Review: The 14 Concrete (But Not So Hard!) Steps to Private Practice by Bonnie McKeegan

For both veteran practitioners and new providers embarking on starting their own practice, author and practitioner Bonnie McKeegan delivers a wealth of valuable advice in The 14 Concrete (But Not So Hard!) Steps to Private Practice: A Guide for Licensed Clinical Social Workers and Licensed Marriage Family Therapists.

As McKeegan lays out, without the guidance and established procedures of a larger medical organization, launching into your own safe and effective practice can be a daunting and overwhelming prospect. Whether you are deciding on charting methods or choosing an insurance carrier, there are countless missteps that should be avoided, and this collection of wisdom gathers it in one place in a way that is intuitively organized.

As the lengthy title implies, the 14 steps may be critical lessons to learn, but implementing them isn’t difficult, as they are common sense and, for the most part, easily attainable, varying in terms of time, energy, complexity, and customizability. Some of the general wisdom may feel obvious, but with the overwhelming nature of embarking on a new career chapter, even having the simplest steps down on paper can be helpful (e.g., be sure to provide a clipboard for clients to fill out paperwork).

Bouncing from purely informational passages to hypothetical scenarios in your future office, McKeegan treats readers as professional peers, without any sense of condescension. For therapists just starting out in their own practice, finding clients can be most challenging, and McKeegan leverages nearly a decade of personal experience in the therapy office to guide readers into securing new clients, easing their transition into care, and keeping sane while scaling up a practice. The valuable services of social workers and family therapists are essential, and this encouraging guide helps ease the transition into this type of work outside the public sphere.

The contemporary nature of this guide is also critical; things have changed in the provision of care for many therapists, including the widespread popularity of telehealth. McKeegan addresses this shifting landscape, making this a timely guide for those just entering the profession. Aside from the guidance in the book itself, there are also hundreds of links and suggested resources for additional assistance, which is hugely valuable in its own right.

From a technical perspective, the structure of the book is a bit haphazard, with a smattering of bold, italics, and capitalized text, as well as drastic shifts in levels of formality. Wanting to appeal to readers as a peer is one thing, but it is also important to come across as a trusted expert, and McKeegan is occasionally informal to a fault. Additionally, the book can read like an outline, with lists of resources and tools, and little narrative explanation when it’s warranted. At other times, the author inserts her anecdotal personal experience to confidently recommend what works – and warn about what didn’t – for everything from insurance and business cards to billing services and health records.

As a whole, this detailed manual provides a helpful path through the perils of establishing a private practice, clearly presenting the most essential information that providers need to know, without losing readers in narrative fluff or excessive exposition.