The Testing Psychologist Podcast

The episode delivers a cluster of genuinely useful operational rules - compensation thresholds, caseload triggers, office-space percentages, and clinician-count milestones - but these are diluted by personal anecdotes, mutual affirmation, two sponsor interruptions, and meandering EOS/mindset tangents that add little actionable content.

“You have got to get to at least five full time consistent therapists to see a significant change in your income”

“1099 is not more than 60%, period...For a W2 based practice, you do not want to give more than 45%...for my associates...30 to 35”

Most guidance is standard small-practice consulting: get a bookkeeper, use Profit First, implement EOS, hire a consultant. The specific pay-percentage rules add precision but not novel thinking; the 'hire in twos' cohort idea and the private-practice turnover benchmark are the only moderately fresh frames.

“If you look at the research, private practice turnover is at least 30%...normal turnover is 10% for a regular business”

“I love hiring in twos...not everyone's going to stick. There's such turnover in this field. And so you'll be glad you hired two because one may not make it”

Whitney is a genuine practitioner who built a 15-clinician private-pay practice from scratch since 2018 and speaks credibly from operational experience, including surviving losing 8 of 17 staff in one year. However, she has migrated substantially into podcast-host and conference-organizer territory, slightly softening the pure practitioner signal.

“I had my group practice for, since 18, so eight years”

“even last year, I think we lost eight therapists on a team of 17. My gosh, it was brutal”

The episode is above average in concrete numbers for its genre: named compensation bands, caseload percentages, a space-cost rule, a cited turnover statistic, and a real headcount anecdote. Weaknesses include informal on-the-fly math, anecdotal sourcing for some rules, and a vague attribution for the 6-8% space figure.

“For a W2 based practice, you do not want to give more than 45%...for my associates, the ones that are getting supervision...I pay them more like 35, you know, 30 to 35”

“private practice turnover is at least 30%...normal turnover is 10% for a regular business”

The host occasionally presses productively - asking Whitney to walk through her math on clinician counts and the 45% threshold - but the conversation is undermined by frequent 'yeah yeah yeah' affirmations, host self-disclosure that consumes airtime, and a complete absence of genuine pushback or challenge to any claim.

“walk me through your math. Like you were pretty confident. Like you have to hire five full time people. How do you. What, what is driving that reasoning?”

“I'm going to keep pushing on this...So you said 45% all in. So that include, that's including like benefits, payroll taxes, you know, everything”