Therapist SupportSupporting California therapistsStay updatedUpdates
  1. Therapist Support›
  2. About›
  3. What this is

Tools, reference and support for California MFTs.

Therapist Support is a free collection of practical things for California-licensed therapists — MFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs and psychologists. Calculators, rate research and plain-English notes on the parts of the job nobody trained you for. Built by a therapist. No account, nothing to buy.

Figures checked, narrative not re-read

The numbers are current. The argument around them has not been reviewed since it was written.

In short

Who made this, and can I trust it?

Who built the tools, how they are checked, and what is not sold here

MFTLCSWLPCCPsychologistAMFT / associateGroup practice ownerSupervisor

The tools

Things that work it out for you

All free, and every figure traceable to the rule or schedule it came from.

Practice Simulator

Rate, caseload, time off, expenses — what you bill, what it costs to run, and what is actually left.

Tax & Retirement

Sole proprietor versus a California professional corporation, and what each retirement account is worth in real dollars.

Grow Your Practice

Referral funnels, lead targets, and what an associate is worth once their wages and payroll costs come out.

Associate planner

Supervision hours, splits, liability and workers’ comp — the real cost of bringing someone on.

Open the simulator →

Reference

Things you look up, kept current

The material that is technically public and practically scattered across six agencies, three PDFs and a forum thread from 2023.

Rate & fee researchWhat California therapists are actually paid — insurance versus private pay, by metro, with sources named and sample sizes admitted. Read Field Notes →
Fee schedulesMedi-Cal, CMS and CalVCB rates for the codes therapists actually bill. In progress
Licensing & supervisionBBS hour requirements, supervision ratios, renewal windows and CEU deadlines, in plain English. In progress
Key datesQuarterly estimated tax dates, renewal months, and when California publishes the figures everything else depends on. In progress

The support part

Because most of this is learned from each other

Nobody teaches the business of a practice in graduate school. What most therapists know about rates, panels and paperwork they learned from a colleague in a hallway. This is an attempt to write some of that down.

Share what you know

Send a rate, a correction, or a thing that caught you out. It goes into the next update — credited or anonymous, your call.

Say when it is wrong

Rules change and figures go stale. Every message is read by a person, and corrections get made and dated.

Ask for what is missing

Most of what is here started as someone asking whether a thing existed. If you need a tool that is not here, say so.

Send a note →

How it works

Built by a therapist in California, in the open, and it shows its working — because on subjects like these a figure without a source is just a confident guess.

What it costs$0Ads pay the hosting. Nothing is gated, nothing is upsold, no tier above this one.
What it storesNothingNo account and no database. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
What it is notAdviceThese are models and references. Take the shape of a decision to a CPA or an attorney.

You should not have to work this part out on your own.

Once a month: free tools and apps worth having, better ways to run the admin side of a practice, what other California therapists are actually doing, and anything new here that might save you an afternoon.

About monthly. One click to leave. Never sold, never shared. The consent box is separate and unticked because California requires it — and because it should be.

More on this

Practice

Filling the week, and running the admin behind it.

Should I hire an associate?The loaded cost, the break-even caseload, and the classification ruleCan I see California clients from abroad?The Board's own answer, then the same practice priced in eight placesHow do I fill my caseload?Client lifetime value, the leakiest channel, and a monthly enquiry target
All 12 pages on practice →

How these pages are checked

Every page carries a badge saying how deeply it has been verified. The point of publishing it is that this site is not uniform, and pretending otherwise would let the thinnest pages borrow credibility from the strongest ones.

Verified to sourceEvery figure was re-checked against the statute, schedule or filing it cites. These pages cite three or more primary sources — the Board, the IRS, CMS, the Legislature — rather than somebody’s summary of them.

Figures checked, narrative not re-readThe numbers are current. The argument around them has not been reviewed since it was written.

Published sources onlyBuilt from what an institution publishes about itself. Nothing on the page is independently verified, and where the institution publishes nothing the page says so rather than filling the gap.

Known gapSomething on the page could not be established. It is named, in full, under “What I could not establish”.

The badge is derived, not asserted: it is computed from what a page actually cites and whether it carries a gaps list, so it cannot drift away from the page it describes.