How to Present a Pediatric Therapy Flex Schedule to Caregivers

Before any family ever has a problem with attendance, you want to train them on your expectations regarding their attendance. This process starts with writing a complete and objective attendance policy. You’ll use this to train parents on your expectations. Once you have the policy, you need to have a conversation to go over the policy and explain the reasons for it. 

You don’t have an attendance policy to kick somebody off a schedule or to punish somebody because their life is busy. Explain that you have a policy in place because you care. With the policy in place, you can find out when a family is having trouble maintaining a consistency of attendance to get the progress that’s wanted and needed. When attendance is a problem, that’s when the family needs our flex schedule. 

What Is a Flex Schedule in a Pediatric Practice?

A flex schedule means that they don’t schedule same time, same day, same therapist every week. There are people like firefighters and nurses and people who work in retail or the restaurant business who have really crazy schedules that are different every week. That’s okay. We have a flex schedule to meet these parents’ needs. 

Because we care about these families, we want them to be on the flex schedule. They call in that week when they know their schedule, when they know they have gas money. We schedule them right then because we want to support them.

Maybe they don’t always have help to get their kids everywhere they need to go. Then when they have some help, they call in and fill in your cancellations or your openings. 

Flex Schedule Is Just Another Way You Can Help Families

Putting a family on a flex schedule is not a disciplinary action. It’s not a punishment. It’s another way you can help families. You have to truly train your team to believe in your flex schedule and you have to believe in it, too. Then it will be a blessing. Parents will feel less guilt and you won’t have negative feelings towards a family that’s scheduling appointments, taking up time on the schedule and then never attending. 

Tell the parents: “We have this flexible schedule so we can help your child consistently attend their therapy sessions.”  Then choose the phrase that fits the situation best: 

• “When you are able…”
• “When your work schedule allows…”
• “When the child feels well…”
• “When you feel well…”
• “When you have gas money…”
• “When you have money for your copay…”

Finish off this way: “Whenever you are able, the flex schedule is there to help.” 

So train your team on it. Teach them that we’re not kicking somebody off to the flex schedule. It’s helping them find a way to keep appointments consistently in a flexible way that works for them. Help your parents understand this before they ever breach your attendance policy. They should know that you have reserved a time, especially for their child, that this therapist is waiting and eager and excited for their child to come so they can help them. But you understand there are times when their child can’t make it.

Educating Parents on the Importance of Keeping Appointments

Here’s a script that covers the important points you should communicate to parents: 

“When there are times your child can’t make it, we just want to know. Please give us as much advance notice as possible. If you’re going to go on vacation, you know the week before. If you have doctor’s appointments that you scheduled months before, let us know as soon as you schedule them. If it’s a last-minute illness, if the car broke down, the battery isn’t working, totally fine. We get that. Last-minute problems happen sometimes. But if we are not helping your child and you don’t give us advanced notice when you can, there’s also another child that we’re not helping.”

Parents don’t even think about the other kids that could be helped in the appointment they missed. Their world is so busy. You need to educate them and let them know that, first and foremost, you want to help their child. Explain it like this: 

“We’re excited every time he comes, but if we can’t help him, we want to help another child. So please give us the respect and opportunity to be able to help another child that maybe is on our waitlist.” 

Handling the Parent When They Start Missing Pediatric Appointments

If you have these conversations with parents before they ever breach your attendance policy, they can receive your communication very easily. How do you handle it, then, when they start missing appointments? 

Adopt this script to your pediatric practice:

“It sounds like your life is so crazy right now. We are going to help you by moving you to the flex schedule. If you’re adhering to our attendance policy, you can be on our permanent schedule. If you are not keeping your appointments, you’re telling us it’s time that you go to our flex schedule because you need more help and flexibility in your scheduling.”

At that point, the parent might go, “No, no, no, no, no. I’ll attend. I’ll attend.” They still go on the flex schedule. Your attendance policy should state that when the family attends all appointments for four weeks in a row or four consecutive appointments that have been scheduled, they have the opportunity to go back to your permanent schedule now that their life has settled down. Explain it with a smile and with plenty of caring because it’s not punishment, it’s help.

How to Find the Kind of Help You Need, 24 Hours a Day

I know that keeping your attendance rate high is one of the toughest tasks in your practice! You can find plenty more advice on attendance in the videos in our Lemonade Library. Get registered and look for Lemonades that help you manage attendance with ease. 

About Diane Crecelius

Diane Crecelius is a physical therapist and founder of a multi-million-dollar, multi-location practice with well over 3,000 visits per week and 200 staff! In the past several years, Diane has worked tirelessly to support Peds-A-Palooza® Community & Conferences and the success of Private Practice Owners. Diane has presented at nearly every Peds-A-Palooza live and virtual conference since the first sold-out conference in 2018. Her extensive knowledge derives from her decades in practice and from being trained and consulted by Survival Strategies, Inc. She uses this training to help Private Practice Owners learn how to thrive and expand while keeping their stress low.