What Are We Worth as Dietitians?

What are we worth?
Let’s continue that conversation…

This week, I want to continue the conversation we started about what we are worth as dietitians. The response to my last newsletter made one thing very clear: so many of us feel undervalued, but perhaps the harder question is whether we are sometimes undervaluing ourselves too.

So this week, I want to talk about what happens after we know our worth — how we actually start owning it, protecting it and, dare I say it, charging for it without feeling the need to apologise afterwards.

So many dietitians reached out to say that they feel exactly the same as me. We know how much work goes into becoming a dietitian, we know the responsibility we carry, and we know the difference good dietetic care can make.

Yet somehow, when it comes to putting a price on that expertise, negotiating a salary or simply saying, “This is my fee,” we suddenly become terribly apologetic about the whole thing.

And I think we need to change that.

We are allowed to value what we do

Most of us came into dietetics because we genuinely wanted to help people. We are carers by nature, and I think that is one of the loveliest things about our profession. But it can also be our Achilles heel.

We give the extra ten minutes. We answer the WhatsApp after hours. We quickly look at a blood result, send another resource, write the motivation letter and follow up with the medical aid. One small thing here and another small thing there, because we care about our patients and we want to help.

The problem is that all those little things are actually our professional time.

And somewhere along the way, we have become very comfortable giving quite a lot of it away.

A consultation is so much more than the hour in front of the patient

When someone pays for a consultation, they are not simply paying for 45 or 60 minutes of our time. They are paying for the years of studying, the clinical experience, the courses, the reading, the CPD and all the lessons we have learnt from the hundreds — sometimes thousands — of patients who came before them.

They are paying for our ability to sit with a complicated case, look at all the information and know what matters, what doesn’t and what needs to happen next.

And then, naturally, there is the admin afterwards. The notes, reports, emails, motivations and medical aid claims.

Because apparently we all studied dietetics so that one day we could spend a significant portion of our lives trying to convince a medical aid that, yes, the dietitian consultation really was necessary.

That time counts too.

We can care deeply AND run successful businesses

I think we sometimes struggle with the idea of making money in a caring profession. There is almost an unspoken belief that if we really care about our patients, we should always be willing to give a little more, charge a little less and somehow make it work.

But running a profitable practice does not make you less caring. Charging appropriately for your expertise does not make you greedy. Having boundaries around your time does not make you a bad dietitian.

It makes your career sustainable.

A healthy practice can pay its staff properly, invest in better systems and resources, keep up with education and, most importantly, still be there to help patients five, ten or twenty years from now.

There is nothing noble about burning yourself out while everyone else benefits from your expertise.

Perhaps we also need to look at ourselves as a profession

We can absolutely challenge medical aid rates. We can ask why dietitians are paid what they are paid in certain sectors, and we should continue having conversations about the financial value placed on our profession.

But we also need to be willing to look inward.

We cannot ask everyone else to value dietitians while we continue undercutting one another, apologising for our fees or thinking another dietitian is “very expensive” simply because she has decided to charge properly for her expertise.

And yes, I know that sentence might make a few people uncomfortable. But perhaps a little discomfort is exactly what we need.

I want something better for the dietitians coming after us

This is probably the part I feel most strongly about.

I want young dietitians entering our profession to know that they can build a good life doing this work. I want them to see dietitians with thriving practices, interesting careers, successful businesses and opportunities that go far beyond the traditional roles we were taught about at university.

I want them to negotiate their salaries without feeling guilty. I want them to understand their numbers if they go into private practice. I want them to charge for their professional time and still be wonderfully caring human beings.

Most of all, I don’t want the next generation of dietitians to inherit the idea that struggling financially is somehow part of being dedicated to this profession.

It shouldn’t be.

After more than two decades as a dietitian, I still love what we do. I believe deeply in the value we bring to healthcare, and I think we have every reason to be proud of this profession.

But perhaps it is time that we stop waiting for someone else to decide what we are worth.

We need to start showing them.

In the way we charge, the way we negotiate, the boundaries we set, the businesses we build and, most importantly, in the way we speak about our own profession.

And maybe next time you tell someone your consultation fee, try saying it without immediately explaining, discounting or apologising for it.

It’s a small place to start.
But it’s a start.

Stay Warm!
Nicola Mostert RD
Just4Dietitians