This content is provided by Brighter Vision, an affinity partner of AAMFT. This information is not necessarily the views of AAMFT and should not be interpreted as official policy.
While many therapists start their career partly because they’d like more control over their own work schedule, managing your time can be one of the biggest challenges when running a private practice.
When you’re handling sessions, marketing, appointment booking, admin work, business financials, and more, it’s easy to wish there were more hours in the day!
Here are a few ways you can start to take back some of that lost time every day so you can run a more efficient (and more profitable!) practice:
#1 - Move Your Appointment Booking Online
If this is a step you haven’t taken yet, it’s a must-do! Moving your appointment booking online is a major time saver because it takes practically all of your appointment scheduling completely out of your hands.
That means no more wasted time on the phone scheduling appointments, screening calls that may interrupt your day, or shuffling through appointment calendars in a rush. Instead, you’re giving your clients the flexibility and freedom to schedule their own appointments – while freeing yourself up at the same time.
There’s a huge variety of both free and paid online scheduling options out there, but our favorite is SimplePractice. SimplePractice is a HIPAA Compliant Solution that gives you access to scheduling, billing, and notes all in one place.
#2 - Increase Your Session Fee
This one may not have occurred to you in this way but increasing your fee can be a powerful time-saver. By increasing your session fee intelligently, you can reduce your number of sessions per week and save time while still making the same amount of money – or more! To see more clearly how this would work, here’s one example from Joe Sanok:
“Say you jump from $100 to $150 per hour…Even if only 2/3 [of your clients] follow through that would have at the $100 rate, you still make the same amount of money, and work 33% less!”
Before increasing your fee, however, you should consider who your ideal client is to make sure you are not excluding anyone you are passionate about working with.
Need help marketing to your ideal client?
Take this Ideal Client Quiz now to receive your custom marketing tips!
#3 - Write Blog Posts & Social Media Posts in Batches
Whenever you’re running your own business, you will likely end up doing a lot of your own marketing. As a modern therapist, being the best marketer means spending time on your online marketing through things like writing blog posts and regularly updating your social media platforms.
These small activities can really add up and start to take up a lot of your time every day. While marketing on social media is important, so is having availability in your schedule. Where you have the opportunity to save time, it’s imperative for you to do so because it can ultimately mean extra income.
One way to make the best use of your time is to write your blogs and social media posts ahead of time. Try writing a month’s worth of blog posts in one sitting and find a social media scheduling service that works for you and your marketing needs.
Want to schedule up to a year’s worth of social media in minutes?
Find out how Social Genie can help you with your private practice marketing!
#4 - Hire a Virtual Assistant
Hiring a virtual assistant for your private practice is one of the quickest ways to save time in your schedule.
Virtual assistants (or VAs) are completely remote administrative assistants, many of whom even specialize in helping mental health clinicians. While hiring any employee is an investment, you would be amazed at how a VA can help to streamline all of the important tasks in your day – from calling back no-show clients, to logging your session notes and assisting with billing.
If you don’t have the resources to hire a full-time Virtual Assistant, there are now companies that offer this service as a subscription. Therapist Admin is one solution that offers administrative assistance for a reasonable monthly rate.
What Now?
These are only a few ways that you can start to save time in your everyday work life, but there are almost limitless ways to streamline your schedule! Start with the ideas above that work for you while you brainstorm other places in your practice where you could make a change to help you waste less time.
Growing Your Practice
Now that you have a pretty good idea about how you can save some time each day, let’s put that knowledge to work!
Brighter Vision is the ultimate marketing package for therapists, centered around the best therapist website you’ve ever had. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help, please contact us today.