8 Reliable Ways to Reduce No-Shows and Cancellations
What’s worse than having a stubborn patient? For a practice, it’s having no patient at all.
No-shows and cancellations are the bane of medical practices. They leave you unable to meet your daily target, cause undue stress and chaos, kill minutes of your time and consequently, the profit you could have earned making those minutes useful. Research shows that practices typically lose an average of 1 to 2 patients a day due to no-shows and cancellations. This can add up to almost $100,000 in annual profits lost! Even if a single no-show a day seems negligible, it definitely won’t be that way in the long run and on your bottom line.
Thankfully there are a number of simple ways you can effectively decrease no-shows and cancellations in your practice, and get paid even when they happen:
1. Always set appointment reminders. Make it a requirement to set appointment reminders with patients the moment they set an appointment with you. Ask your patients whether they would prefer email, text message or phone reminders, and also at what times they would prefer to receive the reminder. In most cases, it’s most effective to set these reminders after hours, when patients are less preoccupied with daily tasks.
