Streamlining Appointment Scheduling in Mental Health Clinics: Best Practices

Running a private practice or mental health clinic has many challenges, but working out how to schedule our sessions can be one of the hardest things that adds to a lot of mental drain on the therapist.

Counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists in the UK might have a few private clients each week to supplement other salaried roles, or they may see as many as 30 clients and this is their full time occupation. We may see different types of client; those who self-pay, those who might be on discounted rates due to affordability, clients who have been referred through EAPs or health insurance providers, etc.

This can create a complicated web of different administrative systems, billing methods and recording requirements that can be hard to navigate. But most importantly, when do we work out when we’re going to see people?

Here’s a list of 3 things to think about:

1. Maximising efficiency of face-to-face versus remote appointments

Many private counsellors see clients face-to-face as well as remotely. If we’re seeing clients in-person, we might do that from a rented office that we might have full use of, or hire by the hour, or we might work from our own homes. If we have a limited amount of time in a rented therapy space, then we’re also paying for that time. 

Let’s say we charge £50 per session and our room hire rent is £12.50 an hour. That’s 25% of our income, a heft chunk especially in today’s economy. It therefore makes sense that we’d want to use our time there as efficiently as possible, and we also need to factor in the time and cost of travelling to our therapy space as well.

One way to do this is to reduce the number of remote sessions we facilitate from a rented therapy space when we could be doing this at home for free (assuming we have a confidential room to work from without kids, partners or pets disrupting us!)

This brings a fresh challenge; however, when we get a new client enquiry we typically want to be as accommodating as possible to the client’s availability to secure their business. But, this has drawbacks as suddenly our schedule looks disordered and we have appointments at different times in different places.

So if we’re setting healthy work boundaries (read on below), we might want to consider having designated shifts of when we’re in the office for in-person sessions, and when we’re doing remote sessions at home. This maximises the efficiency of our profit margin whilst ensuring we have the best availability for each client preference.

2. Set healthy work boundaries: working out your availability 

Setting good boundaries is arguably the single most important thing we need to do as therapists. You may have only recently qualified, or you might have been practicing for decades. You probably remember boundaries, boundaries, boundaries being drilled into you during your accredited training.

One of these boundaries is setting a healthy work-life balance for ourselves. Work too much and we risk the inevitable burnout and compassion fatigue that comes with always trying to make ourselves available to people we perceive as being in distress.

Work too little on the other hand and we see our incomes fall and we’re unable to pay our bills. Getting the balance between looking after ourselves and success is difficult, and if we’re self-employed and in private practice we don’t have a boss or anyone else telling us when we need to switch off.

One of the ways we can set the balance right is sitting down and working out what our ideal working hours might be. 

For me personally, I work four days per week, and see a maximum of 5 clients each day. This is the balance I personally need to give my clients the best focus from me as a counsellor whilst achieving a desired income. I work from home three days per week seeing remote clients, starting from 10am with my final session ending at 6pm. I ensure that I always have a lunch break at 2pm and that I have enough gaps between sessions to recharge, let the dog out, complete clinical notes and make a cup of tea.

Tuesdays are my only day in the office, and on those days I see in-person clients exclusively to maximise that days’ efficiency. Those are my boundaries, and if a new client comes along and can only do a time outside of them, I politely decline and refer them to an appropriate colleague instead. This can be hard, especially when a client feel desperate or I think I’ll enjoy working with them, but I learned early on in my private practice career that too much flexibility leads to poor work from me, losing focus in sessions and burning out. I now have enough clients that I feel like I can say “no”, and I wish I had done so from day one!

3. Use an automated booking system

Managing our own diaries can be time consuming and frustrating, especially when we have the typical back-and-forth communication with clients arranging session times, cancellations, or waiting for people to confirm. 

This can lead to counselling slots not getting filled when another client might have been able to do that time, leading to a loss of revenue but also potentially meaning some clients have to go weeks without our supportive sessions.

Thinking about automating your practice might be a great way forward, especially if this allowed you to set pre-defined hours of availability that matched your lifestyle, that clients could book themselves in a transparent, open self-service model.

Konfidens is a new system in the UK market designed specifically for mental health counsellors, psychologists and psychotherapists. It works both for independent therapists in private practice and for mental health clinics with multiple practitioners. 

Clients view your portal through an app-like experience on their smartphone or PC, can view the schedule and available sessions for each therapist within the clinic, and can book sessions directly. It has various optional tools for efficiency like the “magnet” that will only make appointment slots available if they’re next to sessions that have already been booked, reducing the hours-long waiting times between sessions and making sure we’re not hanging around in our office for hours when we could be at home. Read more about the scheduling and booking features here.