For not wanting to pay my therapist when I was sick!!

[Anonymous2566]

So, I’ve been seeing my therapist for about a year and things are going well. I’ve been very dedicated and always attend my sessions and pay upfront. My issue is, the cancellation policy. The agreement stipulates that I must give 72 hours notice for cancellation, otherwise the full payment is due. I was sick a few weeks back and let my therapist know on the day, she wished me better, advised me to relax and then put something about the cancellation policy, but that she didn’t wish to charge me on this occasion. Again, I have been sick and had to cancel my session on the day. She sent a similar message, wishing me better etc, but this time included something like “I’m afraid this is very short notice to cancel
without charge” and then offered a reschedule, which was online and didn’t suit as I was still feeling poorly.

AIBU to not want to pay this? How could I possibly give 72 hours notice when I woke up sick?!! It’s seem a little inflexible.

I don’t know your therapist’s situation, but some likely still have to pay the hourly room hire charge and perhaps childcare costs. There are a lot of other overheads that need paying too, insurances, professional body fees etc. Those don’t go away when clients are sick.

Just as well her mortgage provider, council tax, and utilities will accept your apology. Oh hang on….

What if all her clients are ill on the day for a month? Perhaps she could put up her prices to cover cancellations.

You need to be reasonable.

There are lots of posts at the minute of people being really unreasonable. You’re one of them.

She’s right and you’re being unreasonable. I hate to think how much I spent on nursery fees I haven’t used due to child sickness but that is the terms and you have to suck it up. I pay for my kid’s activities termly or monthly. If they are not used, I have still paid. If I was her I’d be tempted to move to block booking of 6 weeks at a time to avoid this sort of nonsense.

How would you feel if your work sent you home without pay? Would your outgoings reduce because of this?

The only thing your therapist did wrong was waive the fee the first time whilst subtly reminding you of the 72-hour cancellation policy.

I'm not sure why people are OK with the terms and conditions up until the point the point that they want them to change. Why did you start working with her knowing what her cancellation policy was?

If you had an issue with her policy that's absolutely fine but you shouldn't have started working with her.

Right so you don't pay when she is sick. But you also don't want to pay when you are sick?
YABU!

YABU and I really wish the NHS charged for late cancellations to. Yesterday our whole team (consultant, nurse, s

Sorry, posted too soon,
Our whole team of consultant, social workers, nurse, therapists) got together to meet with patients relatives and they didn't bother to show up.

I'm amazed that you don't understand why it's right and proper for her to have those T&Cs and abide by them. She was generous waiving the first cancellation fee.

I work in an industry where it's 100% cancellation fee on the day or day before. Anything before that up to a week is still 50% cancellation fee. I have cleared my diary for a client and if they cancel, sickness or otherwise, they are charged. Now, like your therapist I will use my discretion as to when I waive this: first time cancelling due to illness, family emergency etc.

But I have bills to pay and I provide professional services. I won't be mucked around and I have T&Cs for a reason.

Hang on a minute, so you acknowledge that she has bills to pay but simultaneously say that you shouldn't be charged because you have a good reason? That only makes sense if she doesn't have pay her bills if she has a (in your view) good reason.

She was generous to give you one off. I know therapists that do that, I don’t. It is not just room hire, the space cannot be filled at that short notice so its loss of income. You have committed to the space.
Speak to your therapist about your feelings. That’s what she’s there for.

@Anonymous2566you will find this is the case pretty much all appointment based services- as long as she isn’t charging you when she cancels it’s perfectly fair.

Otherwise if you cancel on the day, and 5 other clients do the same that week and every week, she is never going to have a reliable income.

Would you be happy and financially stable if you never knew if you were going to loose 10/20/50% of your income that month?

She gave you one chance where you didn’t pay, she gave you the chance to reschedule- she has been more than fair.

I'm a therapist. If every client cancelled and I didn't charge them, am I supposed to starve/not pay my mortgage? Would the bank understand?
The cancellation policy is there for a reason and it sounds as if she's been flexible. I'm tbe same, I do make allowances for certain circumstances. But most appointments for private health related matters are like this. If you cancel at short notice, someone else could have used that slot and now cannot.

When you're self employed you very quickly realize if you're not strict on your cancellation policy people can and will take advantage and it can make a huge difference to your income. On the day there's no chance of her filling your space with another client so you are def being unreasonable and I think you'd struggle to find a therapist who wouldn't charge in that situation.

The 72 hours is to enable her to fill thenslot so she can meet her financial obligations that month.

She's not giving you therapy as a favour to you and you knew the T&Cs when you entered into a relationship with her.

My therapist works from home and has always been very understanding if I need to cancel as I have a lot on hence needing therapy. I tend to do time and a half the following week so it works out roughly the same.

No, the first session only is payable on booking. That's because we haven't yet met and I can't put an unknown person in my diary a week in advance and have them cancel the day before when I could have given the slot to another person who enquired. Once they become a client they pay a minimum of 24 hours before the session.

If I'm then sick they've already paid so I obviously don't charge for the session next time they attend. The one time it happened the payment just rolled over to the following week. I don't charge for the weeks they're on holiday so if I'd had to cancel due to my illness and they were due to be on holiday and not attend for a couple of weeks and they asked me for a refund for the cancelled session I'd refund them.

Would you be happy to not get paid if you call in sick on the day where you work?

The cancellation policy isn’t about the validity of your reasons, OP., it’s just business and your therapist’s need to earn a living. She can’t usually fill an on the day cancellation. Yes, I agree it stings a bit when you feel poorly and have the expense as well. Fees and the issue of paying them is quite thorny in therapy. I would encourage you to tell your therapist how you feel next time you see them. Any good therapist will talk this issue through with you as things like this almost always say something beyond the surface level frustration of the moment.

Her only mistake was waiving the fee the first time. I'm a therapist, and I have a 48 hour cancellation policy. I'm completely "inflexible" about that. It's obviously partly to do with me having to pay my bills, but also because it's therapeutically helpful to hold a boundary. My clients know exactly where they stand in this regard, and being clear about this sort of thing (money, timings etc) actually builds trust and safety.

FWIW I sometimes would rather waive the fee, because I know it can feel shitty for them to stump up for a therapy session when they've been a "dedicated" client, and they've had to late cancel because for a horrible reason. I care deeply about my clients and waiving the fee would feel like a "nice" way of showing that care, but it's ultimately quite a shallow and self-serving version of care.

What would be great though is if you could talk about this with your therapist. It can often be a very fruitful conversation, and can deepen the therapeutic connection. Depending on the situation and the client, I sometimes actively invite a check-in about feelings around paying the fee. Maybe your therapist will "open the door" for you in this way, but if not, I do encourage you to raise the issue.

This is the contract you made. Of course you have to pay.

I think she's behaved eminently reasonably and probably like all professional therapists. You are buying her time and cancelling at short notice leaves her with no way of filling your slot.

You've been seeing her for nearly a year and she was flexible with the first cancellation to show good will. Now, not much later, comes a second cancellation and so she's intervening by requesting payment, as per your contract, to focus you on whether her time is valuable to you or not.

She knows how valuable her time is and she's holding her boundaries with you — which may be really, really important if your issues are around boundaries. I've known people who've reached difficult, gritty patches in their therapy and started missing sessions because there's stuff they don't want to have to deal with. I've also known people who, once they start having a week off here or there start regarding therapy as an option, if they're in the mood. By holding you to the contract the therapist protects herself but also you. I think a lot of people go through a stage of expecting the therapist to be a nice indulgent mummy or daddy or friend and let them off their responsibilities. Your therapist is making a point: she's not an indulgent parent or friend, she's a professional woman earning a living. I think it's a sign of a good therapist.

Yabu and ungrateful. How lousy of you to feel entitled to special treatment rather than realise she lost money because you cancelled before.

I agree with you there. That's why I only ever make the exception on rare occasions for long standing supervisees.
ETA by that I mean supervisees with whom I've worked for years who are qualified themselves. The waiver I offered recently was for a supervisee I'd worked with for four years, who had never cancelled and whose child had been suddenly hospitalised. In fact I had a trainee who'd cancelled on the day due to illness and I enforced the charge. It would have been poor modelling to do otherwise. She was upset but we worked through the rupture and she stayed with me.