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Every few days, a therapist logs onto facebook and asks a group of other therapists a version of this question:
"What is an average number of face-to-face client hours? What counts as a ‘full schedule?’"
Often, they’re asking because they’re starting a new role, and facing a productivity requirement that sounds high to them.
Is 28 face-to-face hours high? Low? Average? When you factor in time in supervision meetings, collaboration meetings, and documentation, what then?
I don’t see a consensus in our field. What I do see is that question, eating away at you, me, our colleagues: “I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this…do YOU think I’m able to do this?”
Therapists are smart, caring, creative, and ambitious, and often willing to sacrifice a lot to help others. Success and satisfaction in our field is possible, but it comes and goes in cycles, alternating frustration and fear.
Practice owners, clinic directors, and supervisors do have to make specific, measurable requests out of employees, to meet the demands of their budgets, contracts, and payroll.
If leadership doesn’t know how much will be scheduled and billed, they don’t know how much money they’ll have to pay for people and overhead.
But if you’re on the frontlines, it can be overwhelming to hear a caseload size you’re not used to, and then imagine yourself burned out in weeks.
So what do we do?
Well, first, let’s remember that leaders and staff are not enemies. (Insurance companies? That’s another story).
If you are on good terms with your leadership, you may be able to advocate for a smaller caseload, a more balanced caseload, for a compromise in pay or an expanded role in administrative work.
Maybe you can take a task off your supervisor’s plate or support the onboarding of new peers, or add in some family meetings so you have more billable hours but fewer client stories to hold).
If you are in a situation where you cannot advocate for a smaller caseload, you have a few options to prevent/reduce burnout:
