Occasionally organizations are unsure whether it would be best to contract or hire a music therapist. Here are some of the pros and cons of each to help you decide what’s best for you.

When you are deciding whether to contract or hire a music therapist, you also need to consider what is best for your business model and how you want to best reach your patients, students, or clients.

Not all music therapists are the same, and neither is every music therapy company. They are as unique as the professionals who run them. But here are some of the pros and cons to hiring vs contracting if you are considering Harmony Music Therapy as a contractor.

DESIGNING A PROGRAM

Program design is an essential component to starting a music therapy program. In fact, it may be a deterrent for some organizations who are unsure of what it would look like and how to start. Here are the pros and cons to hiring vs. contracting when considering program design.

HIRING: When you hire, you have complete say in the structure, direction, and design of your program, without needing to work with the music therapist or work in tandem with a music therapy company.

PRO: It’s all in your hands and is completely internal

CON: It may be a new venture and will take additional research and learning to figure out your options and the best fit for your situation

CONTRACTING: When you contract with a music therapy company, you will most likely work with the company itself to design your program. The benefit of working with the company is that we have designed dozens of programs for companies just like yours, and we can offer valuable insight and suggestions for how to set it up.

PRO: You have access to resources and ideas that have worked well in other settings, and you will work with a therapist or team who know what they’re doing.

CON: You may not be able to design it exactly how you want if your design begins to step outside of our scope of practice and what we can offer (i.e. setting up excessively large groups and still calling it music therapy).

COST

As a business owner myself, I pay both contractors and employees to do music therapy work. I have set up contractual rates and hourly employee rates to even out in the end, and I decide how to pay them based on the type and amount of work they will be providing for me. When all is said and done, the cost for an employee and the cost for a contractor is within a few dollars difference.

 

HIRING: When you hire, you will pay a lower hourly rate but you will also pay their taxes, benefits, and cover all additional time working such as team meetings, planning/charting, and creative or professional development.

PRO: You can set an hourly rate

CON: You will pay taxes, benefits, and additional hours outside of the therapy session (team meetings, professional development, etc.)

 

CONTRACTING:When you pay a contractor you pay a higher rate per session, but you do not pay for any additional work such as team meetings or creative development, and insurance, benefits, or taxes. It all evens out in the end.

PRO: You do not need to pay taxes or any benefits or extra hours for the contractor. You simply send a 1099 at the end of the year.

CON: The cost will sound different initially because the per session rate is higher than an employee’s hourly rate

 

TURNOVER CONSIDERATIONS

Let’s face it. We live in an age when job hopping is the norm, and having consistent long term employees is rare.

When you have the responsibility to hire a large number of employees, and when those employees need specific sets of skills in order to do their job well, it can be overwhelming to find the right person for the right position when turnover is high.

So how does this impact whether you contract or hire a music therapist? Here are the pros and cons.

 

HIRING: When you hire internally, the responsibility to find the right person for the job rests solely on you. Because the field of music therapy is made up primarily of women, turnover is often high as these therapists frequently leave to start families or move to different locations.

PRO: You have complete control of who is providing on site services

CON: The burden rests solely on you to find the best therapist for your setting. This becomes especially difficult with high turnover rates.

CONTRACTING: When you contract with Harmony Music Therapy, we take on the responsibilities of finding the right talent and qualified therapists for the job. We do it for you. At Harmony Music Therapy we are well connected to the music therapy world, and we seek out the best, brightest, and most talented therapists in the industry and send them to you.

Of course, you will have the final say in deciding whether that therapist is the right fit. If you want someone else, just let us know!

PRO: You can rest and trust that Harmony Music Therapy will find the right therapist for your organization. 

CON: You don’t choose the therapist yourself (but we will change your on site therapist if you feel like it’s not a good fit)

 

HIGH QUALITY THERAPISTS

HIRING: Unless you are well connected in the music therapy world, you may not know what to look for when hiring a music therapist. Musicianship, clinical intuition, interpersonal skills, experience, and therapeutic knowledge are all considerations, and with a music therapist, the clinical musicianship is a big deal. It can be hard to gauge your candidate’s musical skills if you are not musical yourself.

But of course as you go through the hiring process you will have a sense of whether the candidate will be a good fit for your team in general. It just may be hard to determine whether their music therapy delivery will be top notch.

PRO: You can determine whether the candidate will be a good fit for your team

CON: It can be hard to determine whether the candidate has strong clinical musicianship skills, and whether they will be a high quality music therapist for your clients.

CONTRACTING: Our team at Harmony Music Therapy is top notch. We work well together, support one another, and only hire the most qualified therapists in our field. Our therapists have support from their fellow music therapists on the Harmony team, which is a big deal in this field. We also stay at the top of our clinical game by engaging as a team in regular music therapy trainings that are directly related to the needs of the clients we see.

We ensure that we are up to date on research, techniques, and evidence based practice by giving each therapist responsibilities specific to their unique specialties. Some of these responsibilities include reviewing the research, learning about related approaches to therapy, and writing their own expertise and experience. We do this to ensure that they are well informed and skilled when working with clients.

Because we are a team, our therapists are well supported and are at the top of their game.

PRO: When you contract with Harmony Music Therapy you are gaining access to some of the best therapists in the industry.

CON: You don’t choose the therapist yourself (but we will change your on site therapist if you feel like it’s not a good fit)