From Solo Therapist to a Growing Practice: Why She’s Offshoring Next | Feat. Katarzyna Dlugosz
For many founders, growth starts with doing almost everything yourself. Eventually, the business gets bigger than one person’s capacity.
Katarzyna Dlugosz knows that transition firsthand.
The Founder and Director of Katarzyna Dlugosz Mental Health Counseling, PLLC (KDMHC) began as a solo psychotherapist in New York City. What followed wasn’t a perfectly mapped expansion plan. Her practice grew alongside major changes in her own life, gradually taking her from independent clinician to the leader of a team that now includes 20 employees, five contractors, and more therapists onboarding.
In this episode of “The Philippine Business Playbook,” Katarzyna joins Bryan Loma to share the story behind that growth, including the moments that forced her to rethink what running a successful practice should look like.
When a Growing Practice Outgrows Its Founder
At one point, five therapists felt like KDMHC’s ceiling.
Katarzyna was still managing the admin, billing, paperwork, and operational responsibilities herself. She enjoyed the business side of the practice, but there was simply too much of it.
“I totally burned out.”
Hiring administrative support helped KDMHC move beyond that ceiling. But growth created another challenge: more therapists meant more scheduling, insurance verification, patient communication, paperwork, and coordination behind every appointment.
Her existing administrative team needed support too.
That realization eventually brought Katarzyna to offshoring.
Why She’s Looking to the Philippines Next
For a mental health practice, bringing someone into the business isn’t a decision made lightly.
Katarzyna had real questions around confidentiality, compliance, employment, and how an offshore professional could fit into a highly sensitive healthcare environment.
Tahche came to her through referrals from people she trusted. As she explored the model, what stood out was having a partner that could help navigate the complexities in the Philippines while also doing something she had very little time to do herself: find, screen, and narrow down the right candidates.
Her first offshore hire will help support the administrative work behind KDMHC, giving an already-growing team more room to focus on the work they do best.
But Katarzyna’s ambitions don’t end there.
A Bigger Team, Built Around a Simple Idea
One of the most interesting parts of Katarzyna’s story is how she thinks about growth itself.
KDMHC has become a diverse community of therapists, including international professionals, and Katarzyna wants the people joining her organization to have opportunities to learn, advance, and eventually build something of their own.
It reflects what she experienced when she first built her life and career in the United States.
“That is what I am trying to build and give back.”
Now, that philosophy is reaching the Philippines.
Katarzyna is already considering what comes next for KDMHC, including continued team growth and potentially another physical location in upstate New York. Offshoring gives her another way to build the support behind those ambitions without returning to the limits she experienced when she was trying to carry everything herself.
Her story raises a question every growing founder eventually has to answer: How much further could the business go if you no longer had to do so much of it yourself?
Watch the full episode of “The Philippine Business Playbook” to hear Katarzyna’s journey from solo therapist to business owner, why she chose Tahche, and what she’s building next.
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