Productive Therapist Podcast

There are five things every thriving therapy practice has in common.

And most owners are only tracking one of them.

In this episode, I sat down with Cory Polonetsky, VP of Product at Ensora Health, to unpack the 2026 Practice Success Report. Ensora surveyed over 1,100 clinicians (with help from the American Counseling Association) to figure out what actually separates thriving practices from struggling ones. 

The answer? Five domains. And it turns out the gap isn't awareness, it's tracking.

Cory walks us through each domain with real numbers behind it: client outcomes, financial health, practice operations, clinician wellbeing, and client experience. We also swapped some stories from our own experiences (including my confession about the world's shortest clinical note) and talked about where AI tools like Scribe fit into the picture.

What you'll learn:

• Why "no-shows" are the most visible operational problem but not necessarily the biggest one, and what thriving practices do differently about them
• Why client experience ranks as the #1 domain in importance to therapists, even though it's often the most overlooked
• A simple, low-lift way to find out why clients actually stop coming to therapy (rather than guessing)

Resources mentioned:

• 2026 Practice Success Report: https://insight.ensorahealth.com/practice-success-report/
• Ensora Health: https://ensorahealth.com/
• Theranest: https://ensorahealth.com/product/theranest-mental-health/ 

Is Google Ads actually worth it for your practice, and if so, how do you know you're doing it right? 🤔

This week, Uriah talks with John Sanders of RevKey, who's spent years running Google Ads almost exclusively for therapists (90% of his clients, to be exact). He breaks down what a solid return on ad spend really looks like, the handful of mistakes that quietly burn through budgets, and why most practice owners are better off leaving this one to the pros.

If you've tried Google Ads before and gotten burned, or you're just starting to wonder if it's worth exploring, this episode will help you think about paid search a lot more clearly.

What you'll learn:

• What kind of return on ad spend is realistic for a well-run Google Ads campaign
• The two biggest budget-draining mistakes therapists make — including targeting the wrong household incomes
• The minimum monthly budget you actually need to see results

Resources/Links:

• Check out RevKey to learn more. 
• Find out more about our services at https://productivetherapist.com/

Key Timestamps

• 02:23 John's Marketing Journey
• 07:00 Google Ads Expectations
• 09:49 Budget and ROI Math
• 14:02 Common Google Ads Traps
• 17:03 DIY vs Hiring Experts
• 21:08 Build Beyond Yourself
• 24:41 AI and Search Changes
• 32:58 RevKey and Wrap Up

AI is everywhere in private practice right now, from note-takers, chatbots, scribing tools… you name it. 

But how do you actually know what's helpful, what's hype, and what you need to think through first? 🤔

This week, Uriah sits down with Samantha Schalk, founder of Guardian Clinical Essentials, to talk through exactly that. With 20+ years in behavioral health (and a practice of her own), Samantha turns confusing compliance jargon into stuff you can actually use — no law degree required.

What you'll learn:

• The PHI myth almost every therapist believes (spoiler: removing a client's name doesn't make it "de-identified")
• Why a website that says "HIPAA compliant" isn't proof of anything — and what you actually need on file
• Why chasing HIPAA "perfection" is the wrong goal, and what to focus on instead

Resources mentioned:

• Learn more and grab free HIPAA resources: guardianclinicalessentials.com
• Need help with your intake process? Book a free strategy call at productivetherapist.com

Ever feel like you're starting from scratch every time you open Claude or ChatGPT? 🤔

In this solo episode, Uriah shares a simple fix: the "Master Prompt." 🎉

Fresh off a three-hour presentation to testing psychologists in Fort Collins, Colorado, Uriah built a free tool to help practice owners give their AI assistants real context about who they are and how they run their business. 

This is the key to making every AI conversation feel like talking to someone who already knows you!

What you'll learn: 

• What a "Master Prompt" is and why it's the single best first step for getting better results from AI
• How to to build your own Master Prompt in about 15–20 minutes
• Exactly where to paste your Master Prompt in Claude (Settings → General → Instructions for Claude) or ChatGPT (as a source document in a Project)

Try the Master Prompt here: http://crafted.productivetherapist.com

Book a 1:1 AI strategy session with Uriah: http://productivetherapist.com/consulting

Visit the website: https://productivetherapist.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro + the Master Prompt Idea

01:57 Tool Walkthrough

03:22 Set Up in Claude + ChatGPT

04:36 More Free Tools

05:19 Wrap Up and Support

Cleaning your inbox feels great.

But is it actually moving your practice forward? Or is it just... busy work in disguise? 👀

That's the question at the heart of this episode. Uriah sits down with Brittany Shank, LCSW, 20-year military veteran, mom of four, and owner of Solace Counseling, a 13-clinician group practice in Fargo, North Dakota.

She's also the founder of "I'm Here," a client check-in app she built because she got bored one day and decided to just... make something.

Brittany and Uriah dig into the real difference between busy and productive, and it's not what you'd think.

Spoiler: it has a lot to do with vulnerability, dopamine, and why you'd rather reorganize your inbox than have that one hard conversation you've been putting off.

This conversation will make you rethink your to-do list. In a good way.

A things you'll learn:

Why "busy" often masks avoidance, and how to spot the difference between a task that's genuinely urgent and one that's just a comfortable distraction.

How to reduce the emotional labor behind your admin tasks (templates, systems, and delegation can save you more than just time).

Why the truly productive stuff usually feels a little scary, and why that's actually a good sign.

A few quotes:

"Busy is easy. Busy gives us a really good dopamine hit in the moment. Busy is usually what gets in the way of being productive."

"Usually the vulnerable thing is the productive thing."

"Build a system that reduces emotional labor as well as administrative labor."

A few links:

Solace Co Directory

Solace Counseling

Your admin team is about to get superpowers. 🦸

Here's a fun fact that'll make your jaw drop: in 2024, more people went to a behavioral health appointment than a primary care one. That's never happened before. 

Therapists, you are in demand.

Here's a less fun fact: Americans spend something like $960 billion a year just on healthcare admin. Not clinicians. Not care. Just the paperwork behind the paperwork.

So what happens when someone builds a practice automation platform specifically to close that gap?

Listen to this episode to find out.

Justin Ith, co-founder and CEO of Aria, joins Uriah to talk AI, automation, and why "human in the loop" isn't going anywhere anytime soon — even as the tools get scary good.

Top 3 things you'll learn:

Not all AI is created equal. There's generic AI (your Claude, your ChatGPT, your Gemini) and there's purpose-built AI for practice-specific problems. Knowing which tool solves which problem is half the battle.

The "big hospital" advantage is shrinking. Deep benefits verification used to take a human several minutes of digging through portals. Aria does it in 11 seconds — the kind of automation that used to be exclusive to billion-dollar health systems, now available to a 10-clinician group practice.

AI won't replace your team — it'll supercharge them. The future isn't fewer people, it's fewer openings as your existing staff's capacity grows. You still need someone to "drive the car," as Justin puts it — these systems aren't perfect, and they're not fully autonomous.

A few quotes:

"You have to not just love the problem — you really have to love who you're trying to help. That's the one consistent through line."

"The average person would take a couple minutes. We do it in 11 seconds."

"These tools are not intentionally designed to replace you. They're intended to empower you."

A few links:

Head to heyaria.com/productive for one month free on Aria's practice reporting tool — Justin's gift to Productive Therapist listeners.

Find out more about our services at https://productivetherapist.com/

Ever feel like your group practice is running you instead of the other way around?

Yeah, you're not alone.

That's why Uriah sat down with his friend Whitney Owens, founder of Wise Practice Consulting and one of the smartest group practice owners he knows, for her fifth time on the show. They got into the systems that keep a growing practice from turning into chaos, and the kinds of overwhelm almost every owner runs into along the way.

In this episode, they talk about the first systems you need to get right (intake, billing, and hiring), why hiring for values beats hiring for experience, the real reasons group practice owners feel so overwhelmed, and how a solid team and good SOPs can give you the freedom to step away when life calls for it.

Whether you're in year one or year ten, building your first systems or fine-tuning the ones you've got, this one will help you grow without burning out. 🎙️

If you've ever felt a little weird about asking people to book a call on your website, you're in good company.

Asking someone to book a call can feel salesy. Pushy. Kind of the opposite of why you became a therapist in the first place. So this week Uriah sat down with Kat Love, founder of Empathy Sites, who's spent 11 years building websites for therapists, to talk about calls to action and why they're so much kinder than they feel.

Her big reframe? A clear next step isn't a sales tactic. It's compassion. If someone's in pain and you know how to help, the warm thing to do is hold out your hand and show them the way. Hit play, and you might never look at that little button the same way again. 🎙️

Links:

• Empathy Sites: Therapist websites that help right-fit clients say "yes, this is my therapist." 
• SimpleIntake: All-in-one mental health CRM with a 24/7 AI receptionist 
• Productive Therapist: Virtual assistants who know the therapy world

Are you losing potential clients simply because no one got back to them fast enough? This episode is for you!

Join Uriah as he walks you through why your intake process might be quietly costing you clients... and exactly what to do about it. It's not a marketing problem. It's not a clinical problem. It's an intake problem, and the good news is it's totally fixable.

Links:

• SimpleIntake.ai: AI-powered intake CRM for therapists 
• Productive Therapist: Find the best solution for your practice. 
• Watch the workshop

You don't have to love numbers to benefit from them.

That's kind of the whole point of this episode. Uriah sits down with Jeff Bourque: data nerd, group practice husband, and the guy who basically built a dashboard so good that his wife's therapist friends started knocking on his door. Three years later? It's a whole business.

Jeff spent over a decade wrangling million-row datasets for hospital corporations and companies like Sony and HealthTrust. Then his wife Kelly launched Red Therapy Group in 2019, and Jeff did what any self-respecting data guy would do: he built her a dashboard. Kelly's practice owner friends saw it, wanted one, and the rest is history. Now Jeff helps group practice owners stop flying blind and actually see what's happening in their businesses.

This one's a little in the weeds, in the best possible way. 🤓

Links:

• SimpleIntake, all-in-one mental health CRM with a 24/7 AI receptionist 
• Therapy Intake Pro, expert training for your intake coordinator, level up their skills, increase your conversions
• grouppracticedashboards.com, grab a free 30-minute consult, no commitment, just a conversation about what you'd actually want to see.