is your file maintenance. So knowing that our privacy laws have requirements, and of course our standards of practice have specific requirements regarding the obtaining and maintaining files for a specific duration, we need to know our specific legislation when it comes to maintaining our files. In Canada, depending on the province that you are in, privacy laws dictate that we either maintain our records for 7 or 10 years. And again, this is depending on your privacy legislation and it’s also dependent on your standards of practice.

Here in Alberta, it’s 10 years for adults and 10 years after a child turns 18 years of age. So, if you work with adults, even if you’re retiring, you are required to maintain your records. So, this is important to understand how you might maintain these records. Do you use paper and pen? That means you may need to have a secure place to be able to keep your files for that duration. Or do you use specific practice management software like Jane App? If you use these softwares, you still need to be able to maintain these records even if you retire or you move out of province, and this is really important to know how you’re maintaining them and even when you close your practice that this is a requirement for you.

And if you work with children, it’s 10 years after a child turns 18 years of age. So, if you are working with a five year old, you may actually have to keep your records for much longer. So, it’s really important that you understand your specific privacy law requirement. Also, what your standards of practice with your regulatory body is. And then being able to have a process that even though you’re no longer in your private practice, that you can maintain these files adequately during that time.

Also, when we think of maintaining files, we also need to understand on how we can inform our clients upon closure, how they can access these files should they ever need them. Our client notes are actually our client’s notes, so going back to providing referrals and potentially having an overlap session, we may transfer the files to another therapist. But not all of our clients will want to do that. And in saying that, it’s still important that you keep a copy for your own records as well, even when you do transfer that file.

But some clients are not necessarily going to want to transfer their files, but they may still want to be able to access these files for some time after you have closed your practice. So, it’s important to consider not only how you maintain these files, but also how can clients access these files should they need to within that 10-year timeframe?

5. Maintenance of Liability Insurance

So, the fifth piece is maintaining your insurance. Now this is a really important piece because regardless of whether you’re moving to a different province, whether you’re going into a full-time job and you no longer want to work in business, or you’re retiring. Many insurance policies protect from the date of claim versus the date of incident.

So let me explain that a little bit. If your insurance policy, so it’s important to determine, what type of insurance policy you have, but if your insurance policy protects from the date of claim, this means that if a client makes a claim at any point in time, that is when the insurance policy kicks in. So even if you’ve been out of private practice for five years and you had a claim against you, even though you may have not have seen that client in five or six years your insurance that you have at that time is what’s going to protect you.

So, if you don’t necessarily maintain insurance and you don’t have insurance in place at the time a claim may be created, then that can cause potential issues for you down the road. The fact that you have insurance in place is important.

Now, if you’re still working and you’re not retiring, this may not be much of a consideration as many of us obtain our insurances even we work in organizations for additional protection for ourselves. However, sometimes when we retire, we think, “Well, I’m not going to be working anymore, so I no longer need this insurance.” But this is why it’s important to really know your insurance policies and especially if you transition policies to policies. And maybe you did have an insurance that was date of incident versus date of claim. Do you know which insurance company you had at that point in time?

So really, it’s important to understand that having insurance long-term is important and ensuring which type of insurance you might have just in case a claim arises moving forward. So, this protects you even if you close your practice. And even if a claim arises.

6. Cancellations of Business Contracts

The sixth thing to consider, and this is more at the end when you’re ready to conclude your business, is the cancellation of business contracts. This may include additional hiring contracts that you have with companies. This may include your lease, your phone, your internet bills, all of those types of things. But ensuring that you’ve provided the ample amount of notice for the cancellation of your existing contracts so that your financial commitment ends in a timely manner. Sometimes leases are 30 days, sometimes they’re 60 days, sometimes they’re 90 days. So, it’s really important that you understand and know how much time you need to give in those cases.

And the same with contracts that you have, this may include additional contractors you may have working in your private or group practice. So, depending on the contract that you sign, you want to make sure that you provide at least what you say in your contract, but usually it’s good to give a little more as well in those cases. So, making sure that you provide ample opportunity so that your financial commitment ends in a timely manner.

7. Cancel Your Business Name of Dissolve your Corporation, if applicable

Finally, the seventh thing to consider is cancel your business name or dissolve your corporation if applicable. Depending on your business structure and why you are closing your practice, you may be required to either cancel your business name or dissolve your corporation. So, canceling a business name might be with the entity that you have registered your business name. If you are a corporation, you may need to dissolve your corporation.

If you’re dissolving your corporation or canceling your business name and you have no idea how to do any of this. It may be helpful to enlist support from a legal professional to help ensure that this is done accurately, effectively, and of course in a timely manner.

So, there you have it, seven key steps for closing your private practice.

Now like I said, there are likely other steps that you will take along the way, but these are the seven that I think that we really need to consider when we’re closing our private practices.

I know this was a short episode, so I hope you enjoyed it.

If you liked this episode, I would be so grateful if you followed the podcast and left a review so the other therapists will know that the Designer Practice Podcast can help them as well.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay

The Designer Practice Podcast and Evaspare Inc. has an affiliate and/or sponsorship relationship for advertisements in our podcast episodes. We receive commission or monetary compensation, at no extra cost to you, when you use our promotional codes and/or check out advertisement links.