Do you remember the excitement of March Break when you were a kid?
You got through two long months of winter to finally arrive at what you’d been desperate for: a break! Whether it was a vacation with your parents, lounging around watching TV, or hanging out with friends, March Break was something to celebrate.
Then you grew up.
Now, if you have kids, March Break might even feel like a chore. Maybe you feel like you should be working and it’s too tough to take time off. But it doesn’t have to be like that! You CAN take some time off for a vacation with the kids or just a quality break if you don’t have a family. You just need the right tools and organizational system to allow your practice to run smoothly in your absence. What you need is Owl Practice!
Prepping for March Break
Preparing for a vacation is usually the most stressful part of taking time off. There’s so much to do at work, how can you possibly leave? But don’t worry, Owl Practice has you covered there. As soon as you know that you want to take time off for March Break, mark it down in Owl Practice’s calendar so no appointments will be scheduled that week. That way, even if a client goes into their personal web portal to book their own appointment, they’ll see that you’re unavailable for the length of your vacation.
With online booking, your clients can continue to book appointments based on your availability even while you’re away from your office. There’s no need to spend time with back and forth emails or phone calls to get appointments made. You can come back from vacation, and everything will be taken care of automatically with the online booking system.
When you’re getting set for your vacation, it’s easy to forget about all the little business tasks you need to take care of before you go away, or that you want to deal with as soon as you get back. We suggest using Owl Practice’s Client “To Do” Lists; they’ll let you create individual to-do lists, so you can have everything organized before you leave for your trip.
We also have a number of features in the pipeline that will make prepping for your vacation even easier. For example, with our secure messaging feature you can contact clients directly through text to inform them of your plans and availability.
Access Everything Remotely
What if you want to work a bit while you’re away, or you forget something important? If you’ve ever used Owl Practice, you know how incredibly simple it is to use on your wireless devices.
Everything that you can access on a desktop computer, you can also access on your phone or tablet. Need to check the upcoming patient schedule for the week after your break? No problem. Need to send out a few invoices? Easy. If you want to travel light and leave the laptop at home, you can still get full access to everything you need on your mobile devices!
Don’t Worry About Data Limits
When you travel out of the country for March Break, one thing that you always need to watch is your phone’s data plan. Those GBs of data that you have in Canada are usually reduced to a few hundred MB unless you want to pay big money to your telecom provider. This might make you feel reluctant to check on your practice information on your phone while you’re out and about without wifi. So you might feel that using Owl Practice on such a limited plan is out, right?
Believe it or not, using Owl Practice isn’t data intensive. You can access all of your files and notes without having to worry about breaking through your travel data cap!
Just a word of warning. While it might be tempting to use your phone as a wireless hotspot to check Owl Practice on your laptop while you’re on vacation, we would not recommend doing this. Owl Practice is light on data BUT antivirus and operating system updates could blow straight through your data cap. Many a weary traveller has returned home from vacation only to find that they accidentally downloaded gigantic update files on their laptop while they were away. Avoid the possibility of huge bills and instead use Owl Practice on your phone or tablet, if it has a SIM card.
Security Worries
If you’re planning on heading down south for March Break, you might be concerned about your data security. As a mental health professional, you have a lot of sensitive data about your patients at your fingertips, including financial and personal information. You don’t want to risk meeting an overzealous border agent who decides to confiscate your phone with all of that valuable data on it, right? Don’t worry, with Owl Practice that isn’t a problem.
All of that sensitive data isn’t stored on your phone; it’s all stored on our Canadian-based servers. You’re merely accessing it through a secure portal. We maintain PHIPA-compliance, so any data you access is stored remotely, safe and protected by Canadian privacy laws.
Even as an adult (especially as an adult), you need a break every now and then. So, why not make it March Break? Taking a week off will help you unwind and refresh so that you’re ready for a busy spring practice season. Owl Practice can help make time off a breeze! If you’d like to see everything we offer mental health professionals of all kinds, sign up for a free demo. And if you have any questions or comments about our services, we invite you to contact us at support@owlpractice.ca.
As always,
Practice Wisely
