How to Make Scheduling a Breeze

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There are some clinicians who struggle nightly to determine a schedule for the following day because they prefer it that way.  For most though, the nightmare of scheduling is best solved in one swoop.  These clinicians know that their weekly (or in some cases, bi-weekly) battle with determining who they’ll be seeing and when, is worth the sweat it costs, because ultimately it saves them tremendous challenge and hardship during the week.
You don’t want to spend every night fretting about who you’ll see the next day.  That’s no way to live and certainly no way to make money.  It’s best to know before your week starts who you’ll see, and when; this way you can prepare for the inevitable incoming evals and know where you’ll be able to fit people in.  There are numerous ways to control for this unforseen but inevitable event.  Some clinicians leave an open slot in the middle of their day for evals or use overlapping two hour time blocks with scheduling to allow for leeway and spontaneous evals.
Another strategy some clinicians use is to alternate heavy and light days to allow for space for evals on light days and work longer every other day.  And then there’s the strategy of leaving one day a week as eval day, and slogging your way through 3-4 evals in one day (not always recommended because of the paperwork and unknown availability of new patients).  
Whatever strategy you pick, make sure that it works for you and allows you to keep your work-life balance. Look at the resources page of Hacking Home Health for some scheduling tools that can help you to manage your week!