How many missed sessions have you had so far this year?
There are few things more frustrating for those in private practice than having a client miss a session, especially when they don’t have an acceptable excuse. Every time a client misses a session, it costs you time and revenue.
Fortunately, there are ways you can help your clients remember their appointments and show up on time. Owl Practice has incorporated many of these strategies into our platform:
Automatic Appointment Reminders
Most people don’t intentionally miss their appointments. More often than not, they miss their appointments because they lose track of time or days of the week.
One of the most effective ways to ensure your clients show up to their scheduled appointment is to send them automated reminders of their upcoming session. With these reminders, they will receive an email or text message that gives them a “heads up” of the time and day of their appointment, reducing the chances that it will slip their mind.
Setting up automatic appointment reminders is incredibly easy with Owl Practice! First, you set a custom range for each of your clients. This feature allows you to customize how often and when your clients receive reminders. Many Owl Practice users choose “day before” and “day of” reminders, but you could even put a reminder for a week ahead of the appointment.
Using your clients’ information, you can customize the content of your reminders, personalizing them so they don’t feel like form letters or templates. If your client prefers to communicate via their phone, you can choose to send them text reminders. If they prefer email, you can deliver a reminder straight to their inbox. Or, if you want to double down, you can send reminders to both!
Shift to a Video Session
Let’s say that you have a client who resides out-of-town from your private practice. It takes them an hour or more to reach your practice, and their session is in five minutes. Even if they left immediately, there’s no way they could have their session, right? Well, not in person, but if you use Owl Practice’s Video Therapy, you can shift their session over to video!
We are passionate believers in video therapy at Owl Practice. Since we debuted it, the feature has proven to be a lifesaver for so many people across the country. Rather than face transit during a lockdown or worry about COVID exposure, private practice clients were able to have their sessions in the comfort of their own homes. While there’s no replacing an in-person session, a video session can make for a great substitution.
So, the next time a client calls to say that they forgot their in-person session or are running very late, why not suggest moving the session to video? Your client will still get the help they need, and you will still get paid for the full session. This solution isn’t perfect, but it can be helpful in times of emergency.
Let Them Book Their Own Appointments
Another reason why some people forget their appointment is absentmindedness. They’re speaking to you or your receptionist, book the session, and then forget to write it down or enter it into their calendar. The appointment entirely slips their mind until they get a call from your practice weeks later asking where they are.
One way to avoid this is to allow your clients to book their own appointments through your Owl Practice Client Portal. There, they’ll see a calendar with your availability. From there, they can pick the best time and date for their session. By booking the session themselves, they’ll be much more likely to record the date in their personal calendar, making sure that it won’t slip their mind as their appointment approaches!
These are just a few ways that Owl Practice can help you make sure your clients always show up for their sessions. In many cases, preventing a single missed session more than pays for a month’s worth of Owl Practice!
If you’d like to learn more about everything Owl Practice has to offer, you can sign up for a 14-day free trial. If you have any questions or comments about our services, please contact us at support@owlpractice.ca.
As Always,
Practice Wisely
