psychiatry as a career path and
going into private practice.
I’m very interested in entrepreneurship
and tech, and mental health and I try to
bring all those together and one website
In this blog, I’m going to be talking
about how you can start a virtual
psychiatry practice, a virtual therapy
practice on the cheap for just $70 a
month for the first month, including
the filing fees, including your
mailbox, including an EHR, secure
email, phone, fax and bookkeeping.
The first thing you’re going to want to
do is determine your business structure.
So you’re going to want to consider
being either an LLC or an S Corp.
An LLC is easier to run.
So let’s just assume you’re
going to go with an LLC.
Second, you’re going to want to
select a legal business name or doing
business as name or fictitious name.
I would suggest contacting a lawyer
because there may be some requirements
for somebody who’s a professional
to have their name and their
purpose and the legal business name.
So, you might want to talk to them about
what those requirements are in your state.
But say you already know the requirements,
you don’t need to talk to a lawyer.
What you’re going to want to do
next is file with the secretary of
state and pay the state filing fees.
On average, they’re about 100 to $150
to file the articles of organization.
Some companies, they also include
drafting up an operating agreement.
That’s going to be your internal set
of documents to talk about how you
handle certain processes within the LLC.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.