Advertise on podcast: Between Sessions with Berries

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 notesWhat the "good enough" trap actually costs your documentationHow to get genuine, informed consent before using an AI scribe in sessionThe AI literacy basics every mental health professional should understand before relying on these toolsWhy full practice authority varies so much by state, and what that means for telehealthHow state legislation is starting to regulate AI in clinical settingsThe privacy guardrails Stephen uses in his own practice to protect client dataConnect with Stephen Ferrara: Website: https://www.ainurseacademy.ai | https://www.drstephenferraranp.com ______________ 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/  ______________ 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 ______________ 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  ______________ 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/  ______________ 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  ______________ 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/ ______________ 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/ ______________ 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 ______________ 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.

Independently owned group practices are disappearing, and it's not always because owners are doing something wrong. Insurance companies and venture capital have moved deep into group practice ownership over the past few years, and mental health professionals across the country are watching clinics they used to know get bought, merged, or folded into something bigger. In this episode of Between Sessions with Berries, Kym sits down with Dr. Lisa Lovelace, founder of Synergy eTherapy and a licensed clinical psychologist across Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin, and PSYPACT states. Lisa has been teaching mental health professionals how to build online group practices since 2014, and Synergy eTherapy has been organically recognized by Forbes for the past three years. She and Kym dig into how the group practice landscape has shifted since COVID, what the different ownership models actually look like from the inside, and where Lisa thinks things are headed next. In This Episode, We Cover: Why insurance and venture capital buyouts are changing who owns group practices.The real differences between a traditional group, a membership model, and a collective.Why closed insurance panels are pushing more mental health professionals toward collectives.What prompted Lisa to add in-person office space to an online-first practice.How multi-state licensing opens up options for group practices and the professionals who join them.The AI tools Lisa and her team actually use day-to-day.What Lisa tells mental health professionals who are trying to figure out which model fits them.Connect with Dr. Lisa Lovelace: Website: https://www.synergyetherapy.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/synergyetherapy/ Email: [email protected] Lisa's courses: https://synergyetherapy.mvsite.app The Nitty Gritty of Multistate Private Practice Expansion https://kymtolson.kartra.com/page/multistate ______________ 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.

Building a family while running a private practice can feel like a math problem with no clean answer. Sick kids interrupt session days, maternity leave threatens months of income, and caseloads built around trauma work don't always leave room for the unpredictability that comes with parenting. For mental health professionals thinking about starting or growing a family, the question isn't just clinical; it's logistical, financial, and deeply personal. Ashley Comegys knows this terrain from the inside. She's a licensed clinical social worker, the owner of a multi-state online therapy practice for women, a military spouse who has relocated her practice three times, and the host of The Therapist Mom podcast. In this conversation, Ashley shares how she built a business flexible enough to survive cross-country moves and three maternity leaves, what she considers before taking on certain client populations, and the AI documentation shift that finally got her notes under control. In This Episode, We Cover: How Ashley built a fully online, multi-state practice around three military relocations.Why private practice offers real flexibility for parents, without pretending the deeper challenges disappear.What to think through before choosing a niche if you're planning to grow your family.How Ashley prepares clients and sets up a transition plan before going on leave.Why financial planning matters just as much as clinical planning when preparing for maternity leave.How switching to an AI documentation assistant helped Ashley catch up after her third child.Ashley's advice for building a practice that fits your life instead of building your life around work.Mentioned in the episode: Maternity Leave Playlist: www.raisedtoempower.com/maternity-leave-playlist Connect with Ashley Comegys: Website: https://www.raisedtoempower.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raisedtoempower/ Podcast: https://www.raisedtoempower.com/podcast ______________ 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 run a group practice and want to bring on provisionally licensed clinicians, figuring out how (or whether) you can bill for their work gets complicated fast. Every insurance company defines the rules differently, the terminology gets misused even by the payers themselves, and getting it wrong can put both your reimbursement and your caseload at risk. In this episode, Kym sits down with Susan Frager, MSW, a credentialing and billing consultant, coach, and instructor for mental health professionals, billers, and administrative staff. Susan breaks down the terminology insurers routinely get wrong, walks through what actually happens when a supervisee gets licensed, and explains why some of the biggest billing platforms in the industry are more connected to insurance companies than most practice owners realize. In This Episode, We Cover: The real difference between incident to billing and supervisory billing.Which major insurance companies allow supervisory billing, and where the rules get complicated.Why keeping supervisee caseloads small helps protect your practice from audit triggers.What happens in the gap between a clinician getting licensed and getting fully credentialed.How to find out whether an insurer allows supervisory billing without wasting time on hold.Why some of the biggest billing platforms are connected to the insurance companies themselves.What a price transparency data dive actually helps practice owners figure out.Join Susan Frager, MSW, on July 17 for a free webinar on supervisory billing for provisionally licensed clinicians. Learn which insurers actually allow it, how to bill it correctly, and how to avoid the audit triggers that come with getting it wrong. Save your seat: https://psychbillingcoach.com/upcoming-webinars/ Connect with Susan Frager: Website: https://psychbillingcoach.com/ Schedule a consultation here: https://psychbillingcoach.com/schedule/ New Yorker feature: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/30/the-professional-healthinsurance-ceo-nagger The Rescue Biller® – take a peek here: https://psychbillingcoach.com/rescue-biller/ Webinars and other useful materials: https://psychbillingcoach.com/shop/ Blog: https://psychbillingcoach.com/billing-blog/ ______________ 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.

Running a practice, leading a team, or stepping into any kind of leadership role brings its own pressure, and burnout doesn't always show up the way people expect. Mental health professionals who step outside the traditional clinical path often find themselves managing perception, criticism, and their own confidence all at once, without much guidance on how to do it well. David Blatt spent more than three decades coaching at the highest levels of professional and international basketball, including a run to the NBA Finals with the Cleveland Cavaliers. In this conversation, he talks with Kym about what actually holds people back under pressure, how he handled career transitions that were often sudden and out of his control, and what it takes to rebuild someone's confidence after things don't go as planned. In This Episode, We Cover: Why chasing results instead of focusing on the process makes pressure worse.How David learned to filter out criticism without shutting out everyone around him.What it took to navigate three major career changes, including one he never saw coming.The real order between responsibility and accountability, and why it matters.A simple approach to rebuilding someone's confidence after a setback.How to tell whether a team's struggle comes down to strategy or culture.Is leadership something people are born with or something they build over time?______________ 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.

A will is one of those tasks that can sit on your list for years. Not because it is complicated to start, but because something about it makes you want to look away. Part of it is the discomfort of thinking about your own mortality. Part of it is the weight of decisions you are not sure you are ready to make. In this episode of Between Sessions with Berries, Kym talks with estate lawyer David Rosati, co-founder of Succession Wills, about why this task gets put off more than almost anything else and what actually helps people move through it. David has spent over a decade in estate planning, and he is honest about the emotional reasons wills stall, the assumption that quietly keeps people stuck, and how technology is starting to change who can put a proper plan in place. Whether you run a private practice or have just been meaning to deal with it, this conversation makes the whole thing feel a lot less daunting. In This Episode, We Cover: Why wills take longer to finish than almost any other legal task.The two emotional barriers quietly driving the procrastination.Why having no spouse or kids can make a will more important, not less.A reframe that takes the pressure off getting every decision perfect.Where practice owners and business succession fit into the picture.How Succession Wills uses an AI legal assistant, and what it deliberately does not do.What lifetime access changes about keeping your will current.Connect with David Rosati: Website: https://successionwills.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-rosati-aa8b91100 Succession Wills LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/succession-wills Succession Wills Facebook: https://facebook.com/successionwills ______________ 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 clinicians graduate ready to help people and completely unprepared to manage the money that career generates. School trains you to be excellent in the room. It says nothing about what happens when your income is tied entirely to the hours your hands and body can put in, or what you do when that well runs dry. In this episode, Kym talks with Robin Valadares, a physiotherapist, clinic owner, and certified financial counselor who spent 14 years watching colleagues burn out or leave the profession altogether. After realizing his earning power was handcuffed to one location and one unit of time, Robin built Financially Fulfilled Pro to teach healthcare professionals the financial plan they never got in school. He breaks down why depending on a single income stream is riskier than it feels, and what financial mobility actually looks like when you start building it on purpose. In This Episode, We Cover: Why a single income source is a concentration of risk most clinicians never recognize.The difference between earning more and keeping more, and why chasing the top line leads to burnout.Where money shame comes from in healthcare and why valuing your time is an "and," not an "or".How to map your starting point, your goal, and the gap between them before chasing any strategy.The investing ladder and where your next dollar should actually go.How to calculate your freedom number using the 4% rule.What financial mobility means when your income no longer depends on your physical presence.Connect with Robin Valadares: Website: https://www.financiallyfulfilledphysio.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/financiallyfulfilledpro LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-valadares Blossom Social: https://getblossom.onelink.me/SOfu/robin Recession Guide: https://financiallyfulfilledphysio.kit.com/recessionguide Favourite Booklist: https://financiallyfulfilledphysio.kit.com/booklist ______________ 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.