Ep 29 | Finding Stability in Entrepreneurship with Mary Brown

What does it look like to go from contract UX researcher to business owner?  Not by launching something from scratch, but by buying a company that was already running? In this episode of In Her Words, I sit down with Mary Brown, co-owner and COO of Your Therapy Billing, an insurance billing company supporting small and mid-size therapy clinics.

Mary shares how repeated layoffs in tech sparked a search for something more stable and self-directed, how the loss of her mother reframed what she wanted from her career, and what the first nine months of owning a small business actually feels like from the inside.

Topics Discussed in the Episode

• How layoffs in UX and tech led Mary to rethink her career path
• Discovering entrepreneurship through acquisition and the community that made it possible
• Why she chose an unglamorous, recession-proof business over a sexy one
• The biggest personal shift moving from individual contributor to business owner
• Navigating the day-to-day realities of owning and operating a small business
• Why insurance billing is so broken and why that makes her work matter

About Mary Brown

Mary Brown is the Co-Owner and Chief Operating Officer of Your Therapy Billing, an insurance billing company supporting small and mid-sized therapy clinics. She spent eight years in UX research at companies like LinkedIn and Pinterest, helping teams navigate uncertainty by deeply understanding people and turning ambiguity into clear decisions. After experiencing layoffs, the instability of the job market, and profound personal loss, Mary chose not to wait for permission or the “perfect” next role. Instead, she made a bold pivot into small business ownership. 

In April 2025, she acquired Your Therapy Billing and now leads the company with a focus on growth, smarter systems, and solving real pain points. Her journey is shaped by resilience, adaptability, and a belief that women don’t need linear paths to build meaningful, successful careers. They just need the courage to redefine them.

Connect with Mary Brown on LinkedIn 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I just started seeing a lot of content around entrepreneurship through acquisition and started like seeing things on LinkedIn. I started following some more people. It was just kind of, it just happened. And then I was like, this is interesting. I'm gonna research this. For some reason, I feel like some people like see this and are like, oh my God, I would never do that. That seems wild and great. I was like, wait, can I do this? Like.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Welcome to In Her Words. This podcast is for women navigating through change, career, identity, motherhood, and just figuring out what's next. I'm Roberta Dembrowski, host of In Her Words and founder of Learn Mindfully. Each episode, I sit down with women who are asking big questions, navigating transitions, and trying to make sense of life as it shifts. You don't have to have it all figured out. You just need space to be real. Let's get into it. With me today, I have Mary Brown. She is the co-owner and chief operating officer of Your Therapy Billing, an insurance billing company supporting small and mid-sized therapy clinics. Welcome, Mary. Thank you. Happy to be here. I'm so excited to have you on and catch up on all the things. We met over three years ago when you were a researcher at LinkedIn. Seems like many lifetimes ago. Wow. For sure. I'm curious what was your experience in corporate and as a user researcher like?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, I mean, I'd say lots of great things. You know, I really thought I was gonna be the type of person working in corporate America forever, and you know, climbing that ladder and, you know, getting to leadership levels and all that stuff. And it's funny how events just lead to different paths. I think like after, you know, around it was a probably around three, maybe a little over three years, closer to four, coming up on the spring when all those layoffs really started to happen. And I feel like there was just such a big landscape shift that we saw in UX research, design, tech. We're still seeing it today. And that just like really started to lead to a lot of questions around the stability of the career path and what it looked like. And, you know, is this something that can be sustained long term? And after being laid off once, like I was able lucky enough to find work at, you know, LinkedIn and Pinterest, but it was all contract. I was having a really hard time finding full-time roles and long-winded way of saying had a great experiences, worked with amazing people. I think, like, you know, people in UX and Design are some of the smartest people I've encountered. So creative, so thoughtful. But at the end of the day, I think that there's just a lot of still question marks around like, how do you ensure that this is something that can kind of withholds many, many years of a career? And I was starting to doubt that.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Yeah, absolutely. And I'd say, like, you feeling that three years ago, and then to this moment it's still happening. I read some statistics that said just last year in 2025 that it was like 1.5 million women have been laid off from the workforce, which is staggering, staggering numbers for sure. It sounds like a huge thing that you were looking for was stability within the path.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah, I think it especially when you and I first met and started connecting, it was like, how do I kind of I think I I think one of the things I was struggling with is like, how do I just have a bit more ownership of like what the future looks like? And, you know, how do I kind of just feel more confident, like the path that I'm creating for myself? And I, you know, when you start dealing with layoffs and unsure of what the next three months, six months is gonna look like, that it starts to really become hard to envision that. So yeah, I was definitely struggling with that a lot, especially I think when when you and I first started chatting.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah. I think that one thing too, like work is one component of our lives. And then when it becomes destabilizing, it tends to kind of seep out into other areas too, where it makes you it makes it difficult to plan like a vacation or time or friends and family. And so there's just a lot of unknowns.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah, I think I I had just moved back from Chicago back to the East Coast as like a way to try to find more opportunities that were going back into the office and just more opportunities in general based out of New York. And then all these like I got a job and then was like laid off seven weeks later, and then I was like, all right, well, this isn't going out I anticipated, so to figure it out. I mean, I I I really was very lucky in like five, you know, finding things. I wasn't unemployed for very long. And but again, it was it was still like for LinkedIn, I was ended up being there for 18 months, but it was all these like six-month contract, and it was like there was just never any a reassurance that it was gonna be longer term than that.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm curious when you so you when you were doing the contract work, it sounds like you felt the uneasiness of like, is this contract gonna be renewed? What's going on? How did it, how did you end up in entrepreneurship? What was that journey like? Were you kind of exploring that along the way?

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Yeah, that really when did that start? Really digging into and pursuing that started about two years ago, I'd say. And so it was while I was at LinkedIn, kind of coming up towards the end, and I knew at 18 months that it was gonna be that they weren't gonna be able to renew after that, and they also didn't have any full-time roles open, so it was kind of like, all right, it's pretty clear I'm gonna have to move on. But then also, you know, not to bring a downer into the conversation, but my mom passed away in the fall of 23, and that just also led to like a lot of what am I doing with my life? And am I doing things that fulfill me? And you know, she unfortunately didn't really get to enjoy her retirement, and that has like stayed with me a lot and continues to stay with me, of like doing things now to enjoy them now and not have to wait for this big like moment of retirement in order to like kind of start like enjoying. Not that she didn't, you know, have joyful moments or do things that she wanted to do, but all of that just you know, that was happening at the same time of going through that, knowing I was needing to find a different path at LinkedIn. And then I I just started seeing a lot of content around entrepreneurship through acquisition and started like seeing things on LinkedIn. I started following some more people. It was just kind of it just happened, and then I was like, this is interesting. I'm gonna research this. For some reason, I feel like some people like see this and are like, oh my god, I would never do that. That seems wild and crazy. And I was like, wait, what? Can I do this? Like I started reading books. Yeah, I mean, after I after my contract at LinkedIn and ended, I ended up taking some time off and I traveled for a few months. And after going through the process of kind of wrapping everything up after my mom passed, and just took some time for myself and can it continue to explore like researching it. And when I got back, I I I found some communities for people that were trying to find like their first business. And I knew that like just having very little entrepreneurial background, I was gonna need a support system to kind of help. So when I got back and I was kind of like resettling into real life, I decided I was gonna find a job again, but then I was also going to start exploring this more seriously and join a community for people to kind of help them find businesses for sale and navigate that process. And so I kind of just took it a bit more seriously and was like, all right, I think this is something that I want to figure out if I'm capable and able to do it and if I can find something that will work. But it was again, it was all about I think the draw initially was having more ownership of the decisions that I'm making and what my career looks like, what my day looks like, what I'm working on, the impact that I'm having. You know, I think just kind of going back to the world of research, you know, so much of what we're constantly asked for, and it makes sense and it's it's so important is like what's the re what's the impact of the research that you're doing and what's the and sometimes it can be challenging to always have those answers and know that and and to really ensure you're making that direct impact. And for me, I I felt like entrepreneurship was gonna be maybe a little bit more of like you really do immediately see the impact that you're doing, and that has held true. So yeah, the reasons I was kind of deeply started pursuing that was just because I think I was just trying to figure out like what what can what what are some of the things that I've been missing that I can try to fulfill in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Yeah, it's so interesting because I remember our conversations when we first started working together and you would talk about autonomy and impact, and those threads have continued to sustain into this new path that you're on as well. I am curious. It it seems like you mentioned, like, oh, I started to get surfaced all this content related to entrepreneurship. It's like the algorithm was listening and it dropped it for me. Right, yeah, it really but it seems like it started as this little like thought and then pursuing the curiosity through self-learning and connecting with the community. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about the community aspect of it. What type of community did you end up joining? Was it like a chamber of converse or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

No, not exactly. So, you know, one of there in this space, like ETA acquisition through entrepreneurship, there's you know started to be like quite a number of like bigger influencers and people talking about it. You know, Cody Sanchez is a big one out there, the guy that wrote Buy Then Builds, Walker Dibel, like he's another big person in this space. And so these people that have gone through this path of like buying businesses and kind of creating these like called hold codes of companies that they now own started, you know, sharing how they did it, their experience, building, you know, communities. And then the that's what like they based a lot of these folks started building communities to help others go through the process and like share their learnings. And I ended up joining a community, not one of those two that those two folks had started, but another one that a woman, Helen Goh, who was another kind of like again, like I started seeing her content. She was starting her draft newsletters. What I found really interesting about Helen versus the others is that she would write this newsletter that evaluated businesses that were for sale and talked about like what she liked about like what was interesting about them, what she would want to dig into more. And it was very analytical. And like that really helped me start to figure out how do you understand like what's good and what's bad about a business when they're trying to sell it. And why I was drawn to her from the get-go just with the type of content that she was putting out. And she, you know, started this community again for people trying to go through the process and just what they were offering just was a bit more compelling than some of the other ones that were out there, and just kind of took a leap of faith and and ended up joining it. And it was, I wouldn't, I don't think I talk about this a lot for people that reach out to me asking about my experience. Like, I there's no way I would be here if I hadn't joined that community. Like so many resources, so many just like other people going through similar things, the advisors, the people that have gone through this and have the experience to to share knowledge. Like, there's no buying a business is a crazy thing to do. It's so really difficult and challenging. And there's no way I would have been able to figure it out had I not been in, you know, a group of people that have gone through it and like talked through like, don't do this or this seems like okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

It sounds amazing. And it sounds like the community too, even when you talk about the analyzing of the businesses and what went well and didn't go well, relates to like your experience as a researcher. Like I could see that being so interesting of going and reviewing cases and stuff like that. So yeah, for sure. Very cool. How so you're now COO of your therapy billing? How did this come about? How did you find this company? Why this company? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah, great question. So I joined this community called SMB Deal Hunter in July of 24. So like a year and a half ago from now. And I was in the program for about three or four months. I was working full-time at Pinterest while I was kind of pursuing businesses. And in they have different ways. There's different, there's always different ways you can find businesses for sale. There, some are listed just like a house would be on the market, and they're listed through brokers. And but then there's also always ways to kind of figure out like try to reach out to businesses that might be willing to sell, but just haven't, you know, listed their business. And so the program had various ways of helping you find both on-market opportunities of businesses that were listed and then off-market. So without going into like too much more detail, I ended up connecting with Matt, the owner of the company, through like an off-market connection through the community that I was in. So he got an email that, you know, I was, you know, interested in potentially talking about buying his business. We got connected, we started talking and really kind of hit it off initially. So he had started this insurance billing company 10 years ago and had been running it. And the initial so one of the reasons why I was interested in one of the things you learn about is when you're trying to do this path is like don't go after the really cool, sexy, like, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

I was gonna say insurance billing is not kind of the sexy choice.

unknown 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

It's not, but it's a necessary service, it's steady cash flow. You want to go after things that have steady, recurring revenue. And that was like one of the first things that got hammered into me is like finding businesses. B2B is often a little bit better than B2C, you know, recurring revenue, things that are gonna like recession proof. You know, you don't want to go after like stupid new technology, like when you're trying to buy like a small business that's gonna sustain over time, you know, it's it's very different than like what we're used to, like trying to go and work for the hottest new tech company that has all this funding, but hasn't made a single dollar and is just, you know. It's a very different mindset in terms of you know the type of companies that I was attracted to. But so and and Helen in her newsletter was always like like had glowing reviews of like insurance billing companies. She'd be like, I love this company, it had, you know, great cash flow, you know, all these things. People always need insurance billing. And the more I got into it and talking to Matt about his company and what they focused on. So they they and this happens a lot of time when you do insurance billing, is you tend to focus on a specific niche. Like maybe you focus on hospitals or you focus on orthopedics or specialties. And and he had started with therapy practices. So speech therapists, OTs, mental health, and insurance billing is a huge pain in the butt for practices. Like it is insurance companies make it really difficult to get paid. You have to go through all these hoops, it's a lot of administrative burden, but it's so important because it's how therapy practices stay in business. And so I knew that what I when I was looking for a business, I wanted to make sure that I was like very obviously solving like a clear pain point, going back to my like UX research mindset and that I could get behind what that pain point was, what that problem was, that I could kind of stand behind that, and that I could learn that I felt like it was something that I could learn the business, that I could wrap my head around. Like I wasn't gonna go into a business that I was like, you know, there were there's all these like manufacturing and types of things. I was like, I don't know about that. So just after initial conversations, I was like, I this, I get it, this makes sense. Obviously, there's a lot of nuances of insurance billing that I didn't know about, but I was like, I understand why people would want this, how it helps, you know, this the the the service that we provide is a necessary and needed one, and I can get behind it. So that was like a big thing for me going in and like when I was just looking at businesses from the get-go. And one of the things is kind of building that rapport with someone that you're gonna buy a business from. Like Matt still is in the business and is also still a a part owner. And so, you know, we're still working together and I'm still, you know, learning from him all the time. But like that really is important, like to have to kind of have that trust and knowing that you can work with this person. You want it, I think it's really important. Like, even if you don't end up working with them in the long run, like knowing that you could work with someone, yeah, business you're buying, is a really important part of the process.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

So yeah, I'm sure there's knowledge transfer and just like you want to speak the same language as the same person. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm curious because you mentioned that your business owner is like the co-owner, he's still involved in the business. Acquisition, like for folks who've been through it, can be very politically involved. There's a lot of emotion, ego, all of that. How has that happened? Because you're coming out, coming into the business as an outsider, but someone who cares deeply about the space wants it to do well. How has that transition been going?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yeah, it's been honestly, from my perspective, pretty good. Like I, you know, one of the reasons that I have like a COO title is, you know, we didn't want to like ruffle too many feather, like Matt is the CEO and you know, has has been. And even with me kind of the kind of the conversation was I'm coming in as like a new partner. And, you know, kind of that was how we explained it both to the team internally, but then also to our customers. And we didn't I felt really strongly about like not wanting to like ruffle too many feathers or make it seem like there were all these crazy changes happening at first. And so that was like a very not everyone does the things like that. There's a lot of different ways to go about acquisitions, but I felt very strongly about like making sure people felt safe and secure and like there wasn't like a lot of change happening. So that's why we did things and we weren't sure initially like if Matt was gonna like stay in the business post-star transition period. That was something that we figured out along the way. But I would say I tried really hard again to just sit and learn for the first few months. Like I made no major changes, I was just a sponge. Those first few months were literally some of the most exhausting of my life trying to like learn six to seven different jobs all at once. And just building like rapport with the team and just kind of getting to know them and not like coming in as like this new, all right, we're making all these big, I didn't even know what changes would or should be made, you know. I'm just trying to learn how things operate and how we do the work that we do. Same with clients, just started trying to get to know them. So to me, I think that was a good way of like trying to kind of sustain the piece and not really rock the boat in any way, um, was just reassuring that this is meant to be a positive and to help us grow and to help us get, you know, get new clients and to expand. And it's not really meant to like all your jobs are now no longer relevant and all this stuff. So it was it was about letting listening, learning, sitting back and just getting to know the functions.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Yeah, yeah. It sounds like your experience as a researcher probably benefited you in that environment because a lot of the research work is rapport building, the trust. Yeah, yeah. I hope so. Yeah. What was like the you essentially were going from like an individual contributor contract type role to now business owner? What surprises, what's been like the biggest transition for you personally?

SPEAKER_01 21:18

I thought about this a lot. I had like an aha moment a couple months ago because I start, I was, I was like constantly being like, am I doing a good job? Like, am I doing like am I the the the the validation of like you know, is how you get validation is it's so different. And like there's no one like doing performance checks with you or like you know, figuring out like this is what you gotta work on. This is what, you know, that's that's all internal of like I've had to come to realize that the way that I need to evaluate my performance, and again, there this is something that is not set in stone, and there's probably lots of other things to include here. But at the end of the day, it's is my team happy? Is my team supported? Are my clients happy? Are my clients supported? That's how I need to kind of like consider my success. And that's so different than being in an individual contributor role. And so that was a big learning and a big shift for me of like constantly being like, am I doing like, you know, am I doing a good job? And I would, I was in the beginning, I don't really do it anymore, but I I was kind of going to mad. I'm like, am I doing okay? So that that's that's different. And just, you know, you're the the what you know, we're used to this like performance cycle and these reviews and you know how you trying to set yourself up for success for promotion and getting ahead. And when you're the doing the small business run, it's are you growing? Are you growing your clients? Are you improving your profitability? How are you doing it? Are you, you know, bringing on new team members? Are you keeping them happy? It's totally different set of things.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Yeah, absolutely. And I like what you said about the am I keeping my teammates happy? My clients and then employees. And then also I feel like there's a component of like, am I happy with the work that I'm doing too? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah. That, yeah. And that's in, I mean, the first few months, it's just you're just drinking from a water hose and a fire true hydrant. And like it is, I finally feel like I'm at a place where I know how things work, and like I'm not like constantly like overwhelmed and exhausted with just the amount of information that I'm learning. It's been what, nine months, I guess. And so that's been a big shift. And yeah, I mean, there's definitely things I don't love about it. And you know what things? Tell us. Well, um, I mean, so one of the big things, and this is a constant struggle when you're like going into small business and how small you buy, is how involved in the day-to-day are you gonna be as the owner operator? And there's a lot of different philosophies out there. Some people are like, don't get in the day-to-day. You're you will get trapped in the weeds, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

But for me as someone at the size business that I bought, and also not having owned a business before, not having this like operator experience, I felt it was important to get involved in the day-to-day to learn the business and to understand like how to eventually make strategic decisions, how to, you know, improve our sales and marketing. I've I need I was like, I couldn't. You have a rough one to do the work. So I am at this, you know, interesting inflection point where we have been able to grow, we have been bringing on new clients. I've been taking those on as like an account manager. So I am like one of our account managers and you know, onboarding new clients, in addition to, you know, kind of all the other stuff that comes with owning a business. And it's getting to a point where I need to pass that on to someone. And, you know, it's like the constant question of does the does the cash flow support a new hire? Like that is like those conversations of when am I comfortable like spending money that maybe isn't really there yet? Because the the revenue cycle of this work, you bring on a client, but it takes a few months before you really start to see that. So you're you're working before you're really seeing the income from that. So there those that's that's been a challenge of just like trying to figure out like, I I want to pass off this work. I I will eventually hire someone. I probably should have done it two months ago. You know, I go through I do definitely go through moments where I feel uh uh quite a bit overwhelmed and just have a little bit on my plate. But again, it's the nature of the role. And I kind of knew that that was gonna be the case for the first you know year or two, maybe even three years, where I was gonna have to be putting in the putting in the the the time and and energy and like really getting into it and getting to know it. Like I I can't imagine any other way. Like I just don't like now. I'm I I need to elevate myself out a little bit more, and it'll take some time to get there. But that so with that, that's been a little bit of a a challenge of just kind of I'm doing a little bit more of like, you know, yeah, data entry work sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Yeah, prefer not to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Something I it's it's a common thing that I hear from founders about it's it's essentially what we're talking about is energy management and where are you spending your energy within the business itself? I'm curious because you you touched on your mother's experience of not hitting retirement and being able to enjoy that time. What does life outside of work look like for you? Do you feel like you have good work-life balance or is it kind of first three years you're fully in the business?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

It varies. I would say I'm trying really hard to set some boundaries. I'm really, I really, really try very hard to set solid boundaries with the team. Like I never have any expectations for them to be working like beyond like a nine to five schedule or you know, things like that. So, and like I, as someone that would get anxious when things like this would happen, like I don't really send like emails late at night or you know, on you know, or I'll like schedule sends and I try to be very, very conscious of that. It ebbs and flows. I am in a good period right now. Like I'm I play pickleball. I play like two or three days a week. I've been good about like working out and strength training as you're supposed to be doing as a in your 30s. You know, I've I I'm not like working 12 hour days, seven days a week. I try not to work a lot on the weekends. If I work, like really I don't work on Saturdays. Occasionally I'll work out do some stuff on Sundays. And during the day, like it kind of depends. Like sometimes I'm able to, you know, have like a pretty normal day. Other times I do work like 12 hours. It really just there's always work to be done. I could easily be working more. I probably should be working more than I actually am, but I am trying to have some semblance of a life outside of work.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

Amazing. Amazing. Not all founders can say that, not all entrepreneurs can say that.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

So I think it's partly just my mindset. Like, I especially in the beginning, again, going back to just like the mental load of like learning everything all at once. Like I would get to a point at five or six where I literally couldn't process or do anything else. Like that is not really the case anymore with just that, you know, mental load exhaustion. But that was, I was like, I should be doing more, I should be like learning more about this or figuring this out. And I was like, I physically can't. Like it it just became so, you know, good for the people that can do 12-hour days, seven days a week. Like it is, I am not built that way. I don't think they are either. Something's something's letting them do it. Yeah, but if I if like there was something where I had to take care of it Tuesday night and it had to get done, and I, you know, had to cancel a plan in order to do that. So things come up, but it that's that's that's not a regular occurrence. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Looking back over the last few months, what's been the biggest surprise with the transition?

SPEAKER_01 29:35

I mean, what I talked about with just kind of like the sense of validation was a big one. I think, oh, you know what, you know what's interesting is I, you know, I never really had a like like worked in sales before. And now a big part of my job is sales, like is getting new clients and and getting them onboarded and you know, speaking to the value that we offer and just trying to grow our business. And I really like it. I've been surprised at how much I enjoy sales and like getting a new client and closing a deal. And I think that goes just back to kind of like seeing the true direct impact. Like there's nothing more direct than like, all right, I can this is what's this is gonna impact the revenue in this way. And that's been really nice and just surprise that I didn't really expect was kind of how much I would enjoy that aspect of. And obviously, when sales don't go well, or like when you have not great calls, like that's not great, but it's just this whole part of the process, how much I enjoy it and would like to spend more time on it, has has been a surprise.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Very cool. I'm curious. So from a systemic level, we all know health insurance, billing, all that pain in the butt, even as a consumer. I'm curious how has your how has that gone for you? What's your perspective of like insurance companies now that you're you're on the other side, you're helping these providers, therapists, yeah, with support.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Not more positive than it was before, that's for sure. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it is a it is insane how hard it is to get paid for work that you do. Insurance companies make it incredibly challenging. And yeah, it's it's like the it's we I think we see a lot of it on the consumer end of things from you know, just how people talk about it in social media and LinkedIn and the challenges of healthcare. But like it is also a huge struggle for providers. Like, and you know, I think sometimes as a consumer, you're like, oh, that's annoying that they don't accept this insurance or blah, blah, blah. I'm like the I'm now learning, like, there is a whole process like that you have to go through to get what's called credentialed with an insurance company in order to accept that insurance. And like it takes months, if not longer. The reimbursement rates vary significantly. There, there's there's a lot more to like whether a provider accepts or doesn't accept an insurance. And I think like we just kind of take for granted. And it like insurance companies could care less about whether a therapy clinic or any clinic or any provider is like keeping their lights on or paying their bills, you know. They'll do the the the crazy the amount of like denials that we see for that are like just complete BS, it's yeah, it's pretty wild. So yeah, and like they just have all the power. Like there's really nothing like you can like do. Like you just have to keep nagging and I think the why businesses like like ours is are so important and valuable, and like insurance companies are banking on, like if you deny a claim that a provider's just like not gonna follow up or not gonna do anything about it, or not know how to do anything about it. And that happens a lot, and that's where like their cash flow starts to become, you know, a big problem. But that's where the benefit of hiring a company like ours is like we're not letting that go through. And like we're we're doing that with like that's our job is to do that annoying, like sit on the phone. Yeah like, let me talk to this person, wait, let me talk to that person, wait, let me call back and verify like what they said. I mean, that's how we get paid. Like, we're getting paid off like a percentage of what we collect on behalf, so it's like in our best interest to get as as much as we can. But yeah, I mean, but that that's what insurance companies are banking on, is that you're just gonna like leave it and not try to follow up.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Yeah, it's like they uh they beat you into submission with how difficult they make it, basically. Yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot of therapists say I'm only doing private pay just because they want to opt out of the insurance stuff, which is unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

So it and that can work and it but it also depends on geographically, where are you based? Like what's your you know, what type of service you're providing. And also like that's not every that like our health our system won't work if everyone moves to private pay. Like, yes, it it can work, and it can be a way that people stay especially with certain mental health specialties or certain types, but it's not, it can't be the for everyone, for everyone the way our system is now. So I think trying to find a balance and again, depending on what kind of specialty you are, like a healthy balance of both is what works best.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Well, we've had a wide-ranging conversation today. I'm curious if folks want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to reach out?

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Yeah, I would say finding me on LinkedIn, you know, Mary, Mary Brown, which is a pretty common name, but hopefully we'll drop the link, yeah. Mary Brown, your therapy billing, you can you can find me. Yeah. I I need to start kind of getting more out there and you know, posting more just about my my journey. And I kind of kept it quiet for the first couple months just during the whole transition and wanting to not just start like spewing out things that I didn't know what I was talking about. But yeah, that's that's probably the best way to get a hold of me. Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Well, I feel like this will be an excellent step for you and cannot wait for others to hear your story and your journey. On a personal note, it's been so wonderful to see your transition from research to now entrepreneurship. And yeah, like I remember you talking about wanting to acquire a company and look at you like you made it happen, you're in it, you're fully in the business right now. So yeah, it's really beautiful to see.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Thanks. Yeah, I appreciate it. And definitely some of the coaching along the way helped kind of get me in the right mindset to be here. So appreciate it for sure. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Thanks for being here. If something in this episode landed with you, feel free to pass it along to someone who might need it too. You can leave a review, subscribe, or just keep tuning in. We're figuring it out together. And remember, your story, your voice, your becoming. It all matters.