Private practice setup checklist

Sole proprietor = you, doing business as you. Nothing to file. Simplest, cheapest, and your personal assets aren't separated from the business.

LLC = a separate legal entity. Costs $125 in Florida, adds an annual filing, and creates separation between you and the business.

Most therapists end up with an LLC. Not because it's automatically right — because the separation matters once you're carrying client money and a lease.

Do this: one 30-minute paid conversation with a CPA who works with healthcare practices. Ask two questions: which structure, and how should I be taxed. That conversation is the cheapest money you'll spend all year.

Florida's official business filing site. Ignore every service offering to do this for you for $300 — it's a form, and you can fill it in.

1. Go to sunbiz.org → Start a Business → Florida LLC
2. Fill in your business name. Search it first to be sure it's free.
3. Principal address — see step 5 before you use your home.
4. Registered agent — can be you, at a Florida street address. Not a PO box.
5. Sign, pay $125 ($100 filing + $25 registered agent).

Processed in the order received — usually a few business days. You'll get a confirmation with your document number.

Your business's tax ID. It's what lets you open a bank account and bill insurance without handing out your Social Security number.

1. Use the link above. Only ever use irs.gov.
2. Available weekdays, roughly 7am–10pm Eastern. It times out after 15 minutes of inactivity, so do it in one sitting.
3. Answer the questions, submit, and your EIN appears immediately.
4. Download the confirmation letter (CP 575) on that screen. You cannot get it again easily.

Separate from personal. Not "I'll keep track." Separate.

Bring: your EIN letter, your Articles of Organization, and your driver's license.

Any bank works. Local credit unions are often easier for small business than national banks. Ask about monthly minimums and whether they charge for deposits.

Get a debit card on the account and use it for every business expense from that day forward.

Read this before you file anything with your home address on it.

Your Sunbiz filing is public. Your NPI record is public. Payer directories are public. If you use your home address, it is permanently searchable — by anyone, including clients.

Options:

• Registered agent service — roughly $50–150/year, gives you a Florida address for filings
• Your office — if you already have one, easiest
• Home — free, and permanent. Choose it deliberately, not by accident.

You already have a Type 1 NPI — that's you, the clinician. Your business needs its own Type 2.

This is the single most common thing people discover missing three weeks into a payer application.

1. Log in to NPPES with your existing I&A account
2. Choose Create Organization NPI (Type 2)
3. Enter your business name exactly as it appears on your Articles of Organization — character for character
4. Enter your EIN, taxonomy code, and address
5. Submit. Usually issued same day.

Your employer's policy does not follow you out the door.

Common carriers for mental health clinicians: HPSO, CPH & Associates, and the ACA-endorsed Trust. Get quotes from all three — premiums vary more than you'd expect.

Two questions to ask each one:

• Is this claims-made or occurrence? (Occurrence covers anything that happened while you were insured. Claims-made only covers claims filed while the policy is active.)
• Do I need tail coverage for the work I did at my last job?

Common choices for solo practices: SimplePractice, TherapyNotes, and Sessions. Most offer free trials — use them.

Choose for billing, not for note templates. You'll write notes in anything. You'll fight with claims every single week.

What to test during the trial:

• How does it submit claims, and what does it cost per claim?
• What happens when a claim is denied — can you see why, and fix it?
• Does it take client card payments, and what's the processing fee?
• Will they sign a BAA? (If no, walk away.)

Three things. Not thirty.

1. Signed BAAs with every vendor that touches client data — EHR, email, video, scheduling, storage, billing service. Get them in writing and keep them in one folder.
2. A written security risk analysis. Required. It's a document describing where client data lives and how it's protected. HHS publishes a free tool for this.
3. Written policies — breach response, minimum necessary access, how you handle records requests.

Nobody enjoys this. It takes an afternoon, and it's the first thing asked for if a complaint ever arrives.

The shared database nearly every payer pulls your credentials from. Get this right and applications move. Get it wrong and they sit.

1. Register at CAQH ProView (or claim the profile a payer created for you)
2. Fill in every section — education, licenses, work history with no unexplained gaps, malpractice, practice locations
3. Upload your license, malpractice certificate, and CV
4. Click ATTEST. An unattested profile is invisible to payers.

You must re-attest every 120 days. Put it in your calendar now, as a recurring event.

This is the long one, and it's why the whole checklist is ordered this way.

Florida-specific detail — which payers, the carve-out trap, Medicare, Medicaid — is in getting on insurance panels in Florida.

Start while you are still employed. Applications take three to six months from submission to an effective date. Waiting until after you resign means six months without insurance revenue.

Don't apply to everything. Pick payers by: what your local population actually carries, what each reimburses, and whether they're open to new providers in your area at all.

Expect to chase. Applications go quiet, get lost, and need following up every few weeks.

Free, takes half an hour, and consistently underused by therapists.

1. Create the profile with your business name and category (Psychotherapist / Mental Health Service)
2. Verify — usually by postcard, sometimes phone
3. If you don't want your address shown, set it as a service-area business and hide it
4. Add hours, phone, website, and a real description

Around $29.95/month (verify current pricing at signup). For most new practices it pays for itself with a single client.

What actually matters on the profile:

• A real photo of your face. Not a logo, not a landscape.
• A first sentence that describes the client's problem, not your credentials
• Specific specialties — being findable beats being broad
• Your insurances listed accurately

Every Florida LLC files an annual report between January 1 and May 1. It costs $138.75.

Miss the May 1 deadline and it becomes $538.75. That's a $400 late penalty for forgetting a form.

Miss it entirely and the state administratively dissolves your LLC.

Do this now: put a recurring calendar reminder on March 1, every year, titled "File Florida annual report." Not May 1 — March 1, so you have room.