The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy

This is a section that will help to understand the formal 'layout' of The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy. What we mean is how the different parts relate and account to each other. It is meant to outline what reception services are supposed to do, so that you can understand what reception are doing to support your practice, and the group practice overall.

The two distinct entities do share the same workspace & the same services.

In addition to reception services, there is an administration service operated from 31st March by Hannah Olsen, that deals with client enquiries, new referrals into The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy, (front-end services) and existing patient contracts.

The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy is a Referrals Service. This means that what it does is to arrange & facilitate meetings between MS therapists & MS clients.

Therapists are not employees of The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy. They are associate members of the organisation. They are self-employed. The MS therapist receives payment for work done in the form of client fees.

The MS makes charges to the therapists for the services that it provides. These charges are in the form of hourly rates for the use of the clinical rooms and the concomitant diary & reception support services. The current charge is £8.50 per hour. The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy MS's income are these fees.

The MS acts as agent for The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS, and is responsible for collecting its charges from the MS therapist in the form of referral fees, and remitting over to The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS in a direct and transparent way those fees collected. The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy MS does not charge the LFS for that agency service.

The Reception Service supports the MS therapist in five ways:

1. The receptionist receives the client before the meeting & directs the client to the meeting room when the therapist is free for that meeting.
2. The receptionist will (from 1st January 2009 at the latest for all MS therapists) receive payment from the client on behalf of the therapist (if that therapist has assigned that responsibility over to reception for that patient). The receptionist will advise the therapist on non-payments or bad payments received, and take their instructions on how to pursue.
3. The receptionist is responsible for updating the patient's records for payments received, noting the payment type and the amount, and keeping an eye on the balance.
4. The receptionist will liaise with the therapist and the patient after each meeting to ensure that the MS therapist's diary is updated & correct for the next meeting, and for the ongoing series of meetings. The reception service will take messages from the client and from the therapist in the form of telephone calls, texts or emails to update the appointments diary for cancelled appointments, new appointments or rescheduled appointments.
5. The reception service produces a report for the therapist of his net earnings on any one day, by the end of his shift on that same working day. Ie a therapist working on a Monday 6pm to 9.30pm will have a net earnings report on Monday at 9.00pm.

The Reception Service supports the Management in four ways:

1. The  reception service calculates the net amount due to the MS therapist (fees taken less MS and LFS charges incurred), and instructs the management on the amount to remit to the MS therapist.
2. The reception service will bank takings at the close of each business day. The reception service will keep accurate records of banking, and of the calculated daily apportionment of that sum between (a) the (net) MS therapist fees earned, (b) the MS charges, (c) the LFS referral fee charges (d) the VAT account charges for MS activities turnover.
3. The reception service are asked to undertake some administration tasks by the management to do with the appointment manager diary services.
4. Caretaking tasks: the reception service are asked to straighten up the clinical meeting rooms at the end or each day and turn off electric gadgets, and to make sure that the toilets are stocked and clean and to straighten up common areas at the start of each day. To buy cleaning, electric and sanitary materials from petty cash.

For VAT purposes, The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy MS acts as agent for the MS therapist and for the client The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS's referral fees, accepting third party payments, and deducting vatable fees for that service. MS therefore passes on MS therapists net fees collected without VAT deduction. The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy MS then pays flat-rate VAT at 11% on its fees from 1st January 2009 (Business services that are not listed elsewhere flat rate category). Because of the flat rate option, other companies or individuals that are vat paying are not entitled to reclaim the vat on The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy products and services.

The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy is registered for Vat purposes from 1st November 2008, when it starts collecting fees directly.

The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS offers two year placements for students undertaking psychotherapy training. The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS facilitates training clients for the placement students. The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS provides Supervision for training students. The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS provides reports to the student's training organisation.

The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS receives income for its activities by charging the MS therapist a referral fee for clients introduced into his/her practice, and by charging the training clients a less-than-market-rate fee.

The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy MS invoices The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS for the use of clinical space at the rate of £8.50 per hour for clinical meeting rooms and at the rate of £50.00 per hour for group meeting space. The Administrator of The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS invoices the LFS for time spent, and the Supervisor's invoice for services provided. The student body is entitled to divide up fairly all fees taken from training clients in excess of £15.00 per meeting, and the administrator will invoice the LFS on their behalf monthly in arrears and distribute payments.

The Reception Service only supports the management and supervisors of the LFS. This is because the training client is NOT the personal client of the training therapist, but that the training therapist receives the training client on The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS's behalf. Therefore, when the training patient books in, cancels or confirms appointments, they are doing so directly with The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS (they are contracting with LFS).

The Reception Service supports the LFS in six ways:

1. The receptionist receives the training client before the meeting & directs the client to the meeting room when the training therapist is free for that meeting.
2. The receptionist will receive payment from the training client on behalf of the LFS. The receptionist will advise the LFS Administrator on non-payments or bad payments received, and take instructions on how to pursue.
3. The receptionist will liaise with the training therapist and the training patient after the meeting to ensure that the LFS appointments diary is updated & correct for the next meeting, and for the ongoing series of meetings. The reception service will take messages from the client and from the training therapist and from the Administrator in the form of telephone calls, texts or emails to update the appointments diary for cancelled appointments, new appointments or rescheduled appointments.
4. The reception service, on the following business day by 5pm, will report to the Administrator the total amount of fees received from training clients, and how that breaks down into (a) the net amount due to the LFS (b) after the deduction of MS charges for clinical premises use, and (c) after the calculation of fees remittable to the training therapists that are in excess of £15.00 and (d) the vat account charges for LFS activities turnover.
5. The reception service will bank takings at the close of each business day.
6. The receptionist service will perform diary tasks to do with meetings between Supervisors and training therapists: to ensure that the Supervisors diary is updated & correct for the next meeting, and for the ongoing series of meetings. The reception service will take messages from the training therapists and from the Supervisor in the form of telephone calls, texts or emails to update the appointments diary for cancelled appointments, new appointments or rescheduled appointments.

For Vat Purposes, The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS has vatable turnover comprising its training clients fees, net of MS charges, and less training therapist remittances (third party agency collection), together with the gross of referral fees collected from MS therapists. The London Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy LFS then pays flat-rate VAT at 8.5% on its fees from 1st November 2008 (Social Work flat-rate category).

The Administration Service is run from by Phil Rickwood. The administrator is responsible for all Website 'front-of-house' services, which practically covers everything that is needed for processing applications by telephone, email, online-booking and referral over and turning those applications into new assessment bookings for both the MS and the LFS. The administrator is responsible for everything that occurs up until the morning of that new assessment meeting.

The administrator also covers all the back-end functions that are to do with establishing the contract between the patient & the therapist. Practically this is everything that is to do with maintenance and processing of the administration website, and translating the records there into the appointment manager diary. If a therapist carries out a transaction in the appointment manager to update the patient contract (leavings, suspensions, new patients taken after assessment, referrals into practice from the waiting room) then the administrator will action that in the appointment manager (stopping recurring appointments & archiving, setting up recurring appointments, changing recurring appointments series)