Beryl Rush Tritel, MSW is a therapist with offices in Jerusalem and Ramat Bet Shemesh in Israel.
She and at least a dozen other therapists have written to me over the last few months asking about the pros and cons and possible ways to package their clinical services and products.
There’s a lot to consider before you even begin to create bundles of your professional work.
Why You Should Think about Packaging Your Clinical Work
Most of your prospective clients don’t have a clue who you are.
They don’t know if they can trust you.
It feels kind of risky to even think about hiring you.
These strangers and almost-strangers aren’t sure what you can really do for them or if you are just promising them pie in the sky.
Common sense alone should tell you that all of these things can cause new clients to delay and even avoid engaging in your services.
What is Packaging?
The packaging of services refers to the act of bundling your clinical services and/or products and then presenting them as a single offer.
Such bundles of services and products may be offered at the same or different price points while at the same time giving your clients more choices about the different ways in which they engage with and use your clinical services.
What you charge and how you choose to package your services are entirely up to you and speaks, in part, to your clinical point of view.
12 Ways Packaging Your Services Can Better Serve You and Your Client
- Identifying Your Process = Roadmap
In many ways, explaining exactly what you do beyond saying “I provide psychotherapy” can be really hard.
How you work with your client is unique to you.
What you do with your client and the end result can often appear like magic to a satisfied client or the general public.
Words may often elude you or fail to adequately describe the moment-by-moment facilitation of complex streams of activity between you and your client(s) to facilitate change.
And, because that process that you facilitate can be unclear to clients who are often new to therapy, that process is often not easily understood.
By packaging your services, you can provide a roadmap of sorts to these clients . . . so that they better understand exactly what you are offering.
- Share Your Point of View
Often the way you package your work shows your point of view and your values as a mental health professional.
Some therapists demonstrate their concerns for their clients’ financial limitations by offering different price points for different sets of services; others show their commitment to their clients’ scheduling challenges by being more accessible on weekend or evening hours.
If you decide to offer different packages, it’s likely that your own values and your own point of view will show up more clearly in the bundling of your services.
- Creates and Shows Value
Sometimes it is easier to create and show the value of your work through packaging.
For example, perhaps you work in a manualized manner with your clients on a weekly basis for an average of 3 months per client at a rate of $100 / hour.
A different way of packaging that is to bundle 12 hours of therapy for a single price point of $1200.
It’s simply a different way to offer the same service at the same price.
The difference is that one is easier to understand than the other in terms of what your client will be getting, the time involved, and what will be your client’s financial investment.
- Differentiation from Other Therapists
Because most therapists don’t don’t take time to consider how they package their services and what options are available to them, you can often end up blending in with the therapists up and down your street.
Packaging can help you stand out from the crowd; it can make you more recognizable and your services more remarkable.
- Displays a Peek Inside
Packaging can also give your referral sources and potential clients a peek inside the experience of working with you.
By taking the time to provide a better or more complete explanation of your services and the elements involved, you are creating an opportunity for your clients to make better and more informed choices.
- Highlight Tools and Methods
Sometimes it is your methodology and tools that you want to highlight.
Packaging allows you to do that so that your clients can more easily see what you include in the work that you do.
- Predictable Income and Forecasting Revenue
One of the most difficult things for therapists in private practice is not being able to easily predict their incomes.
By bundling your work, you may be more easily able to forecast your revenue over a period of time.
For example, if you sell a package of 6 hours of Friday sessions to be used no later than by X date, you can have a more predictable income over that period of time than by selling individual units of time.
- Better Manage Your Time
Bundling your services can also allow you to better manage your work hours and work flow.
Consider the difference between waiting for the phone to ring and then booking your individual clients as they see fit to call for sessions week after week rather than by pre-selling a package of standing Friday appointments for the month.
Or, perhaps you offer pre-marital counseling . . . typically totalling four one-hour sessions over a two-month period.
You can schedule those as you go . . . session-by-session or you can sell them as a package with the four dates pre-determined at the time of purchase.
Notice which one gives you more control over your schedule (and gives your clients more time to manage their own schedules better, too).
- Identify Client Commitment and Willingness to Invest
Packaging your services for your clients can also help you to identify your client’s level of commitment, trust, and willingness to invest in herself through your work.
That’s not to say that a client who chooses to work with you session-by-session is less committed; but, it’s likely that you are better able to more quickly recognize a client’s willingness to invest in herself and her trust in working with you when she is able to commit upfront to a term of engagement more so than one who does not.
- Helps Client Consider More than Just Your Hourly Rate
It’s common for clients who are unfamiliar with mental health services to simply compare hourly rates of various therapists to determine who they will ultimately choose to engage for psychotherapy.
While you know that there are many factors that should go into assessing goodness of fit and making that choice, clients who are new to mental health services are often so uninformed as to not know what to look for or what to inquire about when comparing various professional offerings.
Your packaging can provide additional information that allows them to consider far more than simply a dollar-for-dollar comparison.
- Helps You Tell Your Story
Your story is a key piece of your branding as a mental health professional.
It’s what helps set you apart and makes you unique.
Your packaging can be one part of that story.
It underscores what you believe to be important – and what you do not.
It demonstrates the various elements of your work that you choose to combine and believe to be the most effective ways for you to work with your client.
For example, if you are a psychotherapist who identifies as one who is offering Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), then by definition you are offering a package of weekly individual psychotherapy sessions provided by one therapist and also weekly group therapy sessions provided by a different therapist; and, together you are providing content and processing of four specific modules (including mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, and emotion regulation) as designed by Marsha Linehan.
Your package of DBT that you offer tells a specific story about the elements that you believe to be critical in helping your clients and how they are best combined.
- Facilitate Ease of Purchasing
I don’t know anyone who likes to feel nickel-and-dimed.
Most clients don’t like it and most therapists who I know don’t like doing it, either.
Bundling your services rather than selling them one-hour-at-a-time, also makes it easier and faster for you and your client to complete the buying cycle.
It’s one transaction and then it’s done.
Other Considerations?
Are there other things to consider when deciding whether or not and how to package your counseling and psychotherapy services?
Absolutely!
In my next post, I’ll be sharing 8 Things for You to Consider in Preparation for Creating Packages of Clinical Services (including the ethical musts).
In the mean time, if I’ve left out other benefits to packaging your services, please do leave them below!
Thanks for sharing your & others’ ideas.
Hi, Ellen! Thanks so much for dropping in and letting me know that you appreciate the post!
I hope you’ll be back to join the conversation!
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for this information. I have recently learned that using Psychology Today recently that the specificity in the profile about some of the work that I do with couples has been noticed by not only clients who are couples, but those who are in relationships and wanting to strengthen or change them.
Lauren! I’ve missed your voice here! Welcome back!
Can you give an example of the language / specificity that you are referring to so that others can learn from you?
Interesting concept! But how do you handle clients who cancel one of their packaged appointments and want to use it later on?
Hi, Julia! Welcome to Private Practice from the Inside Out! And, thank you for asking this question!
You’re just a bit ahead of me – as that’s one of the questions that I’ve included in the second part of this series.
What do you think would be a fair way to address this?
I’m betting when the next post comes out, there will likely be quite a bit of discussion about this situation because certainly it will arise!
I’m going to hold off on this for a week but if no one else addresses this, I promise, I’ll be back to chat about it some more.
I hope you’ll stay tuned – and share this post with you colleagues if you find it useful!
I have a rough draft of my practice policies which include packaging my sessions. I find this easier for me to swallow than giving a discount, this may sound mean, but, if I’m giving someone a discount, and then they cancel, then I feel like I’m losing out more, the list session income, and the income I could have made with a full fee client.
By making a package, my idea is to offer 12 sessions, at a slightly reduced rate, but, they have 16 weeks to use them. And, they either pay by head checks or credit card. Then, I feel like I’m also getting guaranteed income.
I still haven’t finalized how I want to manage Whatsapp messages. I don’t mind the ones that are asking for a reschedule, but, when people are seeking support that way, it gets time consuming.
Hi, Beryl! Thank you for your patience and nudging for me to get this series of posts published and for dropping back in to join the conversation, too!
When I read that your clients can pay by “head checks,” I had no idea what you were talking about.
So . . . I went to google the term and found that they are what we in the United States call post-dated checks.
Is that what you mean?
I found the explanation here on Rabbi Wein’s post – Head Checks.
Is that what you meant?
Yes. Oops. I can either term works.
No criticism, Beryl! I just wanted to make sure that I was understanding you correctly!
Thank you so much for such detailed information. “Techie” stuff is not one of my strengths! I just found this website and it has been useful in “next steps” I need to take in starting up my private practice.
Hi, Kathy! Welcome to Private Practice from the Inside Out!
I’m so glad that you are finding it helpful!
I can totally relate to being tech-challenged!
I’m the queen digital dinosaur!
But, what I can tell you about that is that if I can master it, anyone can master it!
Now, I rock using social media to grow my business!
Let me know if you find you’re needing additional support!
Happy to chat!
Tamara,
I was delighted to open my mail box and find a post from you. I look forward to learning from your wisdom about All Things Private Practice.
My experience with packaging is that therapy/counseling clients are not the first to hop on board with multiple sessions discounts unless in a group format such as 8 weeks to stress reduction. Then there is an end goal.
With mental health and wellness most people want to feel better now and do not like the idea of staying in therapy any longer than needed. The questions I hear are ‘How Long Will This Take?’ ‘When Will I Get Over This?’ They are committed. They show up and do the work. They don’t want to buy a package. I tried it.
On the other hand, coaching clients of mine are all into getting 12 hours packages that lead to discounted sessions. Coaching work can be very similar to counseling work and even overlap at time. I find it interesting the willingness to invest in a future with a higher quality of life based on the person being a coachee or counselee.
I have a hypothesis about consumer behavior: I believe the stigma surrounding mental health acts as a roadblock. It is as if a person who is seeing a provider for mental health is a admission of brokenness. It is sad. We are not broken. We are humans.
I hear what you are saying, but, in the last couple of weeks, I’ve had 2-3 clients sign up for the packages. But, these are clients who want long term work.
Hi Beryl. I would love to know your secret. I looked at your website and missed seeing any packages being offered. Are your packages for established clients?
I loved your three quizes. I took the Happiness quiz. Nice!!
Thanks for your conpliments! Unfortunately, my website is woefully outdated. This is a recent thing that I just started.
So Beryl, what do your packages include?
Again, I want to reiterate that all of our services are “packaged” in one way or another.
That I choose to package my work in a more traditional way by selling individual units of time, others may choose to bundle multiple services and / or products together and still others may choose to package their services differently by offering distance therapy or marathon groups, etc.
It’s all packaging.
I’m still working it out, but, one fee for individual sessions, and, if people are interesting in committing to, let’s say 12 sessions, then there is a (small) discount per session. I would give them 15 weeks to use their sessions, after that, they are forfeited.
I also do journaling. I have found that some clients really prefer to write rather than talk. So, I’m still working out pricing for that as well.
I look forward to hearing how these packages work out for you!
Hi, Brenda! Thank you for dropping in to share your experience in packaging therapeutic services.
I don’t bundle my clinical services.
However, I have not had issues with clients expecting quick fixes either.
And, honestly, the reason I don’t bundle my clinical work is simply because I didn’t start out that way and now my practice is established and I don’t need to.
If I were just starting out, I think there’s a very good chance that I might at least experiment with some different packaging to see what works best for me and my clients.
I don’t remember the lat time someone asked me “How many sessions is it going to take . . . ?”
My clients, like yours, tend to come in committed to the process of psychotherapy from the beginning.
But, I don’t think I or my clients typically identify with brokenness; instead they tend to be feeling stuck or paralyzed and just wanting to create a change in their lives.
I wonder if the differences that you and I experience with our caseloads is about working with different clientele or different niches or . . . has something to do with how we practice our work differently . . . .
Got any thoughts about this?
You are probably correct in pointing out the diffence in population(s) served.
Many of my clints are survivors of violence…childhood sexual abuse…and express a deep feeling of shame and often brokenness. Otherwise, expressed stuckness or paralysis is common.
I am looking forward to your part 2 in your series.
Or maybe just at different stages of healing?
Hello! I hope you’re well, and thank you for this post. I found it very motivating as I have been hearing a lot of negativity around packaging counseling services. I currently package my therapy services. Based on what you have found it’s technically not unethical to do this, correct?
Hi, Sheneica! I think the correct answer would be “it depends” . . . on a lot of things!
Is it clinically appropriate for the client?
Is it fair?
Have your thought through and made accommodations for possible (and sometimes unforeseen) challenges?
What are your contingency plans?
Have you provided clear and full disclosure?
Have you gone through the informed consent process and obtained your client’s fully informed consent to treatment?
How does this relate to your professional association’s code of ethics?
Are there laws that prohibit or restrict such practices?
Assuming you can check off all of the above, then you should be ethically sound in offering them.
Good luck, Sheneica! Hope you’ll be back again soon to chat!