This episode is less structured and more like a voice note to a friend. So if you're up for some real talk and gentle reflection, you're in the right place.

In this episode, I open up about the many moving parts happening in the background of running my clinics. Even when things look calm from the outside, there's a lot going on underneath, and I thought it was time to share some of that with you.

Here’s what I unpacked:

• Why I’m gently stepping back into professional development and what I'm choosing with more intention
• Handing over day-to-day clinic management (after 19 years!) and all the quirks that come with delegating
• The emotional and logistical weight of reviewing clinic fees across multiple funding models and states
• Creating more meaningful and honest check-ins with my team (beyond ticking boxes)
• Navigating the recent Australian privacy law changes and what they mean for practice owners
• Introducing AI support for note writing and how we're supporting our team through that change
• Website tweaks, a new referral triage process, and my new favourite ritual: Money Monday

Some reflections I want to share:

• You don’t need to have it all figured out—just keep moving in the direction that feels right
• Delegating can feel weird and vulnerable, but it’s essential for sustainable leadership
• Doing those small, nagging tasks can clear your head and make a big difference
• The concept of "The Third Space" has been a game changer for me—taking a moment to reset between tasks instead of sprinting from one thing to the next

If you're feeling the weight of running a practice, I hope this episode reminds you that you're not alone. There's a lot going on for all of us, but there's also a lot of heart, growth, and humour in the process.

Thanks so much for being here. If you're inside our Connection membership, don't forget to check out the Booster Shot mini course on privacy compliance. And if you're curious about joining us, you can learn more at theconnectionco.com.au.

Breathe, delegate something, and I’ll go book that conference ticket.

Foreign welcome to my Good Allied Health Practice, the podcast for allied health business owners who are looking to bring smart and heart together on their journey.

On the podcast, I'll cover things about being vulnerable and brave, pivoting failures, good wins, things that work, things that don't work.

And I'll talk with other practice owners who are doing good in their journeys.

I'm Amy Geach, practice owner and mum, and I'm here because I believe in you.

So let's go forward on this journey together.

Hello.

Hello, lovely friends.

Welcome back to the podcast.

I'm loving being back.

It feels really good to be back behind my little microphone.

I've given it a good dust off last week and here I am again today.

And yeah, if I'm being really honest, I've missed these solo episodes.

My sister is a big listener and she said to me a little while ago you said in your intro you're going to do guest speakers and you haven't yet.

Yes, you'll hear some guest voices soon.

I've got some amazing people lined up to join me, but today I wanted to keep it simple.

This one's a bit like a voice note to a friend.

No big agenda, just a bit of real talk about what's actually going on behind the scenes in my own practice.

The truth is, even when things look calm on the surface, which maybe they do to other people, there's always so much happening underneath and sometimes I'm not even 100% sure my team know all the bits and pieces that I do, which is not on them.

But it's just hard because I am not always around them.

I work remotely from my clinics and it's really, really hard for people to see what I'm doing.

So, okay, a couple of things.

Let's unpack what's happening behind the scenes.

For me at the moment, one of the first things is working out my own pd.

This has been on the back burner for a while.

I've.

I used to do an extreme amount of professional development and then I just ceased that and for no particular reason or like a few reasons all joined together.

But I.

I feel like I haven't really done any professional development that has been out and about from my house.

So let's start with this one because it's been sitting in the background for a while.

As I mentioned, I used to go to everything, conferences, workshops, networking events, leadership training.

And I absolutely loved it.

I'm a big believer in lifelong learning and I would come back with the full notebook.

Way too many ideas.

My Brain absolutely buzzing.

But at some point, with family commitments, some business demands and let's be honest, the cost of everything, I just stopped booking tickets to go to things and I don't think it's a big step to go back.

I could jump online right now and book into two conferences that I have been eyeing off, but I haven't.

I don't even know why.

There's something about reentering that space that is just feeling a little bit overwhelming for me.

So this is me kind of gently stepping back in.

I've started making a PD plan again.

I'm covering carving out actual time, not just vague.

Later this year I'd like to go to that ideas and I'm looking at what would really, truly energize me professionally.

So try and look at not what I think I should be going to.

You know, I don't want to just be a certificate chaser, but I really want something that is going to energize me and really link in with the, with the vision and the plan I've got ahead.

So something that brings me back into learning and connection and not just ticking a box.

So I'm really looking forward to getting this plan underway for myself.

I think the first one on my list will be going to the OT conference in Adelaide this month.

But again, I haven't booked my ticket yet.

Maybe I might do it later today.

My thing here is if I'm going to keep leading others, I need to keep filling my own cup.

And that's a message I want all of you to hear today.

That if you are in that leadership role for your clients, but also if you've got team members, you really do need to keep filling your own cup.

And yeah, really kind of think about your own energy and your own learning and reinvesting in yourself because that's really important too.

You are allowed to invest in yourself.

Okay.

The second behind the scenes thing that's going on for me at the moment is I'm starting to step back from the day to day managing of my clinics.

This is a big one.

It's big.

I've after many, many years, we've had our wagger practice now for 19 years at the time of recording this and our Tassie practice for these seven years.

And I've started to hand over the day to day management of those two clinics to my new business manager who's one of my therapists who've been with me such a long time.

And she started with us as a grad and she's just well, actually she started with us as a student, then moved into one of our new grad positions and she's been with me ever since.

And she's extremely loyal.

We get on incredibly well and she's a perfect person to start to take over that day to day management of the clinics trees up my time a little bit, but also I really think my team deserve to have someone who can give a hundred percent of their focus to that on a daily basis.

Sometimes I'm, I might be in meetings or I'm doing something in the connection membership and I can't be there a hundred percent all the time.

So I'm really excited to have my therapist move into this business manager role for the clinics.

But it is a little bit weird as well.

And it's weird because for years I've had all these systems to do's, little quirks all in my head and now I need to get them out in a logical way so that Abby can understand them and I need to write them down, clean them up, explain things and work out how.

I've done things on autopilot for so many years and it's such a mental load.

I know how to delegate and I know I need to delegate.

It's just trying to find the right way to get all the things out of my brain.

I really want to have a wonderful sustainable practice going forward.

And when we delegate, it means trusting others, building systems and slowly stepping back from being the glue that holds it all together.

And I know that Abby will definitely be a new, stronger glue and I'm excited about that.

So right now her and I are finding our way with mapping out these handovers from me.

And it's definitely not perfect, but it's better.

It's better.

And we're working on, on progress, not perfection.

And each week, what's now the next task I need to hand over to her.

So that's a big thing going on for me in the background right now.

The next thing happening in my clinic at the moment is I'm up to my neck reviewing prices and fees.

Far out.

This one does feel big.

If you listen to my episode last week on carrying weight around.

I'm carrying big weight with this one and I know I'm making it harder than it needs to be.

So we're currently reviewing our fees right across the board.

And I think the reason I'm making this heavier than it needs to be is because we do see DVA clients, Medicare clients, NDIS clients, private paying clients.

We have people from Lifetime care and support and then we also see quite a lot of workcover clients.

And our clinics are in two different states, so New South Wales and Tasmania, two different WorkCover systems.

And we also have different professions working in our clinic.

So we have OT and we also have physios.

So different states, different rulings, different professions, different rulings and it just feels like a big job.

The complexity is feeling very real right now.

It's not just about what should charge, it's also about learning and really understanding what's billable under each scheme, what's fair, what's viable, what covers admin, what reflects our value, what, what are the rules.

And there's also that emotional side of pricing.

Right.

Especially I find in healthcare you don't want to feel greedy, but also you need to run a business that's sustainable and we know that lots of other expenses are going up.

My rent goes up every year, what I need to pay, my therapist goes up every year.

So we need to be yearly looking at what we are charging out.

But it can feel a little bit heavy.

And some questions that I've been sitting with over the last couple of weeks are, are we undercharging for our private sessions?

I think we are.

What about non face to face time?

In some states we can charge for report writing, others not.

What are we doing about our conversations where we're liaising about our clients or delivering handovers or talking to referrers?

And how do we make sure the team feels really clear and confident, one, when talking about fees, but two, when it comes to doing the actual billing.

So I'm in this process of gathering data, talking about, you know, different models and I'm really kind of reminding myself that pricing isn't just a spreadsheet, it's really, it's values work.

It's about clarity and communication, not just here's our numbers.

So, yeah, I think there's definitely parts of this I'm making heavier because every time I start the work on it, I'm looking at all the things, all the client sources, all the types of billing models we fall under and I need to break that down and when I go into it, go, today I'm going to work on the Medicare EPC billing.

Yeah.

So I definitely know I am making, making it heavier than it needs to be, but also I have this desire in me to get it right.

Okay.

It's not like, oh, I didn't quite consider everything and a month later I've realized I did.

We didn't get that quite right.

And that's affecting how the clients are feeling or it's a, you know, we, we haven't done the right thing to communicate to them that, that prices are increasing or whatever it might be.

So it does need a lot of thought and process.

So I've just got to make sure I get that right balance, that I'm not making it heavier, but I'm also not making flippant decisions.

So that's one thing going on in my practice.

The next thing is Abby, who I've mentioned earlier popped into the manager role and her and I are doing some growth check ins with the team now.

We did more of a formal ish performance review last year and we don't want to do like a formal performance review every quarter.

I just feel like it's, it's one, it's really time consuming and it really needs to keep creating value for my team and I like to just be a little bit creative and fluid around what my team needs at different times during the year.

So we're going to stick with the one performance review each year.

The, the formalish one.

And then in between, Abby and I have developed a check in.

It's a growth check in and I'm really enjoying thinking about this and planning this and starting to write some notes down for the conversations I want to have with the team because I really like real conversations.

I, I don't love.

Oh great.

We went through that and we ticked some boxes and we got through the structure and now we're at the end and then things don't happen.

I get really disheartened if we have, you know, meetings or let's talk about your goals and everyone writes down their goals and then six months later we haven't really kind of checked in on that.

I find that really like disheartening and deflating.

I'm sure my team would as well.

So these growth check ins are real conversations about what is working right now, what's not working so well.

Are you stuck on anything?

What do you want to do next?

What are some goals that you want to work on over the next three months?

How can we support you in that?

And I think this is going to be an amazing time because we can create a space for open, real chats about things.

And yeah, I find when you give people that space it will often reveal small but really powerful things.

And, and people might say I'd love to run a workshop or I'm curious about getting into more mentoring or, or I'm feeling tired and I need less complexity for a while.

So I definitely find things like this help me lead better, helps my team feel seen, particularly when I am remote.

It's going to help Abby, who's just stepping into that role, get a good handle on where all of the team is sitting right now.

And it's a good reminder that growing a team isn't always about pushing everybody upwards.

It's about helping people grow in the direction that really suits them.

And that's why I'm really looking forward to these growth check ins.

It'll be great.

Okay.

You may have also seen recently this year there are some changes to the privacy laws in Australia.

And so we have been, excuse me, reviewing our privacy policies and our consent forms.

Image consent form how we go about releasing information to clients when they ask it.

Just a, just a general review of everything related to being privacy compliant.

And in particular because of these legislative changes that have come in more pressure on practice owners to get the right systems in place.

And there are new changes around having to report a breach to privacy if that actually happens in your, in your workplace.

So this is not the kind of work in the background that's loud or flashy or exciting, but it's foundational and it's mitigating risk, which is really, really important work in your practice.

And we want to be a practice that is really tight with our privacy fit and that doesn't just tick the compliance box, but actually builds trust with our clients and our teams.

Really important for those of you inside our membership, you would have seen recently that we released our booster shot that we call it.

It's like a mini course on privacy compl.

And throughout that I talked about the privacy changes that have come up this year in Australia and how to make sure your policies are actually in action and compliant with that, but also giving you the templates and resources you need to make the whole process easier for you.

So if you're in the membership in the connection then and you haven't checked out that booster shop, please do if you have and you thought, yep, great, here's my to do list, I've got to do around privacy.

And then you kind of put it to the side, please go back to it because as I said, this is a, this is foundational.

This, this is a really, really important thing.

So I want everyone to, if you take anything away from today, take away that you must review your privacy information at the moment with the new law changes that have come out this year.

Okay.

The next thing going on in the background of my clinics at the moment is we have Been introducing since the start of the year, AI support for note writing.

So I've got a couple of therapists who've been using it for a while, and that's how we started.

We just started with two therapists getting used to it, getting on board with it.

I've got one in particular who uses it on a daily basis, and she's doing a really great job with it, and she has spent the time teaching it how to kind of get the best out of her session.

And then she's been taking on this amazing role to help the other team members now kind of get on board.

So we're.

We're into it and it's working, but we're also still doubling around.

And it's interesting.

It's been an interesting space because nothing replaces people, nothing replaces our therapy minds and our thoughts and our clinical reasoning.

But I'm really excited about the opportunity to enhance the admin side of clinical work because it can be such a drain, and it can be, you know, that thing that just holds you back at the end of the day before you go home.

And it would be really great if.

If it didn't.

Going forward now, I'm finding some team members are absolutely loving it.

Others are a little bit more hesitant.

And I think that hesitation comes from the setup.

Right.

We're busy in our clinics at the moment, and so having to learn a new system, dedicate the time to it when it just feels easier to do it the old way, even though that might take longer down the track in the moment, and that feels easier because it's habitual.

But so we're trying to really encourage people to get on board with it, but also be realistic that everybody learns at different times, and it's okay to be hesitant.

That's completely fine.

So we're trying to focus on making it feel safe, safe and useful and not being just another shiny thing that adds pressure into.

Into the day.

So we've started off doing some training, having conversations, and building a bit of a culture where it's okay to try it, dislike it, ask questions, let's problem solve.

And I'm watching it closely and watching how it's impacting the time for the therapists and the quality of the notes and whether things are becoming faster and better or whether they're just faster but not so great.

So I'm keeping a really, really close eye on it.

And yeah, I.

I'm gonna circle back in another episode to give you a bit more of a review when we've got it more kind of more established.

But yeah, it's definitely a big thing going on in the back of our clinic at the moment.

All right.

Then there's all the other things, right, all the other little things that I do, small but mighty things.

So other things going on in the background.

Our website tweaks, our referral triage system.

I've started my Money Monday.

Let me tell you about some of them.

So we've just added a new staff member to the website.

This is always something when we're onboarding someone.

It's like my last thing I get to.

And even when staff leave, it's one of my last things I get to is to take them off the website, which is, yeah, really interesting.

I remember I had a staff member once, she'd been working with me for months and months and months and months and she went off to the hand therapy conference and someone said to her, you know, oh, I thought you were working for Amy.

She goes, yeah, yeah, I'm still there.

And they're like, oh, you're not on the website website yet.

That's not a nice feeling.

So I got on top of that pretty quickly.

But yeah, so I've just been adding this week, tidying up the website a little bit, adding a new staff member, changing the Work with Us page to add in the lymphedema ad that we've got going on at the moment.

And so these are like little, you know, half hour tasks that, you know, can be a little bit fiddly.

That was.

Take you longer than the half an hour, you know how it is.

I've recently also moved my finance day from Friday to Monday, so I always had finance Friday.

That's why I would pay bills in the clinic, get prepped for payroll, etc.

I've changed it to Money Monday because there is some PD that I'm leaning into on a Monday.

And so I've set up my Money Sunday tasks to happen prior to that pd and I'm really excited about that.

And I've got my little checklist and system and I've got this rotating theme throughout the month.

I've printed out this amazing little booklet to help me be accountable and I'm loving it.

I'm loving it so far.

It's helping me start the week with clarity instead of ending it in a bit of a rush.

And it frees up my Friday now to do my love projects.

And I'm really, really excited about that.

And then probably the last thing I was going to tell you about today is we're working on A simpler, clearer way for our client coordinators at the front desk to triage our referrals, particularly in our Tassie practice.

We're getting a huge amount of referrals there at the moment, but staff members who haven't been with me in the company for as long so don't know all the little tricks and tips for triaging those referral.

So it's just trying to make an easier process for them.

Less guesswork and more consistency and then better client experience.

So just some little tweaks.

And those little tweaks really add up.

They make the practice feel smoother, even if it's just by 5%.

All of those things matter, and I'm a big believer in that.

So that's what I'm holding onto at the moment in my clinics.

That's just my clinics, not everything else.

And maybe you need these remind us too.

Number one, you don't need to have it all figured out.

You just need to keep moving in the direction that feels right.

Number two, letting go of control can be scary and we often make it difficult, but it's also the path to real leadership.

So don't be afraid to delegate things out if you can.

And number three, the little things that you keep putting off when you do them, they give you space to breathe and focus on clearly on the next thing that you're doing.

So, yeah, I.

I also want to add a fourth one in.

Actually, I only had three written down, but I'm going to add a fourth one in because in our book club that we run in the Connection membership, we have a book once a quarter.

And one of the books I have, like, I love all the books that I choose, but one of the books that I think I have taken the most Aha.

Moments from is called the third space, and it's by Dr.

Adam Fraser.

And he talks about putting this space in between what you have been working on and what you're about to work on, and not just kind of racing from one to the other.

So it's about closing off what you've just been working on and getting ready to work on the next thing.

And I think when you've got practice and there's all those things going on, the privacy compliance stuff, the foundation stuff you're trying to build in the background, managing of staff members, if that's applicable to you, working on your finances, trading your clients, all of those things.

I think the fourth thing I want to remind you of today is, rather than be running between all of those tasks, is just having that little reset, that third space, which is the space in between what you've been working on and what you're about to be working on.

And if you haven't read the book the Third Space by Dr.

Adam Fraser, it is a game changer.

I've really, really, really, really loved it.

So yeah, get get on top of that.

So thank you so much for hanging out with me today.

I really love being able to share behind the scenes stuff that's going on for me and if you're in the middle of similar stuff, I love it.

You're not alone.

You're doing great.

If you are in my Connection membership for Allied Health practice owners, don't forget to check out the Booster Shot mini course on privacy compliance.

It's short, it's doable and you'll find really easily you'll be able to get privacy compliant really quickly.

That wasn't great English, but you know what I mean.

If you want to keep connecting with me, there's more podcast episodes, but feel free to reach out.

I'm more than happy if you jump on our connection website.

It's theconnectionco.com.

jump on there and send me an email or check out our membership and I will be in your ears again soon.

But until then, breathe, delegate something and I'm going to go and book my conference ticket.

Thanks everybody.

Thank you for being here.

I am incredibly grateful.

If you have a friend that would find this helpful, please go ahead and share it with than two.

You can learn more about me and how to be part of my Allied Health Connection community over@theconnectionco.com au.