Private practice gives you the flexibility to schedule your work to suit your lifestyle. In the “Get Started” section, you determined your business model, estimated your monthly costs, set your fee schedule, set your ideal monthly income and determined your office location/s. In the “Define services” section you identified your clients, and researched your competition and community needs. These are all key variables that help you determine your hours of service. Answering the following questions will help you decide when you will offer client service and set regular office hours so your clients know what to expect:
- When are my clients available?
(e.g. employed adults may be looking for early morning or evening spots; while couples with children in daycare may prefer mid-morning or lunch hour spots.) - When will I care for myself?
(e.g. you may enjoy an early morning run) - When is my office/therapy room available?
(e.g. you may share space with other professionals or your family) - How many consultation hours do I need to make my projected income?
(e.g. what will be my minimum and maximum of billable hours per day) - Do I need free days?
(e.g. you may choose a weekend or weekday, or you may choose to work every day) - Are there gaps in service hours from my competition that I could offer?
(e.g. evening and weekend spots are commonly rarer to come by for clients)
Office Hours
Some practitioners prefer to keep the times for administrative and promotional tasks flexible, while others develop a set schedule. Either way, we recommend that you estimate and track the amount of time these tasks take away from paid work, so you can account for all hours worked. This will help in many ways, like planning your week, identifying your actual hourly pay and measuring how effective your promotional efforts are.