Where Providers Lose 10 Hours/Week

Welcome to the mysterious case of the missing 10 hours. Every week, mental health clinicians everywhere lose precious time to administrative tasks that balloon from “This’ll take five minutes” to “Where did my lunch break go?” The upside is that most of these time-traps are easy to avoid once you know what to look for.

Read on for time-management tips for therapists that will help you escape:

• The note-taking marathon (lost time: 3–4 hours/week)
• The scheduling shuffle (lost time: 2 hours/week)
• The insurance eligibility/prior authorization labyrinth (lost time: 2 hours/week)
• The email vortex (lost time: 1.5 hours/week)
• The resource rabbit hole (lost time: 1–2 hours/week)

How can therapists save time on progress notes?

Let’s start with the elephant in the therapy room: clinical documentation. We all know it has to be done, but somehow a 50-minute session turns into 30 minutes of note-writing. This often happens when you approach notes like you’re writing for an audience, crafting detailed narratives that capture every therapeutic nuance.

In truth, your notes aren’t a transcript or showcase of your clinical abilities. They’re simply a medical record. A progress note can be this quick: “Client reported decreased anxiety (7/10 to 4/10) after practicing CBT techniques. Will continue exposure work next session.” Done. You just saved 25 minutes.