Between Sessions with Berries

Reimbursement rates for mental health care keep shrinking. Many mental health professionals in private practice are stuck deciding whether to push for better rates, leave insurance altogether, or wait for someone else to fix the system. Meanwhile, taking every client who walks in the door and keeping fees low is a fast path to burnout.

In this episode of Between Sessions with Berries, Kym sits down with Brian J. Dixon, MD, a psychiatrist and author. He founded Mindful, a private practice; Simply Psych, a practice management company; and FeelGuide, a referral network for mental health professionals. Dr. Dixon grew up on food stamps before becoming a physician, and he speaks plainly about healthcare finance. That includes the costly lesson he learned from scaling a company too fast and what it took to pull it back.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why talk-based care is reimbursed less than procedures, and where that gap began.
• What Dr. Dixon recommends for clinicians credentialed through group aggregators.
• The two lessons he took from growing his practice management company too quickly.
• How FeelGuide lets clinicians quietly signal which referrals drain them.
• Why he doesn't believe in offering his services for free.
• How to settle on a fee that supports your practice without underselling your work.
• Where AI fits into the future of mental health care, even if tech isn't your strength.

Connect with Brian Dixon, MD:
Website: https://www.drbriandixon.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianjdixonmd
FeelGuide: https://www.joinfeelguide.com
Mindful: https://findmindful.com
Simply Psych: https://simplypsych.com

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

AI scribes have shifted mental health professionals from writing their own notes to reviewing someone else's version of the session, and that shift comes with real risk. It's easy to sign off on a note without catching an error, without confirming a client actually consented to being recorded, or without knowing what happens to that audio once the session ends.

In this episode, Kym talks with Dr. Stephen Ferrara, a nurse practitioner, educator, and health policy leader with more than 25 years of clinical experience. He's the founder of AI Nurse Academy, the immediate past president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, and the founding associate dean for artificial intelligence at Columbia University School of Nursing. Stephen breaks down what real AI literacy looks like for clinicians, where mental health professionals are getting it wrong, and how to build guardrails that protect both your license and your clients.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• The biggest mistake clinicians make when they start trusting AI-generated notes
• What the "good enough" trap actually costs your documentation
• How to get genuine, informed consent before using an AI scribe in session
• The AI literacy basics every mental health professional should understand before relying on these tools
• Why full practice authority varies so much by state, and what that means for telehealth
• How state legislation is starting to regulate AI in clinical settings
• The privacy guardrails Stephen uses in his own practice to protect client data

Connect with Stephen Ferrara:
Website: https://www.ainurseacademy.ai | https://www.drstephenferraranp.com

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Insurance audits used to be rare. Now AI systems built into insurance company billing platforms are flagging patterns fast, and codes like 90837, multiple sessions per week, and long-term maintenance therapy are all under closer watch. For mental health professionals who rely on these codes regularly, that shift can raise real questions about what actually holds up under review.

In this episode, Kym sits down with Beth Rontal, LICSW, founder of The Documentation Wizard and a nationally recognized expert in clinical documentation. Beth breaks down what's driving the rise in AI-assisted audits, the specific language that supports medical necessity, and how the "golden thread" connects diagnosis, treatment plan, and progress notes into documentation that stands up to scrutiny.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why AI is accelerating insurance audits and which billing patterns it's trained to flag.
• The exact language that helps justify medically necessary 90837 sessions.
• How to document session start and stop times so notes hold up under review.
• What Z codes are and why they matter for supporting a diagnosis.
• The golden thread that ties diagnosis, treatment plan, and progress notes together.
• When and how to justify billing for multiple sessions per week.
• Where rating scales fit into an audit-ready chart, and when they're optional.

Connect with Beth Rontal:
90827 Documentation Made Simple: https://bit.ly/dw-berries
Website: https://documentationwizard.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/documentationwizard
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@documentationwizard
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DocumentationWizard
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/documentation-wizard/ 

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

If your usual marketing playbook has suddenly stopped filling your caseload, you're picking up on something real. What worked reliably for years, referrals, directories, a decent website, isn't carrying the same weight anymore, and most mental health professionals are left guessing at what actually changed.

In this episode, Kym talks with Danielle Swimm, LCPC, business coach for therapists, and founder of The Entrepreneurial Therapist, about what's shifting in marketing right now and what's still worth your time. They get into how AI search is changing the way people find a provider, which old-school strategies are quietly making a comeback, and what it actually takes to build income beyond one-on-one sessions without running yourself into the ground.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why marketing that worked for years is falling flat in 2026.
• How to show up when someone asks an AI platform for a provider recommendation.
• What actually builds credibility with search bots, and with clients, on your website.
• Why weekly blogging is no longer the move, and what's replacing it.
• The backlink strategy Danielle says has never stopped working.
• How to know when you're ready to hire help or add a new revenue stream.
• What it really takes at home to create the capacity for a business to grow.

Connect with Danielle Swimm:
Website: https://www.theentrepreneurialtherapist.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/entrepreneurialtherapist
Podcast: https://www.theentrepreneurialtherapist.com/podcast
Newsletter: https://www.theentrepreneurialtherapist.com/newsletter

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Most mental health professionals settle into a fee early in their career and never really question it. $120 an hour, $150 an hour, whatever felt normal when they started, and the ceiling just becomes the ceiling.

Kym sits down with Allyson Clemmons, a social worker who sees about 10 clients a week, charges $400 a session, and earns over $180K a year from her private practice while living abroad in Mexico. Allyson works with mental health professionals who want to move past the belief that meaningful clinical work and real money can't coexist, and in this conversation she walks through how she actually built the practice most therapists assume isn't possible.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why therapists are taught to see service work and profit as opposing goals.
• How a pandemic insurance clawback pushed Allyson to drop insurance for good.
• The pricing jump from $89 an hour to $400 a session, and what happened in between.
• Why positioning, not modality, is what actually justifies a premium fee.
• The case for specializing in one problem instead of staying a generalist.
• What happens internally the first few sessions after raising your rate.
• Why Allyson doesn't market to a specific income bracket.

Connect with Allyson Clemmons:
Website: https://www.allysonclemmons.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allysonmarkets 

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Scaling a group practice can feel like it forces a choice: chase the growth and risk losing sight of why you started, or protect your values and stay small. Most mental health professionals who build past solo practice hit this tension somewhere along the way, especially when the offers start coming in.

In this episode of Between Sessions with Berries, Kym talks with Dr. Anahita Lake-Khosravi, a psychologist, business coach, and mom of three who scaled a group practice to two million dollars in under three years and recently sold it on her own terms. Anahita walks through the mindset shifts, the money decisions, and the boundaries that let her grow a practice without compromising what mattered most to her.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why the belief that you have to grind constantly to make good money doesn't hold up.
• How Anahita evaluated a buyer based on fit and values, not just the highest offer.
• The three ways to pay clinicians, and why she never recommends starting with a salary.
• What changed when she moved her team from a split to a flat-rate pay structure.
• How she physically separated work time from family time while running the business from home.
• Why she and her husband flipped traditional roles, with him staying home while she built the practice.
• Her approach to bringing AI into a practice without compromising client privacy.

Connect with Anahita Lake-Khosravi:
Website: https://www.empoweredlivingcollective.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-anahita-banoo/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmpoweredLivingCollective/ 

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Most mental health professionals are running a mental Rolodex between sessions, trying to remember what a client said three sessions ago while staying present for what they're saying right now. Add a full caseload, insurance-driven documentation, and a body that doesn't always cooperate, and that load gets heavy fast.

Kym is joined by Kristine Hoestermann, LICSW, mental health innovator, and founder of RARE., a brand built around rare, chronic, and invisible conditions. Kristine most recently served as Head of Mental Wellness at Cabana, where she led development of scalable mental health programming, including the Balanced Self™ framework, and helped build AI tools for clinicians. She also hosts her own podcast, You're Always Fine, and brings a rare combination of clinical expertise and lived experience with chronic illness to a conversation about what actually eases the pressure mental health professionals carry.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why treating clients like a blank slate can quietly damage the therapeutic alliance.
• Why she started disclosing her diagnosis in every discovery call.
• How spoon theory explains why some sessions cost more than others.
• How a health crisis led to a patented, accessible sweatshirt for infusion days.
• Where AI actually reduces cognitive load without replacing clinical judgment.
• Why discharging clients between hard seasons might not be the best model for continuity of care.
• How becoming an AI safety reviewer is turning into a new income stream for clinicians.

Connect with Kristine Hoestermann:
Website (RARE.): https://findyourrare.com
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/youre-always-fine/id
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinehoestermann/
Instagram (RARE.): https://www.instagram.com/findyourrare 

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Most mental health professionals are trained to provide therapy, not to run a business. Billing, scheduling, marketing, and documentation pile up fast, and without a system in place, it's easy to end up managing a practice that runs you instead of the other way around.

In this episode, Kym talks with Nicole Lacherza-Drew, PsyD, founder of CouchSide Coordinators, a virtual administrative support company built for therapists and wellness providers. As a licensed psychologist herself, Nicole has lived the same overwhelm she now helps other clinicians solve. She and Kym get into how to figure out what to hand off first, where automation actually earns its place, and how AI fits into daily practice management without taking over the parts that make the work yours.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why most clinicians are trained to do therapy, not to run a business.
• The real reason so many practice owners hesitate to bring on help.
• A simple way to decide what's actually worth delegating first.
• How to build SOPs even when nothing is written down yet.
• Where automation quietly takes work off your plate.
• Why chasing what worked for someone else's marketing can waste time and money.
• How to track your own time honestly before deciding what to change.

Connect with Nicole Lacherza-Drew:
Website: https://www.couchsidecoordinators.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/couchsidecoords/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CouchSideCoordinators/

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

When a client cycles through medication after medication with no real improvement, it is easy to label them treatment-resistant and run out of ideas. Referring out to a psychiatrist often just means more trial and error, with no clear answer for why nothing seems to be working.

Kym sits down with Dr. Steve Rondahl, founder of Axon EEG Solutions and a naturopathic doctor who has analyzed more than 50,000 brain scans. Steve explains how objective brain data can show what is actually happening in a client's brain instead of relying on subjective symptom checklists, and why two people with the exact same diagnosis can need completely different treatment approaches.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why two clients with the same diagnosis can have completely different brain patterns underneath.
• The real story behind a client whose panic symptoms did not match what her brain scan actually showed.
• How brain data helps validate clients who have been told nothing seems to work for them.
• Why some treatments fail before they even have a chance to help, and how to know in advance.
• What it takes to bring brain scan technology into your own practice, regardless of your background.
• Why patterns mental health professionals often see as problems can actually be strengths in the right environment.

Connect with Dr. Steve Rondahl:
Website: https://axoneegsolutions.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-steven-rondeau-aba2028/
Book - Think Like a Brain: https://www.thinklikeabrain.com/

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

If you've sunk hours into Instagram or TikTok content hoping it would turn into new clients, you know how draining that cycle can be. Between chasing hooks, filming, and reposting when nothing seems to land, it's worth asking whether there's a better use of your time.

Kym sits down with Margaux Flood, LCSW, group practice owner, and marketing strategist for private practice clinicians who are done DIY-ing their growth. Margaux built a fully booked practice in seven months, scaled to $15K plus months, and expanded into a group practice by leaning on messaging and SEO instead of social media. She breaks down what's actually working for her clients right now, and where most mental health professionals go wrong before they even realize it.

In This Episode, We Cover

• Why niching down to a highly specific ideal client works better than trying to appeal to everyone.
• The common website mistake that makes potential clients scroll right past you.
• Why social media may not be the best use of your marketing time as a licensed clinician.
• What to know before assuming insurance panels aren't worth taking.
• The mindset shift Margaux says most new practice owners need before they can grow.
• Where Margaux draws the line on using AI in her business, and where she won't touch it.

Connect with Margaux Flood:
Private Practice Powerhouse: https://www.margauxflood.com/private-practice-powerhouse
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therapywithmargaux

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.