Dental Consultant | Dental Practice Solutions

7 Ways to Eliminate Short-notice Cancellations and No-show Appointments

By: admin

June 3, 2013

For the past 3 years dentists have been calling my office to ask “Debbie, how can I stop all these last minute cancellations?!” and “Debbie, how can I stop the bleeding of my hygiene schedule? Look at all these holes in the schedule!”

The calls from more dentists continue and I continue to create more and more solutions for the new callers and the offices that still feel stuck and have not implemented any of the suggestions.

I am sorry to say but listening to be give solutions is not going to stop the cancellations and the bleeding. There will always be emergency situations in your patient’s lives that cause them to call and cancel. The situation is that will never be able to completely eliminate cancellations. This is a fact of life. What you can do is eliminate the cancellations and no-shows that occur because your patients do not consider their dental appointment important.

Today, I write about strategies to consider and eliminate or at least decrease your last-minute and/or no-show appointments down to a very low number week.

1. Identify patients with a history of last minute cancellations and no-shows. You need to create a different strategy to work with these patients.

2. Do not call and confirm patients appointments and then ask them to call back to verify they received your message. This will only invite them to call you back and cancel their appointment.

3. Do not allow patients to call and leave an appointment cancellation on your voicemail or answering service. Your message needs to state that your office doesn’t not accept cancellation messages. The only way a patient can cancel an appointment is to speak to someone live in your office.

4. When a patient is known for cancelling appointments short notice and/or no-showing for their appointments do not allow them to reschedule an appointment within a 2 week period. Do not allow these patients to think that your time is not valuable and they can return to your office quickly. These patients may need to be on a “short-notice” call list.

5. When you do call a patient to confirm an appointment, say phrases such as “Susan is looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at 2pm for your preventive care appointment. Please take your Amoxicillin one hour prior to your appointment and we will see you then.” That is all. Stop saying things like “This is Dr. Jones’s office calling to confirm your cleaning tomorrow at 2pm. Can you please call me back to let me know you have received this message?”

6. Stay connected with your patients in between their dental appointments. This can be done through an office newsletter, text messages and social media. I suggest that every office have an office Fan page. Communicate at least once a day when you are working at the office. If you have a special running or contest post this on your fan page. Let patients know you have the fan page and give them a chance to “Like” your page while they are in your office. Many offices today have an iPad in the treatment rooms and/or reception area which can assist your patients with writing a review and “liking” your page while they are in your office.

7. WIIFM syndrome. It seems to be typical these days for people to be motivated to do something because there is something in it for them. Offices seem to have a decrease in short-notice cancellations and no-shows when they offer free whitening touch-ups to their hygiene patients. Patients are rewarded for continually showing up for their dental appointments. When patients do not cancel short-notice or no-show they qualify to receive 2 syringes of whitening for free. 1 syringe 2 times a year. Forever White™ is the same premium ingredients but for about 60% less money. The syringes are individually packaged and the size of each syringe is 25% larger than most whitening product syringes.

CONCLUSION

There are numerous ways you can reduce those short-notice cancellations and eliminate the constant no-shows. The most important thing you can do is to choose one of these 7 tips and implement at least 1 of these today. Meet with your team and set some goals to implement more of these suggestions. Monitor your success and remember to celebrate your successes.

Consider utilizing Forever White™ today. You will receive our eBook to Boosts Profits, all the team support to get your patients enrolled in this program and so much more, with your first order.

Debbie Seidel- Bittke, RDH, BS is founder of Dental Practice Solutions. Debbie has immersed herself in the science, systems, services and methodologies that create success and profitability in a dental practice, beginning with increasing the bottom line in the dental hygiene department. She writes for numerous dental journals, speaks at dental conferences nationally and for seven years in a row, she has been known as one of Dentistry Today’s Top Consultants.

Minimize Short-Notice Cancellations and No-Shows: Important Facts You Need to Know

By: admin

May 28, 2013

What can you say about your schedule today? We are about half way through another year so if you have something you are not satisfied with let’s do something about this challenge. I promise you are not alone!

In a recent survey we took, the most common complaint from dental offices was about cancellations and no-shows. Most reported 2-3 openings in the hygiene schedule daily.

First let’s take a look through a critical eye and dig into this very common situation. Why do you think your patients cancel or no-show for their appointments? Why do hygiene schedules have so many openings? And what can you do about it now?

Have you assessed the reasons why your patients are cancelling short-notice? What are they not showing for their appointment? When you have a clear

Understanding of your patients’ behavior and when you know that you are communicating the benefits or your care, now you can develop an effective plan to reduce cancellations.

At a team meeting this month, review how many short-notice cancellations and no-shows occurred in the past 30 days. Write down the top three reasons patients call to cancel. Do you understand why they neglected to show for their appointment? These answers will shed some light on the problem you have at hand and now you can create working solutions.

Perhaps you have thought about charging or, maybe, you currently charge a cancellation/ no-show fee. I don’t recommend this. First of all, you can’t legally charge for a service that was not rendered. This will also not change the patients’ negative behavior.

There will be a lot of cancellations in the dental hygiene department when patients believe they are coming in for “just a cleaning” and they do not understand how important oral health is to their overall body wellness.

Set a goal of no more than a 5% cancellation rate.

Make sure that your patients understand the urgency of preventive care vs. the urgency of emergency after hour calls to resolve a tooth problem!

Your Appointment Change Policy

The most effective policy to stop the last minute cancellations and no-shows is to ask for 72 hours notice should your patient need to change the day and time of an appointment. I recommend that if patients need to change their dental appointment that they give you 72 hours notice. The reason I suggest this is to stop anyone from scrambling to fill a hole in your schedule last minute and if you don’t work on Fridays this means a patient can’t cancel after Thursday.

When you are out of the office the phone message needs to alert patients that your answering service/machine does not accept appointment changes and they are to call back during your business hours. State your business hours on the phone message.

If you are setting a new policy in place make sure that your patients read and sign acknowledgment of this at their dental visit to your office. You may want to have this posted in treatment rooms, on postcards sent to patients confirming their hygiene appointment and definitely post in the reception area. Include this in your financial policy especially what you charge for missed or last minute cancellations. Do attempt to charge for this fee if patients are not following your policy. I am not going to say that in a court of law you can legally collect on this but I believe patients need to have respect for your time and your business policies.

Always document no-shows and last minute cancellations as well as the reason they have cancelled or no-showed.

One proven method to stop last minute cancellations and no-shows is to use Forever White™. This is a patient incentive program utilizing whitening for your patients. Forever White™ is the same premium whitening product that many offices use today however, Dental Practice Solutions can offer this to dental offices at wholesale prices. There are no hidden monthly fees to order. If you are whitening patient’s teeth for the first time, the take-home trays and whitening gel cost to your office is less than $8.00. Typically patients pay a lot of money to whiten their teeth whether it is take home trays and/or laser whitening. If you can purchase tooth bleaching products for very little cost you can pass this savings over to your patients. When a patient comes in without short-notice cancellation or without failing to show for their appointment, twice a year, at their dental hygiene appointment, patients qualify for a free syringe to whiten their teeth. The cost-benefit ratio of giving a patient two syringes of gel, (1 syringe two times a year) vs. the cost of an open hole in the schedule is a WIN!

Most people work off that mentality of WIIFM?! (What’s in it for me?!)

If a patient understands they can get free touch-ups for whitening how likely are they to miss their dental appointment? Not likely. Isn’t that correct?

I have been in offices and heard the patients calling to cancel because they have a hair appointment. This means the patient never really did value their appointment.

How can you build value for optimal overall health and give patients something they really want? It takes effective and consistent communication about the important benefits of optimal oral health that will create urgency with patients over time.

It is all in your hands. What will you do differently today?