From Burnout to Business Owner: How OT Brittany Ferri Built a Multi-Service Private Practice

Brittany Ferri hit a wall three years into her career as an occupational therapist. The burnout was real. Instead of pushing through it, she did something about it. She launched Simplicity of Health, LLC, a private practice that refuses to fit into a single box.

On this episode of Clinic Chats, Brittany breaks down how she turned clinical fatigue into an opportunity to build something entirely her own. She's the first OT to join the podcast, and her approach to practice ownership is unlike anything we've heard so far.

Wearing Every Hat (and Liking It)

Simplicity of Health isn't your typical therapy clinic. Brittany offers teletherapy, one-on-one patient sessions, health writing, consulting, and program development for other therapists. Some people might call that scattered. Brittany calls it intentional.

"I really feel like I've been able to bring a lot of my skill set and my experience and really offer a pretty big range of services," she says.

The health writing side of her business started as freelance work and grew quickly once she saw the demand. She writes for both therapist-facing and consumer-facing publications, covering everything from treatment best practices to disease prevention and ergonomic strategies. She also creates blog content for therapist websites. At $40 an hour, the writing work provides a steady income stream alongside her clinical services.

That flexibility became especially valuable when COVID-19 forced clinicians everywhere to rethink how they deliver care. Because Brittany had already been doing teletherapy for over a year, she was ahead of the curve. Other therapists started reaching out for help implementing virtual sessions, and she was able to pivot into consulting without missing a beat.

OT's Unfinished Business in Mental Health

Brittany doesn't just practice occupational therapy. She advocates for expanding what it can be. Her clinical focus is mental health, and she's passionate about reclaiming ground the profession has lost.

"Our profession started in the 50s in mental health settings," she explains. "And unfortunately, we've kind of lost our footing and our true role in that setting."

She's backed that conviction with credentials. She's a certified light therapist, a certified psychiatric rehab practitioner, and an anxiety certified rehab service professional. She also has training in trauma healing and energy healing. On top of her outpatient cognitive and neurological rehab experience, that gives her a clinical toolkit most OTs don't carry.

In mental health settings, Brittany works with patients on psychoeducational groups, relapse prevention, communication skills, cooking, budgeting, medication management, and community outings. It's hands-on, practical work that meets patients where they actually live, not just where they sit in a clinic room.

Starting an LLC Was Easier Than She Expected

One of the biggest surprises for Brittany was how simple the business formation process turned out to be. No long lines at a government office. No giving up her left arm at the window.

"I just honestly had to make an account online with the state and paid a fee," she says. "I think it was under $200. And then I didn't need to wait for approval or anything."

She picked the name Simplicity of Health after her original idea, Revolution of Health, was already taken. The rebrand turned out better. The name captures exactly what she believes about patient care: health doesn't have to be complicated. Give people simple, measurable steps and an action plan they can actually follow.

That philosophy shapes everything from how she communicates with patients to how she structures her therapy documentation.

The Struggle Every Therapist-Turned-Entrepreneur Faces

Ask Brittany about her biggest challenge and she doesn't hesitate: starting a business itself. Not the paperwork. Not the teletherapy tech. The mindset shift.

"I've encountered so many other therapists who have no idea how to navigate the world of private practice or anything entrepreneurial," she says. "It's just not in our skill set sometimes."

Pricing was the hardest part. Therapists want to help people. Attaching a dollar amount to that help feels wrong at first. Brittany struggled with it the same way Nicole Judratis did back in Episode 2, the same way almost every clinician on this podcast has. It's the tax you pay for caring deeply about your work.

But she's found her footing. She's spending 15 to 20 hours a week on consulting work alone, and new clients keep replacing the ones she wraps up with. The demand for telehealth program development during COVID has been constant.

Step Outside the Box (and Stay There)

Brittany's parting message to clinicians is worth repeating. Most therapists underestimate what they can do with their degree. OTs work in hospitals, nursing homes, and schools. Those are the expected paths. But the unexpected paths, health writing, consulting, teletherapy, children's book publishing, are where Brittany has found the most energy.

Yes, she also wrote a children's book. It's called Why Is There a Person in My Computer?, a guide to teletherapy for kids. She wrote it in July 2019, months before anyone saw COVID coming. It started selling on Amazon in March 2020, right when every therapist in the country was scrambling to move sessions online.

"I definitely would have liked to brag and be like, yeah, I'm an innovator," she laughs. "But that wasn't the case."

Timing aside, the book fills a real gap. And it's a perfect example of what Brittany keeps coming back to: clinicians have more to offer than they give themselves credit for. Own your skill set, charge what you're worth, and don't wait for permission to build something different.

Running a multi-service practice means juggling patients, consulting, documentation, and billing all at once. ClinicNote is EMR software built for private practices and university clinics, keeping your scheduling, notes, and billing in one place so you can focus on the work that matters. See how ClinicNote works.

Transcript

Kadie: You are listening to Clinic Chats. Clinic Chats is a multidisciplinary therapy podcast that was created for students, professionals, clinic directors, and supervisors. Clinic Chats is bridging the gap between graduate programs and professionals, sharing personal journeys of the smallest of private practice startups, large and expanding practices, as well as university clinic triumphs and tribulations. We hope you'll find our podcast informative and helpful in your career endeavors. Clinic Chats is sponsored by ClinicNote, an electronic medical record company for private practice and university clinics. ClinicNote was designed to make scheduling, documentation, report writing, and billing effective, efficient, and HIPAA compliant.

Kadie: All right. Good morning to our podcast listeners. Today I have Brittany Ferri, and she is the owner of Simplicity of Health. Hi, Brittany. How are you?

Brittany: I'm good. Thanks. How are you? Thanks for having me.

Kadie: Oh, I'm so glad that you reached out. Brittany is going to be our very first occupational therapist that we have on the podcast. So I'm so honored to get to chat with her and get a new perspective on things. I'm very curious. Obviously, you started with occupational therapy, and at what point did you decide to pursue private practice?

Brittany: So I've been an occupational therapist for about four and a half years, and I would say I was kind of reaching the point of burnout from clinical care around three years in. So that's around when I formed my practice, about a little over a year ago. And I've been doing private practice pretty much exclusively ever since. I haven't had any traditional clinical roles since then.

Brittany: So my business kind of offers a whole range of things, which some people might find a little overwhelming. Some people might find it intriguing. I don't know. That's for you to decide, I guess. But I do a little bit of teletherapy. So ever since I started my business around a year ago, I've been doing teletherapy. So I'm a little bit more familiar with it than some other people are, thankfully.

Kadie: Yeah, now that you have to pursue teletherapy right now?

Brittany: Yeah, exactly. It works out really well because I have a lot of therapists and even patients kind of reaching out to me like, hey, I know you have experience with this. I need some help implementing or I need some help running treatments. And it's good. I've been able to be a valuable resource to them.

Kadie: Absolutely. And so you were doing some telehealth, but also in-person work prior to COVID, right?

Brittany: Right. Since I'm in private practice, I was doing some one-on-one sessions with people, but it wasn't your standard clinical setting like any hospitals that I was in before.

Kadie: So what does the practice all involve? I know there's some, like you said, unique perspectives that you've been able to incorporate in the business.

Brittany: Yeah, I really feel like I've been able to bring a lot of my skill set and my experience and really offer a pretty big range of services. So like I mentioned, I am offering teletherapy services. I'm also doing writing. Health writing is a big part of my business. That's something that kind of started off freelance and then really grew as I noticed there was a pretty big demand for it.

Kadie: Can you go into some more detail about health writing?

Brittany: Sure. I love talking about writing. Writing is great. So health writing in particular, it's kind of just as simple as it sounds. Some people are like, health writing, I don't know what that might refer to. It really can refer to anything, writing about any sort of health topic. So I provide writing services to a range of therapist and consumer-facing publications that either ranges from educating therapists on new treatment methods and kind of best practices or educating the general public about certain health conditions like MS or even just disease prevention in general, you know, ergonomic strategies, basic diets, other lifestyle choices.

Kadie: Wow.

Brittany: Yeah, it really can range, you know, it really can include a lot of things depending on the client that I'm working with. So like I said, I work with a lot of health publications to kind of get information out there to the general public, but I also do provide health copy for a lot of therapist websites. So if therapists have clinics and they want blogs for that website, I provide content for that.

Kadie: That's great. So have you began marketing or has it been pretty natural that that aspect has taken off for you?

Brittany: It's been pretty natural. I mean, that was, like I said, that was one of the primary services I offered when my business first started. And I really noticed there was a demand for it and a lot of the time getting clients was pretty natural. Like you said, word of mouth. And I have done some marketing recently for it just to get word out even more. But I really do find that that's why a lot of people reach out to me in the first place is, you know, I saw one of your articles, I'm really interested in this, I'd love to learn more. And so it's kind of drawn people in, which is definitely a good thing. You know, I'm getting the word out.

Kadie: Absolutely. So primarily you're getting paid for the articles that you're creating. I'm curious if you're willing to share that or not.

Brittany: Yeah, of course. Forty dollars an hour.

Kadie: Awesome. So you're doing the health writing, you're servicing patients. About how many patients do you typically see per week?

Brittany: At this point, the telehealth that I'm doing, because we are where we are in terms of our public health crisis, I've been invited by a lot of therapists to help them one-on-one with a lot of the back end, so developing programs and things of that nature. So I've actually pared down the amount of clients I'm personally seeing. I only see about two or three a week at this point. You know, thankfully, I'm able to be flexible and kind of pair things up or down as demand grows. And like I said earlier, offering all the services that I do really allows me the liberty to kind of have that flexibility.

Kadie: Do you like remaining in contact with patients while also helping other therapists, or do you foresee yourself wanting to go one way or the other eventually?

Brittany: I love having my hands in a little bit of everything, so unfortunately, I'm not willing to give up patient care at this time. I do love patients. I still feel like there's a huge reward that comes from that. But, you know, as time progresses, we'll see if things shift in a different direction at all. Sometimes you just have to go where the waters take you.

Kadie: Right. Exactly. So you mentioned that you also provide holistic rehab. Can you go into detail about what exactly that means?

Brittany: Yeah, definitely. I feel like OT is, by nature, a pretty holistic field. That was one of the things that really drew me to the profession, our ability to address both the body and the mind in tandem, you know, during every session, no matter what practice setting you're in. As such, I kind of sought out more holistic treatment methods and kind of certifications once I began practicing. So I'm actually a certified light therapist. I have some training in trauma healing, some training in energy healing. And recently, I actually gained a couple of other credentials more related to my expertise in mental health. I'm now a certified psychiatric rehab practitioner and anxiety certified rehab service professional.

Kadie: Wow. So you have quite the range of clients and potential clients with all of your additional education.

Brittany: Yeah, definitely. I feel like as an OT, our role in mental health is unfortunately not as robust as it could be, which is sad to say because our profession started in the 50s in mental health settings. And unfortunately, we've kind of lost our footing and our true role in that setting. So I really am passionate about kind of bringing that back and advocating for all that we can do for the mental health population.

Kadie: That's such a unique perspective. So you'd really have to enlighten me on the mental aspects of how your treatment would tap into that.

Brittany: Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, a lot of people really know OTs from either hospitals, nursing homes or schools primarily. And yeah, in those settings, we definitely have a large focus on the physical deficits that a patient has. But we're just as poised to work in outpatient mental health settings, mental health within the home, and also inpatient and state hospitals. So working with people with psychiatric deficits.

Brittany: And in those settings, honestly, we're really just as flexible as in other settings. We're really able to meet with patients one on one. We can run groups, either psychoeducational groups, you know, lecturing about things like relapse prevention and communication skills, or even doing skills training groups, really getting hands on and practicing cooking, budgeting, money management, medication management, things like that. And even in some mental health settings, we're given the liberty to actually do community outings and things like that to practice these real-time skills, you know, in hands-on settings in the community, just like they would be carried out.

Kadie: Wow. Well, that's so interesting. And I'm so glad that you can explain the other options or opportunities. So once you were able to start your own business, did you specifically seek out clients with that approach?

Brittany: I was definitely open to any clients. Mental health is not my only area of clinical experience. I mean, I consider it my area of expertise, but I also have experience in outpatient cognitive and neurological rehab. So I definitely considered myself able to address kind of a wider range, even outside of mental health. But I would say, again, like I mentioned before, word of mouth was pretty big and clients kind of found out about my expertise in that area and sought me out specifically for some high-functioning mental illness. So it kind of ended up growing from there. But I'm definitely not siloing myself to just mental health necessarily.

Kadie: Well, you're pretty recent in the new business community, so I'm sure it's fresh on your mind, the steps that you had to take. I see you're an LLC. What was that process for you?

Brittany: It was actually a lot simpler than I thought it would be. I was expecting, like, you know, to have to go down to some office, wait in line for about four days and then give my left arm once I got up to the window. I just honestly had to make an account online with the state and paid a fee. I think it was under $200, I should say, I think around $150. And then I didn't need to wait for approval or anything. I just kind of got the information as an email. And then from there, I was able to just kind of hit the ground running and start marketing.

Kadie: Wow, that's great. And so you began marketing, you created your business name and logo. How did you decide on your name and logo?

Brittany: The name, I don't know. I had kind of been, I guess it was a personal blog a couple years ago that I kind of just came up with the name Revolution of Health. I don't really know where I got that from. I just kind of started using it. And that blog kind of fell by the wayside, unfortunately, due to some other commitments. And then I kind of looked into making that the name of my LLC when the time came and the name was taken.

Brittany: But I like the idea of Simplicity of Health even better than Revolution of Health because it really kind of helps emphasize health doesn't have to be this huge, complicated, intricate process. I mean, what we as clinicians know, yeah, like the bodily processes, they can be complicated and require some serious clinical judgment and know-how. But when we're conveying health to our patients, it doesn't have to be, or it shouldn't be, this really bulky process. It really should be with simple, measurable steps and just kind of an action plan that you can use to make health simple and achievable and attainable for your life.

Kadie: Yes, yes. I love that. I really like your name.

Brittany: Thank you.

Kadie: And one other additional piece, you have so many things going on, but it's great. You said you have recently written a children's book.

Brittany: Yeah. So this is my first children's book. I kind of decided to venture into that after doing health writing for a couple of years. I had the idea for it through my involvement in telehealth over the past year or so. It's called Why Is There a Person in My Computer? And it's a children's guide to teletherapy. So kind of explaining what teletherapy and telehealth is and how it can help them. It actually began selling on Amazon in March and the timing was absolutely impeccable.

Kadie: Oh my gosh. So you began writing this and releasing it prior to all of this chaos?

Brittany: Yeah. I actually started writing it, or I wrote it last July. And I submitted it to a few children's publishers. Nothing ended up panning out with that because I kind of didn't have high hopes for children's publishers because it's a specific topic and I didn't think a lot of traditional publishers would really understand or have the audience to necessarily benefit from it. So I went the Amazon route after hiring an illustrator and things of that nature, went the Amazon route and it just so happened that everything was ready for publish the beginning of March.

Kadie: Oh my gosh. I'm really happy that everybody has gotten this resource at such a critical time.

Brittany: I'm really happy that I was able to do something like this for the population because I've had so much feedback from people saying, oh my goodness, this could not have been better timing. I definitely would have liked to brag and be like, yeah, I'm an innovator. I saw a need and I came up with it right away once COVID hit, but that wasn't the case.

Kadie: Well, you were ahead of the times.

Brittany: Yeah, I guess so.

Kadie: That's great for you. That worked out well. So let's see, what has been the biggest challenge of starting a business over the past year?

Brittany: I would say, this is going to be a really vague answer, but starting a business itself. As a therapist, I've encountered so many other therapists who have no idea how to navigate the world of private practice or anything entrepreneurial. It's just not in our skill set sometimes. Some people are innately good at it. They might have a knack for it, maybe because of past experience. But I know so many therapists that really struggle to kind of attach money and marketing and promotion and things like that to the services that they provide, which it's unfortunate.

Brittany: And I really hope everybody kind of finds their way and gets out there charging a reasonable rate for the amazing services they provide. But I also think we all kind of need to support each other in this effort because we have a lot to learn from each other and really just lifting each other up and helping us all build our businesses and give what we have to the community.

Kadie: Absolutely. So was finding a rate something that was a struggle for you? Or how did you determine the rate that best suited your business?

Brittany: Yeah, I definitely struggled with that at first. Because like I said, I mean, you know, you could be giving great service all day long. But when it comes to kind of attaching a rate to it, I feel like so many therapists might struggle to say, oh, you know, whatever you think is fair or something like that. Because innately, we just want to help people and, you know, we're not necessarily in it for the money. We just want to make the world a better place.

Kadie: Yeah. How many hours a week do you think that you're in contact doing consulting work?

Brittany: I would say at this point, it's probably a little closer to 15 or 20 hours a week. I'm primarily working with two clients right now on that. And like I said, it's kind of extensive. So, yeah, that kind of adds up to the 15 or 20 hours. But it really seems that because we are where we are, I, you know, I end off and I get in a good ending place with a couple of clients. And then I immediately end up finding two or three more to replace them because there's just such a need for it right now.

Kadie: Right. Program development side of it. Is there anything you'd like to share about your personal business or any other opportunities that you've come across that you'd like to share with our listeners?

Brittany: I think kind of going off a little bit of what I was talking about previously, kind of like how many hats I wear and kind of how I have a little bit of a hand in everything nowadays. I guess I would really like to get the word out to clinicians from any discipline and really encourage them to kind of step outside the box.

Brittany: I mean, I feel like a lot of people are doing that now out of necessity almost because, you know, people have to find a way to be creative and still really get out there and get their services out to people. But even once this is over or even begins to slow down, I really think it's important for clinicians to seek out alternative roles of any kind, really.

Brittany: So like we were mentioning before, you know, OTs can be found in hospitals, nursing homes, schools. Those are really the big settings. But there's so many other things that OTs in particular can do, but also any other clinician, you know, speech therapists, physical therapists, assistants, anything. You really can do so much with your skill set and your degree. And you have so much more knowledge than you probably give yourself credit for because, you know, all the amazing clinicians I know are just incredibly humble people.

Brittany: And I think if they really take charge and kind of own their skill set and their experience and what they have to give to the world, they can make a huge impact in so many ways.

Kadie: I love that. You're so right. I'm so glad that we got to speak and that you got to explain the several hats that you wear and your very unique experience. It's definitely an interesting one to hear and intriguing for sure. So thank you so much for your time today.

Brittany: Yeah, likewise. I really appreciate it.

Kadie: Thank you for joining me and listening to Clinic Chats. If you have a moment, please leave a five-star review for Clinic Chats to help other SLPs find our podcast. If you'd like to share your own personal journey through private practice, please email me at kadie at clinicnote.com. That's K-A-I-D-E at clinicnote.com.