Clinical Counselor / Therapist

As a small group growing practice, we’d like to support an environment which encourages honesty, professionalism, passion, fun, and exploration. Where each of us has expertise and experience that we feel should be recognized and valued in the workplace.

We believe that all of us are capable of developing the knowledge and self-assurance necessary to take the lead in our respective fields. Regardless of your career aspirations, whether it’s to find a place to grow, or stay, we want to listen to you and support you in your professional journey.

By providing opportunities for us to grow as therapists and people, we foster an active collaborative atmosphere. We support spaces for supervision, peer consultation, and insight-oriented anti-oppressive work through readings, exercises, and facilitated conversations.

We intentionally choose to be a remote teletherapy practice to support flexibility for clinicians and clients who may not be able to go to an office for various reasons. We believe the best work can be done when your schedule works for your needs and we want to work together to do so.

The idea of scheduling is to find a balance between the needs of the clients and the needs of the clinicians. As a practice, we want to support that flexibility and work-life balance So we generally don’t work on weekends.

What this means is that we ask that you be available to see clients at least a total 25 hours throughout the week (Monday through Friday) with an average of 20 direct client hours minimum for full time (no more than 32hrs to prevent burnout). If you’d like to work more than that, that’s okay too. So hypothetically you can work up to 40 hours each week if you want. But a lot of clinicians don't schedule themselves that much; most work an average of four days a week or an average of 30 hours per week.

We want to support how work-life balance looks for you (and avoid burn out so you can be fully present with clients) along with your financial goals, so we’ll work together to find a schedule you look forward to having. Also if there’s any life changes or you notice the schedule you started with is no longer working for you, you can talk to us to change it to what will work for you now.

You can work doing telehealth on any day you choose between 9:00 a.m. and 8 p.m. (except the weekend), as long as you take a short break in between clients. The majority of clinicians see six or seven clients each day, four days a week, or four plus a half day. Additionally, in order to fill positions as soon as possible, the majority of clinicians begin by working more late hours. Once they are established, they gradually switch to more daytime hours.

We have a budget of $300 a month ($3,600 per year) for external supervision for associate clinicians. If you choose waive your external benefit and have clinical supervision internally instead, you get paid for admin time each supervision session.

We also have opportunities for peer and EMDR consultation, and non-licensure employment supervision. If you need additional support you’re always welcome to talk with us!

As is customary in employee-based group practices, we give 50% to clinicians who are fully licensed. Because we pay employment taxes, offer secure HIPAA compliant software/hardware with continuous security evaluation and offer employee benefits, this is less than the 60% for an independent contractor arrangement.

We give associates 45% and free supervision in order to help them get their license. After becoming fully licensed, associates are eligible to transfer to a higher percentage.

Depending on the insurance plan, individual therapy payments may range from $100 to $140 per hour. Sessions lasting 53 minutes are standard, although shorter sessions will result in a lower reimbursement. The compensation is $185 per hour for clients who are in private pay (not using insurance).

To get an idea of what this can look like for you, let’s look at some potential scenarios using an average of the insurance reimbursements (because insurance companies have a clause in contracts where we can’t share the exact amount).

In these examples, we are assuming you’ve already built up your caseload (you’re no longer ramping up). Additional revenue from administrative (non-client hours) is not included in this calculation since it’s a pretty small portion of your income:

Scenario 1: A clinician schedules 25 clients a week; on average, 3 of those appointments are canceled.

Every year, this clinician takes a two-week vacation. Their entire income would be:

Associate: $59,400 per year or $4,950 per month

Fully licensed: $66,000 annually or $5,500 per month

Scenario 2: A clinician schedules 30 clients per week; on average, 3 of those appointments are canceled. Every year, this clinician takes two weeks off. Their total annual revenue would be:

Associate: $72,900 per year or $6,075 per month

Fully licensed $81,000 per year or $6,750 per month.

Their annual gross revenue, assuming they take one month off, would be:

Associate: $69,984 per year or $5,832 per month

Fully licensed: $77,760 per year or $6,480 monthly‍ ‍

Remember this isn’t a salary position, so a given month's gross income could vary by $2,000 because insurances occasionally take a while to pay out. When a therapist sees a larger number of clients with high reimbursement rates or private pay, their average session fee may also be greater. In certain instances, there are also times where there are greater cancellation rates (typically in August and final two weeks of December).

When it comes to a transition plan, we can get as creative as we need to. We want to support therapists who will be a great fit for our practice. Some clinicians find it simpler to gradually leave their existing role or to strategically take vacation days as they increase their workload with us.

There may be a longer ramp-up period as you start building your caseload because our practice is mostly insurance-based. When you build your client caseload in the first month, the majority of your income will come from training and onboarding hours. It may take several months for income to rise to the averages mentioned above for a full caseload.

For example, if a client has a $20 co-pay and you see them on April 24th, you can anticipate that $20 will be added to the April payroll, which will be paid on May 15th. After that, the insurance claim is sent to insurance, and the remaining amount should be paid a couple of weeks later in mid-May.

Thus, the remaining amount (for example, $100), will not be visible until the May payroll, which is due on June 15.

• We provide paid time off for sick days

• Once you meet full time hours you get group health insurance with us paying 50% of your premium

• We offer a 401k plan with a 4% employer match.

• We invest in marketing and advertising you through directories, social media and our website

• We pay for external licensure supervision or if you waive that benefit we offer it internally and pay you admin time to attend

• We reimburse you to get trained in EMDR—up to $1500 reimbursement if you stay with us for two years.

• Clinicians also have opportunities to earn a bonuses by completing activities such as networking, blog writing, public speaking and coverage bonuses once they’re eligible.

• We also give you a complimentary subscription to ContinuED to with unlimited access to their Continuing Education classes in video, audio, and text format so you can meet all your CEUs.

• We additionally have disclosures approved by attorneys, and fully approved HIPAA-compliant technology you can work with (electronic health record, email, encryption, remote phone, fax, etc.).

• Insurance billing and all associated phone work is handled by Kirkland EMDR Counseling so you can focus on clients fully. If you have any questions or concerns, simply send an email to our office assistant who handles billing.

• Free paneling with insurances: Since associates are under our organization, associate clinicians are not required to panel with the exception of Apple Health (Medicaid) which we assist free of charge. We support licensed clinicians with paneling for free; however, there are some forms that you will need to fill out individually which we're more than happy to assist with.

Yes, we’re called Kirkland EMDR Counseling so we really want to support our clinicians to learn EMDR. You initially invest in your own EMDR training to start. However, we want to reward you for taking the time to learn and grow with us so when you are over a year with us we’ll reimburse half of your EMDR training and when you’re with us for two years we’ll pay you the rest. Additionally, we provide EMDR Consultation so you’ll be able to work towards EMDR certification at no additional cost.

Our reimbursement budget for the training is $1500, however if you choose a lower-cost training you can use the remaining amount for your basic training consultation hours.

Of course, we’re not saying that you’re required to use EMDR with every client, we trust you’ll use your clinical judgment to collaborate with your client on treatment which may include other therapeutic modalities (e.g. DBT, ACT, Mindful Self-Compassion, IFS, etc.).

However, we’ve seen a lot of clients grow with EMDR and most of our clients look for us because of it, so we believe it’s an evidenced-based approach that would be a great addition to your therapist toolbox.

Yes, without a doubt! After six months eligible clinicians are able to sign up for coverage bonus opportunities throughout the year. Additionally, after two years of licensing, clinicians have the opportunity to offer clinical supervision. Furthermore, we are happy to assist clinicians who are interested in becoming part of the leadership team.

Thinking about joining a group practice or creating your solo practice is a decision based on awareness of what your needs are and where you would feel most fulfilled. If you’d prefer to work with clients for most of your time and energy and not worry about the administration and business side, a group practice is generally a better option. If you would prefer to devote some of your time and energy to managing the business and some of it to seeing clients, a solo practice would be a better fit.

There are many factors that go into running a business, and when determining whether solo practice or group practice is more profitable, most people forget to account for the hours spent on business administration, cost of system implementation and maintenance, and business specific costs. We recommend reading this article that highlights the costs associated with running a solo practice and those compared to working in a group practice to get a better sense of what would work best for you.

Also, being a teletherapy practice, we have different and continuous costs than an in-person practice does not necessarily have. In addition to marketing and referrals, we must ensure that the technological support we provide (software, hardware, training, audits) is HIPAA compliant and is able to ensure you can provide ethical support to clients remotely and confidentially.

This additionally has to keep up with the fast technological changes we experience in our field specifically for a completely remote practice. Creating and sustaining a system that works remotely and securely is not an addition for a remote teletherapy group practice, but its core functionality which means that we have additional costs to ensure this.

If you’d like to spend most of your time and effort working with clients and let us handle the business/tech support/marketing/billing we can work together so you can be free to do what is most fulfilling for you.

There are various group practices that have specific legal frameworks, some carrying more risk than others. We’ve taken a lot of time to consider what each offers and believe that setting Kirkland EMDR Counseling as an employer is the most advantageous and stable partnership for all of us. It’s important for us to uphold our ethical standards, provide stability for our employees and clients, and ensure that we are operating legally in Washington state to ensure our employee’s rights. Therefore the process of becoming an employer was the best fit for the community we are building.

Yes! All payroll services are provided by us. Since you would be an employee, a business license is not required.

This is one of our long term goals. Unfortunately, we’re not able to do so at this time but we’d love to support you in finding a practice that does. Feel free to contact us to inquire.

Generally, the answer is no—unless it is part of a gradual transition to working with us full-time.

To ensure you have the bandwidth to thrive, we ask that you make Kirkland EMDR Counseling your sole home for clinical work. We have found that juggling a separate private caseload alongside a full-time role here splits your focus and often leads to burnout. We want you to have plenty of energy left for your life outside the therapy room.

What constitutes "Outpatient Clinical Services"? To be clear, this policy applies to any direct psychotherapy. This includes:

• Individual, couples, family, or group therapy.

• Services provided in-person or via telehealth.

• Services provided in a private practice, another group, or an agency setting.

"What if I have a specialty you don't offer yet?" If you have a niche specialization that we don’t currently offer, we view that as an asset to the team, not a reason to work elsewhere. We invite you to build that program here. We provide the marketing, office space, and administrative infrastructure to help you launch that specialty internally, allowing you to focus your clinical energy in one supportive place.

There are two main exceptions where we are happy to collaborate:

• Gradual Transition: We can arrange a temporary period where you wrap up with your current employer or private practice as you gradually ramp up your caseload with us.

• Non-Clinical Work: We fully support you engaging in professional work that is distinct from direct therapy. This includes teaching, consulting, making in-home visits, or operating an independent practice as a clinical supervisor.

A note on your future growth: This policy applies to maintaining a concurrent practice while employed with us. We hope Kirkland EMDR Counseling becomes your professional home for a long time. However, if you eventually decide the right next step is to launch your own practice, we won't stand in your way. In fact, we celebrate the growth of our clinicians. Whether you are with us for years or for your entire career, we are invested in your success.