GETTING PAID FOR YOUR SERVICES |
GETTING PAID FOR YOUR SERVICES
Collecting your fees can be a great problem because there are several models for payment.
If you are in an institutional setting or clinic, billing is based on the old models of the physician and psychologist, and the client is billed monthly. No matter how few statements you have to send out it costs time and money. If you want to send out forty or fifty statements, you must invest in the forms, the ledger cards and the clerical labor to address them. All of these services add to your costs.
My question is, do you have clients who don't keep an appointment? How many weeks did you have 24 appointments booked on Monday morning and you said, "I am going to have some income this week," but at the end of the week twelve of the twenty four had not shown up.
I have been in the work for thirty years, and completed 40,000 hours of clinical hypnotherapy. I was always resentful when I looked at the end of the week and I had "no shows" before I adopted the principle I am about to explain to you.
Printed on your appointment card is the statement "Advance notice of a cancellation must be given at least 48 hours in advance or a charge will be made." An hour before, or 10 minutes after the appointment time, the client calls and says, "I'm sorry I can't make it." About seventy per cent of them say, "My car is broken down," or "There has been an accident on the freeway." The other thirty per cent say, "My child is sick and I have to take her to the doctor." Or "My husband took the car and he was supposed to be back but he is not back yet."
Rarely do they tell you the real reason, such as, "I had an unexpected expense last week, I had to buy Jimmy football shoes, and they are $68.00, so I thought and thought how could I cut back on expenditures this week and save $50.00."
Collecting your fees can be a great problem because there are several models for payment.
If you are in an institutional setting or clinic, billing is based on the old models of the physician and psychologist, and the client is billed monthly. No matter how few statements you have to send out it costs time and money. If you want to send out forty or fifty statements, you must invest in the forms, the ledger cards and the clerical labor to address them. All of these services add to your costs.
My question is, do you have clients who don't keep an appointment? How many weeks did you have 24 appointments booked on Monday morning and you said, "I am going to have some income this week," but at the end of the week twelve of the twenty four had not shown up.
I have been in the work for thirty years, and completed 40,000 hours of clinical hypnotherapy. I was always resentful when I looked at the end of the week and I had "no shows" before I adopted the principle I am about to explain to you.
Printed on your appointment card is the statement "Advance notice of a cancellation must be given at least 48 hours in advance or a charge will be made." An hour before, or 10 minutes after the appointment time, the client calls and says, "I'm sorry I can't make it." About seventy per cent of them say, "My car is broken down," or "There has been an accident on the freeway." The other thirty per cent say, "My child is sick and I have to take her to the doctor." Or "My husband took the car and he was supposed to be back but he is not back yet."
Rarely do they tell you the real reason, such as, "I had an unexpected expense last week, I had to buy Jimmy football shoes, and they are $68.00, so I thought and thought how could I cut back on expenditures this week and save $50.00."