What if the system you were told would “fill your practice” is actually the thing keeping you underpaid and overwhelmed?
In this episode of The Money Sessions, Tiffany sits down with Katerina Pogosov, a therapist who spent 14 years working in school-based mental health before opening her private practice and encountering the same structures many therapists rely on—insurance panels and large therapy platforms promising steady referrals.
Instead of freedom, she found administrative friction, tech headaches, and a model that quietly capped both her income and autonomy.
Katerina started her practice charging $107 per session while relying heavily on insurance platforms. Over time, she began to see what many therapists eventually discover: the systems that promise “full caseloads” often create burnout, instability, and income ceilings.
So she made a different move.
Today, Katerina runs a private pay practice charging $265 per session, with a smaller, intentional caseload designed around sustainability and alignment with the clients she most wants to serve.
Her work now focuses on BIPOC professionals navigating identity, class mobility, money narratives, and generational expectations—a niche deeply connected to her own lived experience.
This conversation is about recognizing the scam many therapists were trained into, reclaiming agency over your practice model, and building a business that actually supports your life.
Listen to the episode:
In this episode, Katerina will share:
- Why insurance panels and therapy platforms can quietly cap therapist income
- The hidden administrative and emotional costs of relying on large therapy platforms
- How Katerina increased her fee from $107 to $265 per session
- Recognizing and stepping away from systems that keep therapists underpaid
- Creating a niche rooted in lived experience and cultural context
- Supporting BIPOC professionals navigating identity, money, and class mobility
- Designing a practice that prioritizes sustainability instead of burnout
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Resources mentioned
More about Katerina
Katerina Pogosov is the founder and owner of Fire Poppy Therapy™, a boutique psychotherapy practice in the SF Bay Area that works with BIPOC Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Xers. She specializes in supporting folks at the intersection of money, means, and melanin deal with the ambiguous anxiety that’s draining the joy from their accomplishments. Katerina is a liberation oriented therapist who centers real-ass connection and healing, and continues to stand on business as an AI-free therapist, because Connection Can’t Be Coded™.
