How TLA Therapy's Co-Founders Got Admin Work Off Their Clinical Caseloads

At a glance: TLA Therapy is a group therapy practice serving the Los Angeles area. Before working with Stellar Staff, its co-founders split the practice's administrative work among themselves, on top of their own clinical caseloads. One admin assistant placed by Stellar Staff now takes on that work. In the video below, co-founder Elana Lev explains what changed.

Elana Lev, LCSW, co-founder, TLA Therapy. The full transcript is at the end of this page.

A group practice with four Los Angeles locations

TLA Therapy lists offices in Encino, Redondo Beach, Torrance, and West LA, and its homepage names 13 clinicians, most of them licensed clinical social workers and marriage and family therapists. The practice works with adults, teens, couples, and families. It offers individual, couples, family, and group therapy, an Outpatient Plus program, evaluation and consultation, and maternity and paternity coverage. Its listed approaches include DBT, CBT, EMDR, CPT, MBT, and prolonged exposure, with specialty areas such as anxiety, depression, trauma and PTSD, OCD, ADHD and autism, and pregnancy and postpartum care (details checked on the practice's website, October 27, 2026).

New clients reach the practice through a free consultation, an online booking form, an intake survey, a phone line, and a general email inbox. Every one of those channels creates administrative work, and in a practice run by clinicians, someone has to own it.

Admin work on top of a full caseload

Elana describes how the founders handled it before: "My [co-]founders and I were working together to split up all of the responsibilities ourselves on top of our clinical caseload, which was just way too much for us to handle."

That arrangement is common in clinician-owned practices, and it has a cost that is easy to miss. Every hour a founder spends answering inquiries, sorting schedules, or chasing paperwork is an hour taken from client sessions, clinical supervision, or rest. When the admin load is shared among several founders, it also tends to fall through the gaps between them, because no single person owns it.

One assistant who takes every request

The practice now has a single admin assistant, placed by Stellar Staff, who owns that work. In Elana's words:

"Our admin person, [Ken], literally handles everything. Any task we have, we ask [Ken], and she's always willing and incredibly responsive."

The important change is not the number of tasks. It is that requests now have one clear place to go. The founders no longer need to decide among themselves who will deal with something; they hand it to the assistant and get back to clinical work.

What changed: time to run the practice, not just work in it

Asked about the biggest difference, Elana points to two things: "how much more efficient we are and how much more time we have to think about other things like business growth."

Her summary of the decision is direct: "Working with Stellar has been incredible, truly the single best business decision we have made."

Privacy questions to settle before an assistant starts

A therapy practice handles some of the most sensitive information there is, so bringing in remote administrative help should start with privacy. Under HIPAA, the practice remains responsible for how protected health information is used. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explains in its guidance on business associates when a covered entity needs a written agreement with an outside party that handles that information on its behalf.

Practices that bring in admin support usually work through a short list:

• Decide what the assistant needs to see. Scheduling and inquiries rarely require access to clinical notes. Give access to the minimum the role requires.
• Use separate logins. Set up the assistant's own accounts in the scheduling system, phone system, and shared inbox, so access can be adjusted or removed at any time.
• Put the agreements in writing. Confirm which agreements your practice needs before any patient information is shared, and keep copies on file.
• Keep clinical decisions with clinicians. Intake screening questions, crisis protocols, and anything involving care stay with licensed staff.

For a fuller checklist, see our guide to HIPAA-compliant virtual assistant arrangements. This page is not legal advice; confirm your obligations with your compliance advisor.

What other practice owners can take from TLA Therapy

• Give admin work a single owner. Splitting it among founders means nobody owns it. One assistant who takes every request removes the daily negotiation.
• Protect clinical hours first. The point of the hire is to give clinicians their caseload back, so measure it by the hours founders get back for clients and for running the practice.
• Settle privacy before day one. Access levels, logins, and agreements are easier to set up at the start than to fix later.
• Use the time for growth. Elana's main result is time to think about the business, which is where a group practice adds locations, programs, and clinicians.

For more on how healthcare practices use remote support, see our page on virtual assistants for medical practices and our explainer on why administrative assistants matter. You can also read how a Houston personal injury firm handed off adjuster follow-ups to two virtual assistants.

How Stellar Staff matches an assistant to a practice

Stellar Staff recruits dedicated, full-time remote assistants, primarily from the Philippines, and accepts the top 0.1% of the thousands of applicants who apply each month. Candidates pass a 6-step application, 6 individual tests, written and spoken English verification, professional interviews and skill assessments, reference and background checks, an equipment check, and internal QA before a client ever sees them.

The practice interviews 2 to 3 finalists and selects one. The search takes 5 to 10 business days. Stellar Staff handles recruiting, payroll, HR, tracking, and replacements, and the practice directs the assistant's daily work. Plans start at $1,999 a month on Pro, with 160 hours a month, and Executive is $2,999 a month. Both are month to month with 14 days' notice to cancel, and managed plans include free replacements, forever.

To see which plan fits your practice, compare pricing, or book a call to start a search.

Video transcript

Machine transcription of the video above, edited for punctuation. Words in brackets are our best reading of audio that is not fully clear.

"Working with Stellar has been incredible, truly the single best business decision we have made. Hi, I'm Elana Lev, one of the co-founders of TLA Therapy. Our admin person, [Ken], literally handles everything. Any task we have, we ask [Ken], and she's always willing and incredibly responsive. Prior to working with Stellar Staff, we, my [co-]founders and I, were working together to split up all of the responsibilities ourselves on top of our clinical caseload, which was just way too much for us to handle. I think the biggest difference in our business since having [Ken] is just how much more efficient we are and how much more time we have to think about other things like business growth. I would definitely recommend anyone who's thinking about getting an admin assistant through Stellar Staff to highly consider it."

This case study is based on a recorded video interview with Elana Lev. Practice details come from the TLA Therapy website, checked October 27, 2026. Results are described only as the client stated them; we have not added figures that were not in the interview. This page is not legal or compliance advice. Stellar Staff pricing is current as of October 2026.