Tips for Scheduling Occuational Therapy Sessions!

Welcome to Post 1 in our the ‘Start the Therapy Year Off Right' Series! First, we will focus on OT session scheduling. Many of these tips are appropriate for both online and in-person therapy.

Start the year off right when creating your online schedule! What restrictions are in place at your place of employment? Are you working at a fully virtual school where parents can self-select times? If so use Calendly!

Scheduling Requirements

Find out any scheduling requirements to work around. These tips are for ALL therapists!

Meetings

Are there specific meeting times you need to attend? Make sure to block these off!

IEP meetings

Find out when they hold these ASAP!

Evaluations

Block off time in your schedule for these as well

Work Hours

Do you need to stick to having sessions during specific times? Or do you have more flexibility?

How Many Sessions do You Need to Schedule in a Day to See Everyone?

This is a good place to start with your scheduling! Is it realistic?

Put this into into Calendly!

Calendly is a great tool if your families can self-schedule!

Read the next post to learn how!

Group or Individual Sessions

Will you be holding individual or group sessions? Group sessions are much more complicated to schedule.

Make a Good List of Needed Therapy Minutes for the Students on Your Caseload

I recommend making one sheet per school if you are multiple. If you are scheduling group sessions, plan those first!

I recommend an Excel file with row headers: Weekly Sessions, Therapy time, and Session Time scheduled

I also recommend an additional tab for students who are seen monthly and to try to put 4 of them in the same rotating weekly time slot. Get my forms and examples here!

See my next post on using Calendly and Calendar tips when scheduling OT distance learning sessions! Do you have any tips for your fellow therapists? I would love to hear them, leave me a comment!