This client story is going to begin with a bit of background. A large practice, multiple locations over 20 practitioners. This practice owner came to us with the desperate need to get new referrals. They have well over 50 enquiries booked per month. I asked this practice owner a few of the following questions.
Me:
How many of your practitioners need new referrals?
Practice Owner:
All of them, but me.
How many hours per week is left unbillable?
How many active clients are on each of practitioners books?
Let's take one practitioner and break it down.
One of their Practitioners:
Mary works one day a week. Would like to increase to two days a week; however never has any more than 2-3 clients attending per week.
She needs new referrals so we can increase her hours to a second day.
So Mary has 5 hours a week available and only bills 2 hours on a regular basis.
When we ran Mary's active client caseload report, Mary had 25 clients on her caseload.
So I asked the practice owner, if they could sit down with Mary and see if she was able to explain where in the client journey each of the 25 clients were. Are they supposed to be seen? Should they have appointments? Are they discharged?
After the owner had the conversation, Mary still had 11 clients on her caseload. She had enough clients for her two days.
Active Client Follow Up is vital in private practice. If clients should be in therapy, they should be booked for an appointment. If not, discharge them.
After we completed the exercise, we actually found that the 5k they were spending on marketing, wasn't necessary, because the practitioners did actually have enough clients on their caseload.
If you'd like to use our step by step process for active client follow up, please see our 5 days to fill your books e-course and workbook.