So our clinician, "Humphrey," really strived for some stability. He drove over an hour to get to the practice. His daily routine would look like this:
10:30 pm - check his diary: full day tomorrow
7:00 am - open computer
7:30 am - first client cancels
8:00 am - drove to the office thinking "I'll catch up on notes."
9:00 am - pretend to start catching up on case notes 9:01 am - check the clock, feels like hours, it's one minute
9:05 am - 4:00 pm client calls and reschedules
9:06 am - read emails, noon client reschedules
9:08 am - dreams of the day he doesn't have to think about cancellations
A full day turned into a barely viable day. Sure, you can catch up on paperwork. You can make some calls. You can take that afternoon nap. However, you could do all of that from the comfort of your own home. Right?
If you multiply that by a few times a month - or worse - a few times a week, private practice is very hard to sustain.
Grab your notebook!
For Humphrey, we worked on ways to provide consistent appointment times for his clients. When making a booking, we would book multiple appointments in advance, gaining the commitment of those clients to attend (after we already spoke to them about how to attend if they can't make their appointment) and providing stability for the client. Ultimately, giving ourselves stability in private practice.
After a few months, Humphrey was able to organise his diary so he now knows:
a) who is coming in when
b) that his clients are committed to coming in
c) when he can take on new clients
So, for your exercise today, write a list of the clients who consistency cancel and reschedule. Start to draft some conversations you can have with them to help them stop rescheduling.
Let me help you think of a few things:
1. When making the booking, ask the client to put the appointments in their phone.
2. Ask the client to use Siri to set a reminder the morning of their appointment
3. Work with the client for the same time and day with the same frequency to help supply consistency
4. Offer phone or video sessions instead of a cancellation.