NO SHOWS Costing Your Dental Practice a Fortune!

Your dental practice suffers a significant impact on multiple fronts

Over the last year, I spoke to my dental clients' staff members about the consequences of "Broken and Cancelled" dental appointments. In talking to their Front Office Staff, Hygienists, Patient Coordinators, and even Laboratory staff, I wanted to know their views on how broken appointments and no-shows affect the dental practice.

Each person shared how BAs and CAs cost their dental practice money due to lost daily production. They also mentioned the difficulty with rescheduling appointments, acknowledging that rearranging appointments leaves empty spaces in the appointment calendar that they frequently cannot fill.

Another aspect associated with BAs and CAs is the hidden costs that, typically not measured in monetary terms, adversely affect the staff's positive attitude and overall Team Spirit.

The impact of these "Profit Killers" is felt throughout the practice. No matter how resilient your staff is, it is impossible not to be negatively impacted by BAs and CAs. Even the best Front Desk person feels stress when repeatedly dealing with sudden and unforeseeable changes to the appointment schedule.

Before we can fix the problem, we need to understand why Broken Appointments and Cancellations happen. We don't want to be reactive; we need to find a way to prevent BAs and CAs from occurring in the first place.

Since I did not have enough data, I used third-party research to examine this problem. The sample size of 550 dental practices and their patients who also participated in the survey was large enough for the results to be deemed reliable and as accurate as possible.

The common denominator was that patients were oblivious to why keeping their scheduled appointment is critical to both the dental practice and the patient, ensuring they receive the best dental care possible.

Now that we know the lack of awareness on the part of patients is the most significant reason BAs and CAs happen, we can do something about it.

The staff must educate and work with the patients and explain the different elements of the scheduling backbone.

• Explain to the patient the appointment system's basics and how it works in your office. Show the patient what value the appointment time has to them and what value it has to the dental office.
• Explain to the patient what work goes into scheduling their entire treatment plan.
• Explain the time frame needed for their treatment?
• Explain to the patient that the dentist knows when patients miss their appointments.
• Explain how much work the dentist and the staff do to prepare for each appointment. Educate the patient on the expenses incurred by the dental practice when appointments are missed or canceled.

The data that was available to me also revealed some interesting insights into what Patients believe.

We must remind ourselves that most patients do not know or have never been made aware of the importance of keeping their appointments. Patients also have little or no knowledge about treatment sequencing and even less understanding of the critical importance of completing their dental treatment promptly. Dentists must take responsibility for the no-shows and cancellations if they fail to educate their patients.

What I found personally quite interesting is the report findings on what patients believe regarding their appointments. Understanding how patients think and feel will help us significantly reduce the number of BAs and CAs.

When questioned, patients expressed the following views:

• "The Doctor is so busy, and he/she does not mind if I come to see him/her today or next week."
• "The only person who would know if I miss the appointment is the person I spoke with when making the appointment."
• "The people at the dental office?make appointments when it's convenient for them."?

The next Newsletter focuses on how you can "train" and who should "train" your patients to have more respect for their appointments and the entire scheduling procedures.

Client Testimonial

"We have worked with different marketing agencies over the years. We have not met anyone who could rival the level of marketing and SEO expertise Max and his team have brought to my dental practices for the last ten years. They have increased our results year after years." - Shankar Iyer DDS,MDS,FDSRCPS (Glasgow)