No-shows are the worst, especially when it’s for a therapy consultation. What’s a therapist to do!? Well, in this episode of Beyond the Session with Aisha R. Shabazz, we'll dive into what to do and NOT do, when a potential client doesn't show up for a therapy consultation.

After listening (and implementing) these strategies, you’ll not only reduce your no-show rate for therapy consultations, you’ll also save yourself tons of time! And who doesn’t want that?

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Copyright 2024 Aisha R. Shabazz

Welcome to Beyond the Session with Aisha Shabazz.

It's time for another round of it depends the q and a with context.

When do I follow up with a no-show for a therapy consult.

When you follow up with NoShow, regardless if it's a therapy consultation or a client

appointment, I think it's important to reach out as soon as you are able to.

And the reason why I say that is because if you are unable to reach

out because you are annoyed at the fact that they no-showed, don't

reach out while you're annoyed.

Wait until the energy and essence of why did they no show And going through

this spiral simmers down just a tad.

Once you are in this place of really looking at it from a

very practical standpoint, okay, I scheduled an appointment.

The person that was supposed to attend the appointment is not here.

What am I going to do about it?

I would encourage you to follow up in the following ways for a therapy consultation.

The one way to follow up is the exact way that you communicated with them

about scheduling the consultation.

So if you reached out to them via email, Follow up with an email.

If you have already been sending phone correspondence, let's say via text

message, follow up with them via text message, and if you have a multifaceted

way of communicating with potential clients and current clients, reach out.

To whatever method is going to be the most simple to get the response that you need.

For me, in my private practice, I reach out via text message unless the

person has already told me that email is the most convenient way for them.

The reason why I reach out via text message is because nine times outta 10

people have their mobile device more at the ready as far as text messaging

goes, as opposed to having an open email.

The other thing to consider when following up is to remind them that they

had a consultation scheduled with you.

We don't wanna assume that they remembered the consultation, make it known that

they had a consultation scheduled with you, and then I like to give them an

opportunity to reschedule the consult now.

I also offer self-scheduling for consultations and current clients.

In my follow up, I put a link to my calendar for them to reschedule

the consult, so there's not this email tag back and forth.

Now, if you're not comfortable with the idea of giving them.

Immediate access to your calendar because they've already no-showed.

Then I want you to consider how much time, energy, effort, that you wanna

put into the rescheduling process.

If you want it to be quick and easy, then send them the scheduling link.

If you're thinking to yourself, you know what?

This is sending up a red flag for me.

If they're not gonna show up for their consultation, then maybe they're not

gonna show up for their appointment.

I want you to resist the urge to think that, because we have to remember

that although we are in this mode of, yes, I'm excited to give therapy,

many people are not excited to do therapy even though they reached.

And it shows that they were interested at one point in time.

That doesn't mean that some fear came up in between when they reached out to you

and when their consultation was scheduled.

Don't underestimate how difficult it is for people to follow through

on therapy appointments by virtue of you being excited for therapy.

The last thing that I want you to consider when folks, no-show

for therapy consultations.

Is the ability to recognize that.

What is your process like, and how seamless was it?

Was it seamless from start to finish when they reached out to the moment

it was time for your consultation?

If not, then tighten up your process from start to finish so that it's a little bit.

Less likely that they would no show for their appointment.

So the biggest thing is, and you've heard me talk about this so many times, it's

offering automatic appointment reminders.

This is so important and many of us interact with businesses that offer

automatic appointment reminders.

So it's not a foreign concept to consider that.

Like, oh, how could I possibly do?

Most businesses offer automatic appointment reminders, so

there's an opportunity for you to do that for yourself.

I have noticed that the moment that I inserted automatic appointment

reminders, I actually increased the show up rate, not only for my consultations,

but also for my therapy clients.

And I also put in the reminder, the consequence of not showing

up for your appointment.

You know that I use simple practice for my electronic health record, and it is

difficult to, as of right now, they do not have a feature where you can modify the

type of appointment reminder that is given out based on the type of appointment.

All of my appointment reminders say the same thing, and they reference

the no show and late cancellation.

Take that for what it is.

But just keep in mind that if you do use a different electronic health record

and it does allow you to modify the type of automatic appointment reminder

words in the reminder, definitely use that flexibility to your advantage.

Pretty sure I said reminder like a hundred times in that, but you get the idea.

if you have additional questions or thoughts about therapy,

consultations, nosha rates, or.

Anything in general about private practice.

There's a link in the show notes where you can submit your private practice

musings, and if your question is selected to air on the podcast, you will be