Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kimberly (kim) Muhlenbruch. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kimberly (Kim), looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Talk to us about building your team? What was it like? What were some of the key challenges and what was your process like?

Initially, my “company” provided services with only me working under the name (and supervision) of another company. Once I opened the doors at our current location and started providing services under our clinic’s name, we had a couple of providers and one student (who was completing her field experience requirements for her degree) within six months. Now, we also have a patient care coordinator and administrative assistant to complete admin work such as billing, scheduling, verifying insurance coverage, etc. Since then, I’ve changed things where we mostly only take in students with the option of remaining at our clinic following their graduation and completion of their field experience if we think that the student is a good fit for our clinic.
To recruit, we use Indeed.com. Our clinic also has professional relationships with different universities including Adams University, The Chicago School, Southwestern College, University of Phoenix, Walden University, and a few others. Having an agreement with schools, puts our clinic on a list of “approved sites” at the different schools; it seems to be helpful to students when they are seeking a practice where to complete their field experience. Many students contact us directly on their own as well.
The interview process and questions continue to evolve….it’s a living and breathing process. With every professional relationship with students and supervisees, I learn how to make the vetting process more efficient in order to select the best candidate for OUR clinic. Also, I’ve had outstanding mentors who have giving me incredibly useful tools to employ in the process of selecting the best person for the position.
I can honestly say that I wouldn’t do anything different. Each relationship has truly been a learning experience for me, good or bad!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was in the US Army for 24 years total, 21 years on active duty. There was a lot to witness and do in 21 years in the Army. It was then, while I was in the Army, that I made up my mind that I wanted to continue to make a difference but, this time, as a mental health provider. Early in my careers in this profession, I saw things that impressed me much and I saw ways of doing business with which I definitely did not agree. At that point, I wanted to mentor and supervise new providers in our field. I wanted to pay forward all of the positive mentoring and supervision that was given to me.
Our practice has a diverse team and we work with a diverse population. Mostly, who gravitate to us are those who are underserved and marginalized. People typically want to work with those who can relate to them. We all bring different things to the team as we have experience in different fields that convert very well into the field of mental health. We complement each other as a team! We also really like working with service members, veterans, firefighters, law enforcement, and medical personnel. We have advanced training in many interventions (including substance use/addictions, art therapy, play therapy, EMDR, emotionally focused therapy, attachment work, dialectical behavior therapy, and many more) to work with anxiety, vocational stress, depression, neurodiversity, trauma history, PTSD, and just about any condition. We work with children as young as two years old to adults over 100. We work with individuals, couples, and families. Our practice does take insurance as well as offers a very low discounts for “self-pay”. We love what we do!

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

Welllllll, I did not have a lot of money saved up at all. I could not get any lender to give me a loan at all. The issue was not my credit score, trust me – haha. My credit score has been over 800 for about 20 years. When I opened the doors to our current clinic, I only had one office in a suite. Even after getting the two providers and the student, I did not need much space being that the three other providers where approximately one to two hours away in different directions and they worked virtually from their locations. In addition, then, most people were still seeking our help via telehealth services. Working mostly via telehealth set the conditions favorable for lower overhead costs for our company, which comes in handy when one did not have a large amount of funds needed to open a business.
As our clinic continued to grow, we acquired more space and we also made more capital that we need to run a successful mental health clinic. I started to no longer need to dip into my retirement funds to support the business….dipping into my retirement money to support the clinic is a very true and long story.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

As I mentioned earlier, I spent 24 years in the Army. That amount of time is literally most of my adult years. I also come from a family (and a culture) that believes in collectivism. Having the notion of doing things alone is far from the mentality that I like have.
I am always seeking opportunities to network with other mental health providers, healthcare providers, educators, and others in the community. More importantly, we strive very diligently to deliver the services that we said that we would. I think that being true to the population one serves makes a very positive impact and it goes a long way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sobttherapy.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100078837392775
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-muhlenbruch-70b9011b3/