Setting Boundaries as an Aesthetic Practitioner
Knowing your boundaries, communicating them clearly to your patients and enforcing them will help you achieve a version of work/life balance that works for you.
This article is for you if you have a general reluctance, inability and awkwardness regarding setting business boundaries.
Practitioners usually discover their boundaries when they’ve been crossed one too many times. They feel irritated, annoyed and resentful with an element of their business or a particular patient.
Often, rather than set, communicate and enforce boundaries, practitioners sit in the discomfort. The seed of resentment growing.
Smiling through gritted teeth saying “Oh, don’t worry about those forms…we can do them in clinic.” “Oh, you’re running 30 minutes late…I’m sure I can fit you in.”
The boundary remains unset, the patient has no idea you’re irate, and you fester!
Over time, this lack of knowing, communicating and enforcing your boundaries leads to you being overworked, overwhelmed and frustrated.
By setting boundaries in your aesthetic business, your expectations and policies are communicated clearly with your patients so that they respect you, your time and expertise.
Find your boundaries
Make a list of the things that annoy you about your business/patients. It might be answering late night text messages. It might be tardiness. Not confirming appointments. Whatever it is, within this list are your business boundaries.
Common boundaries for aesthetic practitioners include:
Availability
This is a basic first boundary. You need to set when you’re available to book and when you’re available to contact.
Clinic Hours - times you’re available to book - are you going to be firm on this, or will you squeeze people in?
Contactable Hours - times you’ll respond to enquiries - are you going to outline hours where you’ll respond to enquiries? Or are you happy to respond as and when they come in?
Communication
You need to make it clear to your patients how you wish to be contacted.
Are you happy to be contacted on your personal number? Email? DM? WhatsApp? Do you want to be contacted differently depending on whether it’s relating to bookings, general enquiries or emergencies?
New Patients
Decide how you deal with new patients. Must they have a phone/online consultation first? Or a face-to-face consultation at a separate time to the treatment? Or are you happy to consult and treat on the same day?
Bookings
How do you want your patients to book in? Online? Phone? DM?
Consultations
Outline what happens during your consultations, and whether there is any cost, so there are no surprises. State clearly that any treatment administered is at your discretion and subject to a throughout consultation during which a medical history will need to be taken.
Late cancel and no-shows
You need a policy in place to deal with late cancels and no-shows. This policy needs to be clearly communicated at multiple points during and after the booking process.
Right to refuse treatment
You need to make it clear that the you have the right to refuse treatment. As aesthetic treatments have become increasingly commoditised, you must make it clear that when patients book in, they are not guaranteed a treatment.
Pricing
Some practitioners are OK with discounting treatments for particular patients. Others have a hard no to any discounts. If you are not interested in patients who want to negotiate, make that clear from the off.
Communicate your boundaries clearly
There are a myriad of ways you can communicate your boundaries!
Verbally - the most obvious way! Tell them…although it’s helpful to confirm what you say with written information
Website - have a section of your website devoted to your policies
Social media - have your policies in an Instagram highlight, set your autoresponders to funnel patients to relevant information, create and pin reels/posts that make your boundaries clear
Automations - including certain boundaries in your booking flow or confirmation emails ensures patients have the right information at the right time
Printed materials - printed leaflets handed to patients with relevant information reinforce your boundaries
Enforce your boundaries consistently
This is where many practitioners lose their nerve.
You’ve decided what the boundary is, you’ve communicated this to your patient…then…the patient crosses that boundary and you bottle it!
Worries about losing patients, not getting great feedback or just the hassle of enforcing the boundary sometimes means that practitioners take the route of least resistance and waive the late cancel fee/book the serial late arriver in again/knock £20 off the treatment/allow the patient to arrive without confirming their booking.
Every boundary not enforced is watering that seed of resentment.
The good news is, once you’ve enforced your first boundary, the others come more easily and you’ll realise that actually, your patients were mostly unaware that they were crossing boundaries at all!
Think about the things that irritate you - use this to determine your boundaries.
Communicate these clearly with your patients.
Enforce them consistently.