Counseling for Relationships and Families

1. If your client late cancels or no-shows, please change the status of the appointment to a regular yellow “cancel.” Please make sure to do this on the day of the appointment – do not wait until the next day.
2. Let Karen know by email if it was a no show or late cancel, and she’ll change the status of the appointment and the service type accordingly. Also let her know if you plan to waive the late fee and the reason.
3. Chart your correspondence with the client as a general chart note in Simple Practice – ie how you contacted them to let them know they missed the apt. Feel free to use these wording suggestions when corresponding with the client
4. Please create and sign a simple progress note for the missed appointment.
5. Important: if your client no-showed, in addition to the other steps above, you must reach out again the next day (even if you aren’t scheduled to work) and tell them that if you don’t hear back by the end of the day, you’ll have to call their emergency contact. If you don’t hear back by the end of the day, call the emergency contact. If no response, call the police and ask for a “well-person check.” Call the supervisor on call if you have any questions.

1. You’re never required to give a freebie if someone late cancels or no-shows. If you do decide to offer a freebie, you only get one per client (not 5 or 6).
2. Some clinicians like to have the policy, “if you late cancel, we’ll waive the fee if you reschedule within a week.” You’re never required to offer this to clients. You don’t have to offer rescheduling at all. If you do offer rescheduling, only offer it for your real work schedule. Don’t allow clients to claim your personal time – just charge them the cancellation fee.
3. You’re in control over how you enforce the fees for late cancellations/no shows. Please make a connection between your ability to set boundaries and your paycheck. There is one exception — if it becomes obvious that you’re having a lot of trouble setting boundaries, and then we’d want to help you have the confidence to set those boundaries.

Frequency metrics:

Please use this as a guide if you’re considering allowing a client to drop down to every other week or monthly. Similarly, if you have an every-other-week or monthly client and their acuity increases, they need to increase their frequency.

• Weekly – we’re working on stuff actively (processing trauma, learning skills). Some acuity is ok.
• Every other week – we’re not actively learning new things, or we’re ok with learning very slowly. No suicidality or other acuity (even passive SI).
• Monthly – we are mostly done with our clinical work and just checking in to reinforce skills and ease the transition out of therapy. No suicidality or other acuity (even passive SI).