Home Business 4 Ways You Can Reduce Your Patient No-Shows

4 Ways You Can Reduce Your Patient No-Shows

As with any sort of profession in the medical field, you have patients who tend to miss their scheduled appointments. This can cause not only a loss of income but can leave your staff at a steady halt. To help reduce the number of patient no-shows that your office receives, you should employ the four tactics below at your medical practice.

Text Reminders

Pretty much all of your patients have a cellphone that they use on a regular basis. Use this to your advantage by sending out text reminders about appointments. It’s highly advisable to send out a reminder the week prior to the appointment. This way, patients can make alternative plans to ensure they don’t miss their appointment with your office.

Give Out Appointment Cards

It’s surprising how many offices still don’t give out appointment cards. Most people don’t take the time to fill out their phone calendar with the date when they’re in your office. Rather, their mind is likely thinking about all the things they have left to do in their day. To help ensure they remember the date of the appointment, hand them a dental appointment reminder card. These are essentially business cards that have a fillable date area so that you can write down when the patient’s next appointment is with your office.

Email Reminders

Email is another great way to get the attention of your patients to remind them about appointments. Consider sending one a week beforehand so they can be prepared for the appointment. Also, consider including a reply button in the email that will allow them to verify that they know about the appointment and will be showing up. This last step can drastically help to reduce the number of no-shows as you’ll be alerted a week in advance if a patient can’t make it. This will give you enough time to reschedule the appointment time for another patient.

Phone Call

The day before a patient’s appointment, a quick phone call can be a great reminder. This way, your staff can actually talk with the person and ensure that they are coming. This is another great way to help ensure that you catch any no-shows prior to the date of their appointment so you can open up the appointment time to other last-minute patients.

Reducing the number of patient no-shows at your office can not only help to keep morale up but it can reduce your losses throughout the year. The four above methods are great to use in accordance with one another to ensure that a patient is prepared for their appointment. However, just using one of these methods can drastically help to reduce no-shows.

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