I have two clients wishing to start with me, and both have jobs that they need to travel for regularly, one of them on very short notice. I am hesitant to give either of them a permanent time slot, and am hoping you may have a system/protocol for taking on clients with erratic work schedules. I’m not open to charging them for the time slot weekly whether they are present or not.
This is such a great question, especially because you’re not open to charging for charging whether they’re there or not.
My policy, generally, is precisely that: if a patient schedules a recurring session with me, that is a two-way obligation. I hold that time for them, and they pay me. If the time doesn’t work, I will try (hard) to find another time that might work – generally, within seven days (but not longer) – but, at the end of the day, the way I run my business, when I commit a session to a patient, the patient commits to paying me.
This makes very straightforward for me how I handle situations like the one you describe (and I have a couple): I don’t schedule a recurring time with the patient, but rather, typically, will schedule either a week in advance, subject to a further 24-hour cancellation policy, or, in one case, on a catch-as-catch-can basis, even at the last minute on the day of.
This allows me to match my degree of commitment to the patient to their degree of commitment to me, which feels appropriate.
