1. Create a paid time off (PTO) bank
If you’re working in private practice, direct care is likely your sole source of income — and you may feel like you can’t afford to take time off, because you’re giving yourself a pay cut. Tague recommends creating a “PTO bank” so you can continue to pay yourself when you’re not working.
That may mean you take on extra clients, or that you adjust your overhead budget to have fewer expenses. Either way, try to set aside a certain amount of money per pay period to ensure you can take paid sick days and vacations later on.
2. Plan your time off strategically
You can’t always control when you need to take time off. But it’s worth thinking about when your practice naturally tends to pick up or slow down.
“Therapy is a business that is impacted by the seasons: you might expect a yearly slowdown around the holidays and during summer,” says Alex Oliver-Gans, a private practice therapist in San Francisco. “Early in your practice you might feel that these slowdowns are a bad sign for your business, but plan instead to take advantage of these periods. It feels less stressful taking a week off when you know that at most 80 percent of your clients were going to show up anyway.”
3. Make a plan with your clients
How you communicate your time off to clients depends on your clinical set-up. If most of your clients are biweekly and you’ll be out for a week, you can determine with them whether they’ll simply skip that week or if you’ll work them into a different week (if you have time).
4. Secure crisis coverage
If you’ll be unreachable, Tague recommends asking a colleague (or another therapist you network with) to be available to your clients for emergencies when you’re away. This is especially important if you anticipate any high-level clients who could experience a crisis while you’re on PTO. Before you head out, let any relevant clients know what to do if they need support, whether calling your colleague or checking in with their primary care provider.
“Have a collaborative conversation with them, so it’s not just ‘see you next month,’” says Tague.
5. Update your calendar, voicemail, and email
Before you go OOO — out of office — be sure to update your online calendar so new or existing clients can’t schedule appointments during that time. It’s also a good idea to set up an out-of-office response on your email letting people know you’re out and when you’ll be back, along with emergency contacts such as the suicide hotline (988).
Whether you update your voicemail depends on what it currently says. If you tell people you’ll respond in a week and you’ll only be out for three days, then you don’t necessarily need to change it.
