therapy_practice_marketing v1.0.0

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name: "therapy_practice_marketing" description: "Market a private therapy practice without touching client data: audit directory profiles field by field against a practice facts file, draft website and newsletter copy in the clinician's own voice, rewrite practice policies in plain language, and run an ethics and claims check on every public statement before it ships. Ships a claims scanner that cross checks credentials, states, modalities, insurance and fees in copy against the real practice, plus a profile audit sheet and worked website, profile and newsletter examples. Use when building or fixing a therapist directory profile, a practice website, a practice newsletter, or any public copy for a counselor, psychologist, social worker or marriage and family therapist."

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Therapy Practice Marketing

Purpose

A therapy practice markets under rules most businesses never meet. The clinician's ethics code treats a directory listing as a public statement and holds the clinician responsible for claims made by anyone they hire to write it. Testimonials that would be normal marketing for a plumber are barred when they come from current clients. The client list itself is health information, not a mailing list. And the claims readers act on first, fee, insurance, availability, license state, are exactly the claims that go stale fastest.

This skill runs practice marketing inside those rules, with no client data anywhere in the workflow. Inputs are public facts about the practice and the clinician's own words about their work. Nothing from a chart, a session, an inbox or a caseload enters the copy, the list building, or the examples.

The core tool is scripts/audit_claims.py. It flags risky language and, when given a practice facts file, cross checks the verifiable claims in the copy against the real practice: credentials, licensed states, modalities, insurance panels and session fees. references/profile-audit-sheet.md does the field by field profile work. references/claims-and-ethics-check.md carries the five question check for any claim. references/plain-language-policies.md carries the policy set and before and after rewrites.

Scope: United States rules, stated at the federal and ethics code level. State licensing boards add their own advertising and title rules, and those differ by state and by license type. Pull the board rule for the clinician's state and license at audit time and record it. This skill is a marketing workflow, not legal advice and not an ethics ruling.

Workflow

1. Build the practice facts file before writing a word

Copy examples/practice-facts.json and fill it from source documents, not from the existing website, which may be the thing that is wrong.

• Credentials per clinician, as the licensing board lists them, with the board lookup date
• Licensed states per clinician, current and in good standing
• Modalities each clinician is trained in and actually uses, with the training behind each one
• Insurance panels per clinician and per plan, with the date the panel status was last checked
• Session fees and session length, sliding scale terms if one truly exists
• Availability, telehealth geography, office access facts, languages a full session can run in

Every later check compares copy to this file. When a fact changes, change the file first, then sweep every surface that repeats the fact. A claim with no backing entry in the file does not ship.

2. Set the no client data boundary in writing

Agree these rules with the clinician before any drafting, and put them at the top of the audit record:

• No client names, stories, quotes, screenshots, or recognizable situations, disguised or not
• No marketing list built from intake records, a scheduling system, an electronic health record, or a payment system. Newsletter lists come only from a signup the person filled in for the newsletter itself
• No testimonials or reviews solicited from current clients, and for counselors no solicitation of former clients either. No incentives tied to reviews at all
• No reply to a public review that confirms the reviewer is or was a client
• Analytics and ad accounts get configured without client identifiers. No uploading client lists to ad platforms for matching or lookalike audiences

The HIPAA frame behind the list rule: under the HHS guidance on the Privacy Rule at 45 CFR 164.501 and 164.508(a)(3), using protected health information for a communication that encourages someone to purchase or use a service generally needs that person's written authorization, with limited exceptions for describing the covered entity's own health related services and for treatment and care coordination messages. This skill does not argue the exceptions. It keeps client records out of marketing entirely, which is simpler and safer than litigating where a newsletter falls.

3. Audit the directory profiles with the audit sheet

Work references/profile-audit-sheet.md one clinician and one directory at a time. The sheet scores identity and credentials, who the work is for, money and access, voice and fit, and cross directory consistency.

The failures that show up most:

• Specialty lists checked off for search coverage rather than for training. Twelve issues is not a specialty list, it is a directory gaming list, and a reader in crisis cannot tell which two are real
• A credential or title the clinician does not hold, or doctoral sounding wording on a masters level license
• Fees and insurance copied from a group practice page onto a clinician who is not on that panel
• An availability line from two years ago on a practice with a waitlist
• Telehealth offered with no state limit stated, which reads as an offer to practice anywhere

Fix the profile at the source, then fix every other place the same fact appears: the website, the Google Business Profile, and the other directories, in the same pass.

4. Draft website copy in the clinician's voice

Voice comes from the clinician, not from therapy marketing stock phrases. Gather it the clean way:

• Record or transcribe the clinician explaining, in their own words, who they work with, how a first session goes, and what they say when the fit is wrong. Intake call language and the clinician's own session framing are the source. Nothing a client said is source material
• Pull three phrases the clinician actually uses and build around them. Cut any sentence they would never say out loud
• Read the draft aloud. If it sounds like a brochure for a spa, a hospital system, or a coaching program, it is not this clinician's voice yet

Structure that holds up on a home page and an about page: who this is for, what working together looks like, who should look elsewhere, the practical facts (fee, insurance, location, telehealth states, how to book), the limits of confidentiality in plain words, and a crisis route. Outcome language does not appear in any of those sections, because none of them need it.

5. Run the scanner, then run the five question check

python3 scripts/audit_claims.py --copy draft.txt --facts practice-facts.json

The scanner reports two severities. A block is language or a fact mismatch that stops the shipment: outcome guarantees, cure and elimination claims, timed results, superlatives with no checkable source, absolute confidentiality, client stories, testimonial solicitation aimed at clients, and any credential, state, modality, panel or fee that is in the copy and not in the facts file. A review item is a claim that needs its evidence note written down before it ships: expert, specializes, trauma informed, evidence based, sliding scale, accepting new clients, in network.

Exit code 1 means at least one block. Exit code 0 with review items still means work to do.

Then work references/claims-and-ethics-check.md by hand. The five questions, in order: is it true today for this clinician, could they back it in front of the licensing board, does it promise or imply a result, does it use a client in any form, and is the commercial relationship visible where someone else is speaking. The scanner cannot judge net impression, a composite story, or a photo that implies a result. The human read covers those.

6. Rewrite policies in plain language

Work references/plain-language-policies.md. It lists the eight policies a practice site needs and gives before and after pairs for cancellation, confidentiality limits, and contact between sessions.

Two rules govern this step. First, the website policy and the intake paperwork must say the same thing, in the same numbers and the same windows. Second, plain language is not softer language. A cancellation policy that says a fee may apply when a fee always applies is less honest than the blunt version, and a stressed reader deserves the blunt version.

7. Build the newsletter as a publication, not a client channel

• The list comes from a newsletter signup form and nothing else. Keep the signup source recorded per send, and never merge in a client roster, a waitlist, or an inquiry list that came from people asking about treatment
• Write each issue as general information for a general reader. No reader's situation gets answered, no issue is aimed at a diagnosis group drawn from the caseload, and no issue uses what the clinician learned in sessions that week
• Carry a standing line in every issue: this is general information, not therapy, replies are not monitored for emergencies, and here is the crisis route. In the United States that is call or text 988 for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, per SAMHSA, checked at send time
• Follow the commercial email rules summarized from the FTC CAN-SPAM compliance guide: accurate From and routing information, a subject line that matches the content, a valid physical postal address in the footer (a street address or a registered box, not a home address the clinician has not chosen to publish), a clear opt out that keeps working for at least 30 days, and opt outs honored within 10 business days with no fee, no login and no extra personal information demanded
• Keep sends on a tool that handles unsubscribes automatically. A clinician forwarding a newsletter from a personal inbox to a hand kept list will eventually mail someone who opted out

examples/newsletter-issue.md is a full worked issue with the review notes shown next to each part.

8. Worked examples

Website. examples/website-bad.txt, run with examples/practice-facts.json, reports 14 block and 7 review. The blocks stack up fast because one draft can break several rules at once: a best practice superlative, a PsyD the fictional clinician does not hold, Florida named when the facts file lists Texas only, a guaranteed result in 6 sessions, a cure claim for EMDR (also a modality that is not in the facts file), a client story, Medicare named when the panels are Aetna and Cigna, a $95 fee when the fee is $150, an absolute confidentiality promise, and a line asking current clients for five star reviews. examples/website-fixed.txt reports 0 block and 4 review. Those 4 review items are the worked lesson: telehealth across Texas clears because Texas is the licensed state, in network with Aetna and Cigna clears because both panels are in the facts file, the confidentiality line clears because it names limits and points to them, and the accepting new clients line clears because it carries a date. Each clearance gets written in the audit record, not assumed.

Profile. examples/profile-bad.txt reports 2 block and 6 review on language alone: fix your anxiety is a symptom elimination promise, and you will feel better is a direct outcome promise. The human read adds the finding the scanner only flags as a review item: a twelve item specialty list from one clinician is not credible, and leading expert with a proven method has no evidence behind either word. examples/profile-fixed.txt, run with the facts file, reports 0 block and 1 review. The surviving review item is the in network line, cleared by the panel entries in the facts file. The fixed profile does the persuasive work with fit instead: who tends to do well here, who should go elsewhere, and exactly what the first step is.

9. Sign off, date everything, and recheck on a cycle

The clinician approves public claims about their own practice before they ship. An assistant, an agency or an agent prepares, checks and records, and does not publish alone. APA 5.02 leaves responsibility with the clinician either way, so the approval step is not courtesy, it is the structure.

Keep the audit record: the facts file version, the copy as shipped per channel, the scanner output, the review clearances with their evidence, the state board rule pulled for this license, and the approval name and date.

Recheck the fast rotting facts on a fixed cycle the practice chooses and writes down: availability and fees first, then panels, then license states and modalities. Any change to one of those facts triggers the same sweep across website, directories and Google profile in the same pass, not when someone notices.

Output Contract

Return all of the following:

1. The practice facts file, with the source and check date for each field, and any field that could not be verified left marked unverified
2. The profile audit sheet, filled in per clinician and per directory: field, score, evidence, and the fix applied
3. The drafted or revised copy per channel (website pages, directory profiles, newsletter issue), each piece traced to the facts it relies on
4. Scanner output for every piece of copy, plus the five question check answers for every review item, with the evidence that cleared it or the cut that resolved it
5. The policy pages in plain language, checked line by line against the intake paperwork, with any mismatch listed
6. The newsletter setup record: where the list came from, confirmation that no client record source feeds it, the footer and opt out check, and the crisis line used
7. The sign off record: what shipped, where, on what date, checked against which facts file version, and the clinician's approval

If a surface is already clean, say so in the same format with the checks named. Clean means the facts were verified, the scanner ran, and the five questions were answered, not that the copy read well.

Operating Rules

1. No client data in marketing, ever. Not a story, not a quote, not a disguised case, not a mailing list export, not an ad platform audience upload. If an idea needs client material to work, the idea is out.
2. The facts file is the only source of claims. Copy never gets ahead of it. When the practice changes, the file changes first and the copy follows in the same pass.
3. Never solicit testimonials or reviews from current clients, never pay or condition anything on a review, never suppress a negative one. This rests on APA 5.05, ACA C.3.b and NASW 4.07(b) on the ethics side and on the FTC Consumer Review Rule, 16 CFR Part 465, on the advertising side.
4. Describe the work, the fit and the process. Do not describe the reader's future. No cures, no guarantees, no outcomes with a session count, no transformations.
5. Credentials, fees and panels are stated exactly or not at all. Fees are a named accuracy category in APA 5.01, and a stale availability line is the same kind of misstatement as a wrong price.
6. Confidentiality is always stated with its limits. Absolute confidentiality is a false claim, and it is also a promise the clinician cannot keep.
7. The clinician stays responsible for every public statement, including copy written by staff, agencies and AI tools. Nothing ships on the practice's surfaces without the clinician's approval of the final text.
8. Public content is general information. It does not diagnose, treat or advise a specific reader, it does not create a therapy relationship, and posts on distressing topics carry a crisis route checked at posting time.
9. State rules vary and they bind. Pull the advertising and title rules from the clinician's own licensing board during the audit and record what they say. Where a board rule and this skill differ, the stricter one governs.
10. Worked examples in this skill are fictional. Harbor Lane Counseling and Jordan Ellis, LCSW are invented, and their fees, panels and states illustrate the checks, not a real practice.

References

• Profile audit sheet: field by field scoring for directory and Google profiles, with the evidence each field needs and the review reply trap.
• Claims and ethics check: the five questions, the full review and testimonial rule set, health efficacy claims, and social post rules.
• Plain language policies: the eight policy pages a practice site needs, with before and after rewrites.
• Worked examples in examples/: practice-facts.json, website-bad.txt, website-fixed.txt, profile-bad.txt, profile-fixed.txt and newsletter-issue.md.
• Primary sources: APA Ethics Code Standard 5 and 4.07, at apa.org and in the code text hosted at law.cornell.edu; ACA Code of Ethics (2014) sections C.3 and C.4, at counseling.org; NASW Code of Ethics sections 4.06 and 4.07, at socialworkers.org; HHS HIPAA marketing guidance under 45 CFR 164.501 and 164.508(a)(3), at hhs.gov; FTC Health Products Compliance Guidance (2022), the FTC Endorsement Guides as revised in 2023, and the FTC Consumer Review Rule at 16 CFR Part 465, at ftc.gov; the FTC CAN-SPAM compliance guide requirements for commercial email; the Federal Plain Language Guidelines at plainlanguage.gov; SAMHSA crisis resources at samhsa.gov.