Video: How I Started a Private Practice as a Nurse Practitioner

Video Transcript

Nicole Schultz, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (NP): We spend most of our life at work. I didn't want these years to go by so quickly that I didn't feel like I had meaningful time with our children, and one of our values that we had always discussed as a couple was being able to spend time with the children especially when they were young. Can I find a balance where if I wanted to, let's say, work three days instead of five days a week, that I would be able to do that and it would not sacrifice the care that I provide to my patients or sacrifice my family.

( One of Nicole's children passes by the camera and laughs, saying, I'm not looking at the camera, not looking at the camera! )

My name is Nicole Schultz, I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I practice as a nurse practitioner, as well as owning Mindful Psychiatry, which is a tele-psychiatry business.

When I was 12, one of my providers was a nurse practitioner. Even as a young pre-teen, I felt like I was part of my treatment. I loved the fact that with this provider, she approached it more in an inclusive manner. I felt like we were making a decision together. That was the moment I decided that I wanted to go to nursing school, and then also to become a nurse practitioner.

When I went to look at, you know, what schools are there and where to go and how to achieve that, I chose a university that offered a BSN that then went into a nurse practitioner, and it had that continuity.

So as a nurse practitioner, in totality it's six years of study: four years in undergraduate, where you graduate with your Bachelor's of Science in Nursing [BSN], and then two years in one specialized area. When I entered school I wasn't really sure what area I was going to specialize in. What I found, though, was that mental health and learning about psychiatry...it always felt natural. The material was so interesting and so engaging, and then actually working with clients, it gave me that opportunity to have a very partnered experience, and that was where it crystallized. Like, at the last minute I changed my application and I said, You know what, this is the path that I want to take.

I started working in community mental health, which is a great experience to be able to kind of see the full gamut at all levels of severity with mental health. But from there, kind of evolving into working in private practice as an independent contractor, and then really starting to think about what do I want for my patients, what do I want to enact? And then making that transition to being a business owner. I get to love my job and I also have the best person that I trust taking care of the other side of it, so that I can really focus on the parts that I love the most.

Tony is my husband, he was kind of my go-to person when I was trying to think about and formulate and plan, and I started to think, Well wait, I really like working with you, you know, this could be something. You know, we've made two beautiful babies together, we're great at raising them and navigating differences of opinions sometimes and those natural challenges that come up, why not make a business baby together?

But we also kept some realism to it — there were going to be challenges, what things might come up that might happen that we could foresee that we could talk about before it ever happened, just to make sure this was the right decision for us? We were actually walking at the park and I turned to him and I got down on one knee and I said, Will you be my business partner?

Our business, it's grown in the past year and we have two staff — I call them team members, because really it's not possible to do what we do without their involvement, and without them being as amazing as they are. I think the model that we follow allows the best access to care for patients, the best responsiveness, and also a really fulfilling and satisfying model for providers. It's the best of both worlds!