How do we structure our counseling practice so that it’s COVID friendly?
HIPAA Compliance
Let’s dive into structuring your counseling practice during COVID. There are a couple of components. We’ll start with HIPAA compliance security. Whenever you’re changing practice from face-to-face to virtual, there are loads of things to keep in mind. Most importantly, you need to think about security, HIPAA, and privacy. These three things should be at the forefront of your mind. One of the significant changes is that you’re utilizing video sessions. Plus, you will be doing more emails and text messaging. To stay HIPAA compliant, I use SimplePractice; I love their system, and I use it religiously. Make sure that you’re using a system that abides by HIPAA.
Educate Your Patients and Staff
The other area we want you to look at is educating your patients and the staff in your office on the transition. I find if we have information, it allows us to feel more comfortable about what’s going to happen tomorrow.
Create a video to let your patients know that you’re going to go into the world of online counseling. Walk them through what the process is like. Show them the buttons that you click to get into the system. Walk them through what happens if there are lags. The video will ease the individual into their virtual therapy session.
Another thing you should is let your clients know if you are still accepting insurance. It could be a statement that you put on your website or put on a template. Let them know that you are still taking insurance.
Social Media During COVID
When we’re looking at this transition of being impacted by COVID, I think it’s essential to look at moving to the social media space. It would be best to communicate the same messages to your social media handles that you do in your videos. If you don’t have an Instagram account, make a business Instagram account. From there, you’re going to be able to communicate with your ideal clients. All of the images that you post or the content that you post on there is related to those elevator speeches that you would do. I encourage people to create content that helps connect people to your website.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is how people can find you online. Whenever someone says they want to be at the top of Google page, it means they want to be found quick and easy by an online search. To do this, you need to rank keywords to utilize search engine optimization effectively. And there’s a lot of beautiful avenues to do that. If you have a marketing team that you’re working with, communicate with them. Make sure that you always want to keep the people that you serve in mind because that gives you an idea of what they’re looking for. Then, think about what your ideal client will search for on Google. Those are the keywords you are going to use for SEO.
Questions To Think About:
- How can I be curious during this process?
- How can I continue to be ambitious towards this process as COVID-19 is happening?
- How can I make sure that my practice is going in the right direction?
