Would you like to run a more successful, effective practice this new year? Here are seven proven strategies that will help improve your private practice in 2018:
1. Treat Time As a Valuable Commodity
The best strategy you can implement this new year is to make time management a priority. Remember that time truly is a commodity. In fact, it’s the most important commodity that we all have. Time management is a important factor in every industry in the world, and this applies to private practices, too. The more that you value and prioritize the way that you spend your time, the more effective at managing your practice you’ll be.
Our survey results show that therapists, psychologists, and social workers who use Owl Practice save over seven hours a month. We’re all faced with time constraints every day, so optimizing your time in your private practice is our primary mandate. Owl’s impressive features like online booking, secure client data management, clinical notes, workflow management, and billing and invoicing help you save your valuable time. 96% of customers would recommend Owl Practice to colleagues as a result of these remarkable time savings.
2. Implement Calendar Blocking
As part of your time-saving practice this new year, calendar blocking is proven to be an effective strategy to save time and boost productivity. The idea is to schedule similar tasks in blocks of time rather than multitasking, which essentially means jumping back and forth between task-types. When you stop multitasking and start focusing on one task-type at a time, you’ll notice a big difference in what you can accomplish in a day.
Group client appointments, calls, and meetings together and decide on a time limit in which to complete each task. This can help you stay focused and give you the push you need to check tasks off your list so that you don’t have them hanging over you until you have the time to return to them.
Owl Practice’s calendar management system for mental health practitioners enables you to schedule client appointments much more fluidly, and to connect your calendar blocks with your session notes and other important client documents. The online booking feature can also help you to streamline the way that you’re interacting with clients.
3. Take Control of Interruptions and Distractions
Whether it’s email and phone calls or the distraction of social media and technology, it can be very hard to stay focused. These distractions and interruptions exist, but you don’t have to succumb to them. You can take steps to either eliminate or block out some distractions, and choose how to respond to others.
In many cases, the calendar blocking technique will enable you to group tasks and create structure around the way that you choose to spend your time, focusing on one task at a time to increase your efficiency and reduce stress. Choose to check email (and Facebook) only at certain times of the day. Let the phone ring to voicemail, or better yet, turn off the ringer so that you don’t hear the interruption. Then, choose specific times of the day to return phone messages in groups.
By the way, the biggest distraction of all is usually disorganization. When you’re disorganized, everything becomes a distraction because there isn’t a structured system to the way that you’re working. Owl Practice is a practice management solution with proven results for mental health practitioners. 87% of Owl Practice customers find that they’re more organized with Owl Practice, which helps them to stay focused and get more done every day.
4. Reduce Your Global Footprint
The right time to go paperless is… yesterday. There are two reasons for this. First, you’ll reduce a large amount of clutter and chaos in your office. Even if you have a good system, using valuable office space for storage purposes is becoming an outdated practice. Secondly, going paperless is better for the environmental impact that your practice makes.
Going paperless is now easier than it’s ever been with Owl Practice. The secure online client data management system manages all of your client contact details, clinical notes, to-do lists, and billing details. It’s a great way to move your practice data from filing cabinets to secure Canadian servers while complying with PHIPA and College Compliance.
5. Spend Wisely
Are you spending money in the right places in your business? Keeping your overhead down is one of the most important principles in the operation of a successful business of any kind. While there might be some non-negotiables in terms of your spending (such as rent for that prime practice location), streamlining your administrative tasks is a great way to save money. And remember, now that you’re treating time as a commodity, time is money.
Owl Practice absolutely saves you time, and that can convert into money saved and money earned. With the 7.4 hours that Owl users save on average each month, you can see more clients, which results in more billable hours, which more than covers the monthly cost of the practice management solution in your budget.
6. Improve Your Invoicing & Accounting System
Helping people is priority #1 when you work in the field of mental health. But as always, you can’t help others if you don’t help yourself.
Having an efficient and thorough accounting and invoicing system is critical to the success of your practice. You have to be able to collect and monitor your business’ cash flow as part of your operations. You can rely on Owl Practice for all of your accounting needs. One of the nicest things about Owl is that you don’t need a separate system to handle your bookkeeping, it’s all contained within the same system where you also store your clinical notes, your calendar, etc. Owl’s always-there account balances track a complete history of all of your practice invoices and payments so that everything is in one place. Sending and tracking your invoices and receipts digitally is a breeze, and tax season has never been easier than with the online practice management system.
7. Liberate Yourself From the Office
The “virtual office” is so much more than a catch phrase—it’s becoming an essential part of the modern on-the-go lifestyle. Between your practice, your family and friends, your recreational activities, and your own personal health and wellness, there’s no time to waste with inefficiency. Not being tied down to a single computer and filing cabinet located at your office that you have to physically travel back and forth to in order to work is a true paradigm shift. Even if you work near your home, being able to take your office with you when you travel can change the entire way that you view your professional life. Owl isn’t tied to a single computer, which gives you the freedom to take it with you wherever you go and work from wherever you are.
We have extensive experience working with hundreds of psychologists, social workers, and other therapists across Canada and we are intimately familiar with what’s required to run a successful mental health private practice. Sign up for a demo today and learn more on how you can save more time and money with Owl Practice.
As always,
Practice Wisely
