Shownotes
6 key policies/contracts you need in a psychology private practice
Policies might seem like a boring subject but trust me, the first time something unexpected happens in your practice you will be grateful that you did all your thinking in advance. In the past year I have faced situations where people haven’t paid me for my time and where I have been very worried about the wellbeing of a client. These were horrible, painful, moments but having policies laid out for me to follow meant I could feel confident that I handled them in the best way I could.
Some of these policies and contracts are legal documents that need input from a lawyer. Others are more essential from an ethical and practical standpoint and juts require you to sit down and think about how you want to handle situations that come up in your business.
Therapy contract
This can be one or two documents depending on how you work but it needs to include at least three main areas:
- What you expect from your clients
- What they can expect from you
- How they let you know if something goes wrong and how you will let them know if something goes wrong
It is worth having a lawyer draw up a contract for you that meets your specific requirements. I don’t want to be the prophet of doom but sadly, in private practice, you will most likely at some point experience people who ghost you without paying or expect you to work outside of your office hours or who claim you have not provided the services you were paid for. Thankfully this hasn’t happened to me frequently but I did once have a client who refused to pay a large sum of money. I was incredibly grateful that my contract was watertight and the matter was resolved quickly. A horrible experience and I will make another podcast about that at some stage, but at least there wasn’t the added anxiety of an ambiguous contract. A good lawyer who understands the nature of your work will make sure your contract has explanations of what will happen in all kinds of situations, including a global pandemic, for example, so you and your clients have a safety net of certainty to fall back on. Clare Veal, our resident lawyer in Psychology Business School has created a template that students can adapt for their practices based on knowledge of how we work
In my opinion, you also need a plain English section that explains, human to human, the process of working with you, how they should pay you and how to contact you. This needs to spell out what happens if they are paying by insurance, who is liable for any excess on an insurance policy, what happens if they miss a session (including who pays for it) and how much notice you need of session cancellations. You may need different contracts for different insurance companies. I now only work with two so I just have clauses for them in the main contract but if you have several that have different DNA policies of their own you may need individual contracts. All of that stuff falls into the category of what you expect from your clients.
You also need to set out clearly what your clients can expect from you (and what they can’t) state your working times, how long they should expect to wait for an email response. How they can contact you and whether you are willing/able to provide short notice phone calls or sessions. My life means my clients need to be very clear that when I am not at work I am NOT available so my contract spells this out and gives them other services they can access if they need help and I’m not available.
You can also state here how you intend to let them know if you need to cancel and what happens to their booking if you cancel as well as how much notice you will give for planned holiday.
Personally, I have combined my plain speaking and legal contract into one document so I can easily get electronic, GDPR complaint consent from my clients before they come to their first session, or in session, with me if there are queries we need to discuss. This has obvious downsides as it is lengthy and is more suitable for some client groups than others. Either way, it is important that both parts are signed and dated (ideally electronically) so you are covered.
In the past, I have worked with therapy models where the contract is far more integral to the work and in that case, I would have one legal document, that must be electronically signed before attending the session and another, plain English, co-constructed document that is created in session between myself and the client.
Website terms of use
I suspect many of us don’t know much about this but if you have a website you need a policy that lets people know what they may and may not do with the information on it. It states how much responsibility you take for what people do with the information you provide (ideally none), how they can and can’t reproduce your content, your level of responsibility for damages (again none) and the laws by which you are governed. It seems like overkill but is actually essential and again, it needs to be created by a lawyer. You can find generic templates for this from places like Suzanne Dibble’s GDPR academy or the Federation of Small Businesses. The problem with these is that, although they are a great starting point, the might not fit your needs exactly and that can be a problem with a legal document. If you have the budget getting your own documents drawn up by a lawyer is always best but this can be very expensive. As a halfway house PBS students also get a template for this from Clare Veal our resident lawyer.
Privacy policy
What EXACTLY is going to happen to peoples’ precious data when they give it to you? Now I am no GDPR expert but from what I have learned I am going to be controversial and say I actually LIKE it. At heart, GDPR attempts to make us treat our client’s information like we would want our deepest, darkest secrets to be treated. It can seem confusing at first but really a privacy policy on your website (or that you give out in person if you don’t use a website) just tells people what information you collect from them, why you collect it, how you store it (and for how long) and who you share their information with. You need to list out all the software you use (think Googe Drive, DropBox, Practice management software, accounting software, email marketing software) and tell people you will be sharing data with them. Again you can’t really DIY this. You can get generic templates from places like the FSB (Federation of Small Businesses) but I would really recommend either using the PBS templates created by Clare Veal or, if you are more established, getting a lawyer to do them for you.
When you have the legal side of your policy written out create a user-friendly flow chart of the policy for yourself and any future employees/contractors. I find it useful to have this in ASANA, a project management tool, and for key tasks like uploading progress notes and reports I can map those out and tick off each stage making sure information is shared in the right places and deleted etc. This will help you train anyone who is coming into the business and will give you peace of mind that you are following your own policy.
Cookie policy
My limited understanding is that a cookie is a piece of tracking code that tells third parties what people are doing on your website. Some are 100% essential to the way your website works and others tell Facebook to send you ads about the Oasis 75% off sale. You will have a legitimate reason for using cookies on your site but people need to consent to their presence according to GDPR so you need a policy explaining which ones you use and a pop up on sticky bar allowing them to opt-in. Most website builders make the pop up/sticky bar process easy for you, if not then get a developer to sort it out for you. To write an accurate policy, however, is a bit more involved! If you use one your web developer should know what cookies they have used on your site so you can ask them for a list for your cookie policy and slot them into a template. We have once for PBS or you can get one from someone like Suzanne Dibble or the FSB. If you didn’t use a developer, or you have had your site for a while, you might want to run a software programme that tells you what cookies are operating on that site to give you a list. If I am honest, I did this and found the answer confusing so I got my web developer to do it instead! If you type in find out what cookies are on my site into google you will find software (some free and some paid) that can help you if you want to brave it. I won’t recommend any as I can’t testify to how good they are personally!
DNA policy
Write down your process for situations where people do not attend therapy. I do not recommend using a template for this. Just sit down and write down, step by step, what you will do. Take it to supervision if you need to. Just map out a policy that you feel comfortable with. You can then make sure your contracts reflect this and you simply follow it when you need it. It might seem like a waste of time when you are starting out but DNAs often carry emotions with them and sometimes that can make it hard to make good decisions about what to do when we are “in the moment”. Having your policy mapped out, and some email templates written, will really help you to respond efficiently next time it happens.
Safeguarding policy
If your business grows you may want to write a formal safeguarding policy. However, in the early stages, it is still important to have the process you will follow if you are concerned about an adult or a child mapped out. Without the NHS safety net, it is easy to panic when risk rears its head. A clear policy including phone numbers for supervisors, peers who you trust, social services and crisis services is essential for your peace of mind. It also means that you can create your therapy contract with confidence as you can state exactly what happens if you need to share information for risk management.
I hope this has got you thinking about policies for your practice. We cover this stuff in Psychology Business School before we do marketing because I know from experience that it is much easier to market a practice you have confidence in and I really believe that having your policies sorted can give you a bit more ammunition in the battle against the imposter syndrome.
Do you sometimes wake up at 2 am worried that you’ve made a terrible error that will bring professional ruin upon you and disgrace your family?
I’m laughing now but when I first set up in private practice I was completely terrified that I had “missed” something big when setting up insurance or data protection.
Even now, three years in, I sometimes catch myself wondering if I have really covered all the bases.
It is hard, no impossible, to think creatively and have the impact you should be having in your practice if you aren’t confident that you have a secure business. BUT it can be overwhelming to figure out exactly what you need to prioritise before those clients start coming in.
I’ve created a free checklist (plus resources list) to take the thinking out of it. Tick off every box and you can see your clients confident in the knowledge that you have everything in place for your security and theirs.
Download it now from https://psychologists.drrosie.co.uk/client-checklist
