Do Your Patients Keep Their Appointments?

 
 

One of the most asked questions is "How can I fix patient cancellations and no shows?".

Many practices that are struggling with last minute cancellations and no shows begin charging a cancellation fee as a first step to correcting this problem. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

If you’re experiencing a high volume of last minute cancellations and no shows, that is a sign of a problem with how you’re communicating value, and how you’re communicating the expectation for the next appointment.

If this is a major issue in your practice, and the very first thing you do is start charging patients a changed appointment fee, you are going to cause patients to become frustrated.  They may even leave your practice because they feel the fee isn’t fair.

So, what can you do?

What do you say each and every time you schedule an appointment?

  • Are you building value and are you communicating the expectation of what you want your patients to do if their schedule changes and they can’t keep an appointment? What’s OK and what’s not OK?

  • It could be as simple as saying: "Mr. Patient, I’m reserving an hour on my schedule for you next week and, because we are reserving this time just for you, we ask that you give us a minimum of 24 hours notice if you need to make a change".

  • In this example you’re:

     

    • Letting them know that you reserved the time just for them,

    • And you’ve given them the steps to take if something changes.

It has been my experience that this communication improvement alone will decrease the level of last minute cancellations and no shows in your practice. 

Next, do you demonstrate that you value your patients’ time.

  • It’s not fair to ask your patients to value your time if you’re not valuing their time in return.

  • You must be very careful about when and how often you move a patient’s appointment.

  • If you need to reschedule patient appointments every now and then that's understandable.

  • But, if you make a habit of moving patient appointments, you’re going to send the message that when something comes up we just simply change the appointment.

You must honor your patients' time as much as you’re asking them to honor yours.

If you put these strategies in place, you’re going to naturally reduce the number of last minute cancellations and no shows. Then for those patients who abuse your policies, you can add the cancellation fee as the final element to this system.