"100% of people who do not save money do not have any!"--Dave Ramsey

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Xist

Still, there aren't other therapists up here. Either they give me work or they lose money.

Originally Posted by Xist

On Friday our office told me that if I did not start seeing my in-person clients again they would give them away,

Sounds like they found an alternative

[Xist]

As I mentioned initially, undoubtedly the SLPA from the other agency would get them.

[JSH]

You say:

Originally Posted by Xist

As far as I know my boss likes me. He is always friendly. We don't have other speech therapists up here, so either they get me clients, or it costs the agency money.

I always submit my paperwork on-time. Otherwise I am not paid. My supervisor approves my paperwork. I have never had feedback from the boss, but my supervisor rejects stuff all of the time, even when I did it the way that she always told me to.

And you also say in your computer thread:

Originally Posted by Xist

Some of my pay may be delayed. I finished my notes, swapped back the SSDs, hit the Novo button, and told it to reload. While I was doing that my supervisor messaged me that she "had to" reject paperwork.

I did everything the way that she has wanted for a couple of years now, but suddenly she has a problem with me referring to data that I gave in the section immediately above without giving at least sixteen points of data all over again--but only on a fraction of my paperwork. I did the exact same thing on the rest and she approved it without a problem.

Windows did not finish reinstalling until almost midnight. As soon as it did I installed Vivaldi, logged into my account, changed my notes, resubmitted, and notified her, but it was already after midnight.

So we will see if she approves it or I need to wait two weeks for that pay.

I'm guessing the deadline was midnight and 00:01 am was late. Even if you got it in at 23:59 just skating in under the deadline isn't good. The sooner you submit your paperwork the more time your supervisor has to do her paperwork.

Missing a deadline at work is like missing a payment for your credit report. It only takes one time to have a big impact on your credit report. Managers don't remember all the time you got stuff done on time and correctly - they remember the times you were late or had to fix something.

Again, your relationship with your supervisor is key to your success at the agency. You should be thinking about how you can make life easier for her and doing nothing that makes it harder.

[Xist]

I finished my paperwork in the evening. She didn't approve and reject until shortly before midnight, while I was reinstalling Windows.

The office runs payroll at 09 on Saturday. As long as my paperwork is approved by then I get paid, but I make sure that I submit it by the night before.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Xist

I finished my paperwork in the evening. She didn't approve and reject until shortly before midnight, while I was reinstalling Windows.

The office runs payroll at 09 on Saturday. As long as my paperwork is approved by then I get paid, but I make sure that I submit it by the night before.

Is 9 am Saturday the hard deadline or the soft deadline?

Do you think your supervisor wants to review paperwork after hours on a Friday and then again Saturday morning so you can get paid? Do you think that improves her impression of you or hurts it?

Could you finish your paperwork by end of day Wednesday or Thursday so she has time to review and approve during business hours?

[Xist]

My supervisor got an early start on rejecting my notes!

Usually she doesn't start looking at them until Friday night, but today she rejected one while I did my first in-person session in four months [although I have done dozens with my brother].

That is a fun-loving client! She took me by the hand, walked me back to the play room, and then immediately grabbed my glasses, mask, and hair.

In the first part of the notes we report how cooperative the client was. I noted that another client was "Mostly cooperative" and my supervisor rejected it saying that I was being subjective. I needed to be objective and just say that he was cooperative.

He wasn't fully cooperative! That is why I put "Mostly" in there! You could argue that "Mostly" is subjective. What percentage is mostly anyway? Well, what percentage is moderately, partially, or somewhat?

I asked "How do you report how cooperative a client was?" in a Facebook group for speech therapists and some SLPA wrote two paragraphs about how she refused to write that, but she did say something useful.

For each activity we report how much prompting they required, which is usually maximum, moderate-maximum, minimal-to-moderate, minimal, and independently.

I changed "JSH was mostly coooperative" to "JSH required minimal-to-moderate prompting throughout the session.

Since I only had one client today I finished my notes just after 1600. When I have Friday clients the first one may be at that time and I may not finish until 1900 - 2000.

Then I may be an hour from home.

Last year I had six Friday clients scheduled back-to-back, but my record was ten appointments on a Friday. I had a different supervisor and she complained about needing to approve hundreds of notes every Friday night.

I only submitted my notes from that day, so the two other SLPAs submitted 195?

They averaged ≈ 50 clients a week?

How?!

Hour-long sessions, commuting time, and most SLPAs complain about a lack of work.

I think that supervisor was a liar.

I need to order my brother's pizza, but we are told to submit our notes by 1700--you know, while most of us are still out and seeing clients. My supervisor tells me to have them in by midnight, but when we got close to 0000 one time she told me "As long as they are in by 09 you get paid."

[JSH]

So what I got out of all of that is your official deadline to submit your notes is 5 pm on Friday - which you missed. Your supervisor gives you an extended deadline of midnight - which you missed. Yet you say you always turn your reports in on time. Except you aren't and a lot of other SLPA's don't either. That isn't just a criticism of you - it is an opportunity improve AND to stand out in a good way.

You also said your previous supervisor complained about getting lots of notes late on Friday night. It seem like a good bet that your current supervisor also doesn't want to spend her Friday nights doing paperwork because her employees missed their deadline but still want to get paid on time.

SO... It seem like a pretty easy way to become the office MVP would be to turn your notes in on time. You could turn them in at the end of each day after you have seen the client. Yes, maybe Friday afternoon clients would be after that official deadline but I'm sure your supervisor would rather get a couple of client notes after the official deadline than a whole weeks worth.

Then when you supervisor is reviewing notes at 11 pm on Friday night she can think - "If all my SPLA's were like Xist I could go out and have some fun on a Friday night instead of doing paperwork all night"

[Fat Charlie]

How much of these notes are predictable? How much could be done in advance, or done once and saved?

Assigning yourself a pay week that ends on Thursday could also help. Pay from Friday's appointments will be delayed one week, but one week into that routine you're back to being paid for a week's worth of work every week- without rushing for deadlines and having Friday nights for yourself.

[Ecky]

My wife makes it a point to write her notes immediately after ending a session with a client. We don't eat dinner until it's done, every day. Nothing gets put off until the end of the week. She also isn't paid for the time she's working on the notes.

I'm not sure if your organization and job are the same, but hopefully this is a helpful point of reference.

[Xist]

My supervisor occasionally makes a big deal about freshly crafting each set of notes from scratch every week, but the site automatically copies the previous session's notes for 3/4 sections, or the previously-approved notes, or something.

For the most part I just update the numbers from the previous session, try to make sure that I covered everything, and then proofread. I wonder why it takes five or ten minutes.

I tried to write them every day when I saw around ten clients a week, but when I was seeing three?

I can knock out those after my last client on Friday. That was about a day's worth of notes anyway.

That one week I submitted my notes in the evening, tried to fix my laptop, and I think that my supervisor didn't start looking at them until around 11pm. As I mentioned, as soon as I finished reinstalling Windows I checked my mail, logged in, and resubmitted it as fast as I could, but barely missed midnight.

I checked and the deadline is 0000. I apologize for confusing anyone with 1700.

I must confess that I missed my deadline in December when I had the flu.

How dare I?!

Did I tell you guys that my school supervisor left voice mail in July that I needed to redo some progress reports that I submitted in May? She acted like she had reached out to me a number of times, but that number was zero.

She also contradicted her previous message, which still wasn't true.

I think that I responded to everything, but I know that I need to get some sleep before I get blamed for a bunch of stuff tomorrow.

You guys take care.