hours as a private practice psychiatrist

[Mdude]

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Hi all,

Med student here interested in psych, likely child psych. Ideally I'd like to start a private practice (likely cash only) and put in some hours at a center that treats the underserved. My main income would likely come from private practice, which raises the following question: to be a successful child psychiatrist in private practice, do you have to regularly work evenings (b/c that's when kids are not in school). What have people done about this if they'd like to be home for dinner with their own family.

I suppose if you practice out of your home, you can take a break during the afternoon (say, 5-7), and then see a few more patients from 7-10 a few evenings a week. Another approach I've heard is charging a "discount" if a pt comes to you during the day--though I don't know if it's a great idea to entice child patients to miss school.

Greatly appreciate any input on this!

 

[Sneezing]

You are a professional. People schedule time out of their days to come see you. If you have opened your own practice you work the hours you want to work. Patients are able to get work excuses from their physicians saying, "yes, patient John Doe was here today." This is protected and not allowed to be a means of recourse by an employer or school.

If you want to work in the evenings go ahead. If you want to work in the normal business day go ahead. If you want to work at 3AM you can do that too.

Often times if a child is coming to see a psychiatrist they probably already have difficulty at school. You are helping them get back to reasonable function to excell in school.

 

[Chimed]

Yeah, you can certainly set up a practice either way you described. Our clinic is only open from 8 to 5PM and, unless you're doing therapy, all medication appointments are done in that time frame. And believe me, there is no problem filling spots during school hours. Parents are typically 🙄 thrilled just to get an appointment.

If I end up going into PP I would likely open up some evening hours. Despite the fact that you can get away with only seeing your child patients during the day, it is a nice service to offer some later appointments.

Child is in such a high demand, you can set your own hours.

 

[peppy]

One private family med doc I worked with had a schedule that was something like 8-5 four days a week but then one day that was something like 12p-7pm. I think that would be a realistic schedule for a psych office as well.
In theory you could take a dinner break and see patients at 10 pm, but I don't think that's very practical. Most people don't want to go out to a doctor's office in the middle of the night unless it's an emergency. Plus you have to think about safety issues. At that time of night, nobody else will be anywhere nearby if there is a problem with a patient becoming agitated or violent. Plus it might look weird to anyone investigating the situation that you were seeing patients that late at night if you ever run into a problem with a patient or family member of a patient claiming you behaved inappropriately.

Also, even though this job can be fun, it's still work. I think that most of us just want to just get the workday over with rather than prolonging it. 🙂

 

[digitlnoize]

If you wanted to be mean, i don't see why you couldn't charge a premium for those evening hour appointments, if you really wanted to offer them...at least for cash paying patients.

Your priorities might change if/when you have a family though. It's no different than taking the kid out of school to go to the dentist, or to the FM office, etc.

 

[Chimed]

If you wanted to be mean, i don't see why you couldn't charge a premium for those evening hour appointments, if you really wanted to offer them...at least for cash paying patients.

Your priorities might change if/when you have a family though. It's no different than taking the kid out of school to go to the dentist, or to the FM office, etc.

I don't know if that would be "mean". It don't think it would be totally unreasonable to do that--not saying I would, though. I know that some of the child fellows who are starting a PP where talking about changing more for after hour appointments. I'm not sure if they do so.