How to Streamline Your Booking Process
Coordinating your schedule with your clients’ availability can become a time-consuming and cumbersome task. It's especially bad if you currently use a manual booking process. Many therapists spend far too much time setting, cancelling and rescheduling appointments with clients. It’s this additional workload that can often lead to burnout.
There are a few ways that you can cut down on the time to manage your client caseload. That way, you can ensure that your efforts are spent in session with clients and performing revenue-generating activities.
Automated Booking & Current e-Calendar
One of the easiest ways to streamline your client booking process is to utilize automated booking systems. Two popular options are Jane App or OWL Practice. These systems allow you to create appointments that sync with your calendar. That way, your clients can book their sessions with you using your real-time availability.
With this automated system, it is important to sync it with your electronic calendar that includes the rest of your schedule (like Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, etc) and ensure that all of your appointments, meetings and out-of-office dates are logged accurately. The automated booking systems will sync with your calendar and consider all of the appointments already scheduled when providing the available options to your clients.
Some of the automated booking programs also include an option for your clients to reschedule their appointments (within a certain timeframe) if the need arises. This allows you to avoid the back and forth to cancel and reschedule as well.
Setting up an electronic calendar and a scheduling system is also a great first step towards growing your practice. If you are working toward bringing on support (such as a Virtual Assistant) or expanding your business into an associate practice, having these systems in place will make those future transitions easier.
Setting Regular Office Hours
It’s also important to set up, and stick to, regular office hours. Setting this precedent as soon as you start working with a client will ensure that they understand when you are or aren’t available. Then, they can consult their schedule based on your standard availability. You can also add these hours of operation to your automated scheduling system. That way, your clients can only book during the times you have set aside for therapy sessions.
With regular office hours, you can set time aside for your session with clients as well as time for administrative tasks to help you manage your private practice. Scheduling certain days or time blocks for different types of work is an important part of stepping into your role as an entrepreneur.
Not only does this help you manage your time, but it also helps you maintain clear boundaries and avoid the overwhelm that comes with too much flexibility.
Setting Up Recurring Schedules for Your Clients
As a therapist, you know that your clients are more likely to experience the full benefits of therapy when they attend sessions regularly and consistently. Setting your clients up on recurring schedules based on their needs (bi-weekly, monthly) can not only help with the effectiveness of therapy but also allows you to spend less time coordinating schedules.
This method is great to consider if you are beginning to approach capacity in your caseload. You will be able to ensure that your clients can book their appointments without having to increase your standard availability.
As an added bonus, setting your clients up on a regularly recurring schedule will also give you a more accurate projection of your revenue. That can help with planning your business goals or even setting aside time for a much-deserved vacation.
How do you feel about your client booking process? If it's smooth, feel free to share your tips in the comments below or in the BYPP Community. If you feel overwhelmed, consider working with an experienced BYPP Success Coach. That way, you can get clear on how to find ease in running your private practice!
