Does this time of year get chaotic for anyone else? It seems like September hits and suddenly everything starts happening at once.

So let's talk strategies!

For us.

The SLPs who somehow have to hold it all together – even when life gets busy. 😅

📋 Documentation

Documentation helps with clinical decision-making, continuity of care, recording patient progress, and... ah yes, reimbursement. So how can we make it less painful?

Find your system. What works best for you? This might be point-of-service documentation, writing your notes immediately after each patient, or batch documentation in a few scheduled slots per day.

Use templates. This changes the task from composing (more effortful, slow, decision-heavy) into editing (faster, lower effort). It also helps your documentation stay consistent from patient to patient.

Set a timer. Sometimes an external aid like a stopwatch can help jumpstart your brain and keep you from staring at a blank note or eval for too long.

Let technology help. The Virtual Rehab Center automatically drafts your SOAP notes with patient accuracy, cues used, difficulty level, and time spent on each exercise. Just copy and paste!

🧑‍⚕️ Treatment

Yes, we want our treatment to be functional and evidence-based. But prepping therapy materials shouldn't take over our lunch breaks, evenings, or weekends... right? (Right??)

Think in categories. Keep a list of functional domains to pull from when you're stuck: money, meals, social life, self-care, work, leisure, community, health, safety, etc.

Involve your patient. Word lists, phone scripts, checklists, and personal fact sheets can all be built with the patient as part of your session. For anything longer, have them bring it in (mail, recipes, discharge paperwork) or dictate while you write.

Use ready-made materials. The Virtual Rehab Center has ready-to-go interactive exercises for speech, language, cognition, and swallowing. Difficulty adjusts automatically based on patient performance. Cues, answer choices, and metacognitive strategies are built in. Just click "Start."

👉 Plus, assign any exercise for homework. This is included in your membership and free for your patients! They get unlimited practice opportunities between sessions, but there's zero extra prep.

☕️ Fill Your Cup

When life gets chaotic, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and stressed. Here are a few easy ideas to inject some happiness into your work life. ♥️

Keep a gratitude box. Collect thank-you cards, sweet emails printed out, sticky notes, and nice student or coworker messages. Pull it out on the hard days for a quick emotional reset.

Micro-breaks. Practice square breathing between sessions: inhale for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. Do some neck rolls. Or calf raises. Find ways to give yourself tiny brain breaks throughout the day.

Find your happy. On extra busy weeks, I try to add in little moments of joy. This might look like a fun pair of socks, a pen with purple ink, a favorite beverage, or a "get-pumped-up" playlist in the car.

If you're feeling pulled in a million directions and want an easy way to provide functional, evidence-based treatment – I'd love for you to give the Virtual Rehab Center a try!

Get 3 weeks free and see if it makes your day-to-day just a little bit easier.

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Whatever you're bringing into September, I hope something on this list resonated with you.

Here's to surviving a busy season with a full cup!

All the best,
​-Megan

P.S. If digging through the research is one more thing on your plate, the What SLPs Need to Know series is free, written by SLPs, and organized so you can find what you need fast. In the Virtual Rehab Center, check out the Handout Vault for printable summaries of each article. 🫶