May 2026 was the start of a new era for me, I started my own occupational therapy private practice after working for 5 years in the field and 4 years in an intensive day program for kids, teens and adults with a variety of different disabilities.
I loved my job originally because it gave me the freedom to practice Occupational therapy in its truest form without productivity restrictions, as well as being able to be trauma informed and neurodiverse affirming in all decision making in my interventions. As management became excessive in the amount of change they would implement without collaborating or consulting with the clinicians who were working directly with the clients and supervising the staff, stress levels began to soar for the clinicians, rest of the staff and then (the final straw for me) for the clients and their families. I started having to spend more time on fixing issues and making sure that staff and clients were ok after fallout from poor decisions and many changes and was not able to practice occupational therapy in the way that I loved. I also realized that the company I worked for had become one of the toxic systems that my manager had always preached that we were NOT. My time was officially up.
In the two months that I continued working in 2026 while I wrapped up with my caseload, I realized that the only thing that was really stopping me from starting my own practice was my fear of not knowing how to manage a business and my intense need for perfectionism. Reflecting on the way my departure from my old job was – very stressful, very pressured and leaving me very burntout – it was almost a little blessing in disguise because I just decided I had to leave perfectionism at the door and JUST START. If you’ve done something like that before, you’ll know that was a stressful leap!
Now that I am in month two of my business officially launched with a full website, I can say that as a sole proprietor, the day to day management of my business is pretty ok! I have my EMR (where you document sessions, schedule sessions and invoice clients) which is very easy to use, I book my clients based on my own timeline and I connect with different professionals to support my work. I am also currently still working with the other private practice I was working very very casually during my day program, and the team there has been such a supportive one to connect with.
If you are an occupational therapist or other allied health professional thinking about starting your own private practice, here are my quick tips to getting started (feel free to email me or comment on the post if you have other questions!):
- Connect with other private practice owners – this saved me so much time, you aren’t reinventing the wheel here! I was able to connect with my manager and another team member from my other job and they were so helpful with their occupational therapy specific guidance, but I also connected with different practitioners about their experience in the business side of things and that helped so much with giving me a direction
- Do your research about the rules and regulations around your professional college – If you’re an Ontario OT, I’m not going to lie, COTO was pretty useless in this process but it’s always worth the shot to give your college a call and see if they have any information. Most of the time they just referred me back to the Standards of Practice, which I already had consulted of course, but there was one woman who was quite helpful!
- Following the point above, make sure your practitioner’s insurance covers being your own business owner! – I was already practicing privately with my own insurance before starting my business and I didn’t need to upgrade because I work virtually and go to people’s homes, not working in a clinic space or managing a team, but this is an important thing to ensure you have before starting!
- Don’t worry about your website right away! – I was told this by a lot of people I talked to about opening my own practice, even my personal therapist. Chances are your website isn’t going to be the main driver of business right away, but it is a good thing to have in place eventually. In the meantime, I set up a Calendly account where people could book discovery calls through and set up my EMR
- Do your research into what EMR works best for you! – Take some time to research what EMR (electronic medical record platform) is best for you. I am thankful I had some lovely colleagues give me insight, but shop around! Most sites are pretty easy to switch between so if you had to transfer your information to a new one you could but that’s not ideal. There are usually different subscriptions you can purchase based on the number of clients, number of practitioners and the fetures they offer, so make sure you think about what you need realistically. I am a Canadian practitioner, so my experience may be different based on what’s available in your country – my EMR of choice was Colib which is a Canadian made platform. You can sign up as a starter account where you only get charged per client instead of paying for a full month subscription, and then upgrade if needed, which is AMAZING especially since you’re probably not starting off with a booming caseload.
- Look into legalities, rules about HST and what you are required to do for taxes as a business owner! – Occupational therapists in Ontario don’t charge HST (it took me a lot of researching to confirm this for some reason), but if you need to charge HST you will need to register for a number. I registered my business because I didn’t want to use my name, but you can practice under just your name if you wanted to do that. I ended up taking a business owner tax course as well from a small business owner herself because as much as I know I have to save my own taxes and I can write things off, this is WAY different than what I was doing before! Better to be more informed before you build a caseload than trying to backpedal and learn while managing a bunch of clients
- Most importantly (and sometimes most overwhelmingly) is figuring out how to express who you are as a practitioner – writing my bio on my website was something that I took really seriously because I took time to reflect on who I wanted to show up as as an occupational therapist. There are so many people out there, but one of the big things for me was I wanted to start my own practice so I could approach therapy in the way that connected with my values, so I wanted to write a bio that reflected that. A bio that reflects who you are and how you approach therapy can help the people who find you be the people who are for you
Finally, one of my biggest suggestions is accepting the fact that you might need to take a pay cut and accept a longer growth period. In Ontario you can put your name on a provider list for kids with Autism, or on insurance lists, but I wanted to make sure I started slow and steady so I could keep up with the business aspect of the role! Now that I’m a bit more steady in what I’m doing I may head that way to gain more clients but it takes time!
Being a business owner is not something that I expected to be doing so early in my career, but so far I am very much loving it and can’t wait to see how it grows! It is an expensive venture depending on licensing fees etc in your area, so don’t take it lightly but it is very rewarding
If you have any questions about business starting please let me know!
Be Your Own Sunshine 