{"id":5740,"date":"2013-04-07T18:00:13","date_gmt":"2013-04-07T22:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poweryourpractice.com\/?p=5740"},"modified":"2013-04-07T18:00:13","modified_gmt":"2013-04-07T22:00:13","slug":"reducing-patient-no-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carecloud.com\/continuum\/reducing-patient-no-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Patient No-Shows: A To-Don\u2019t List"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

Getting stood up is the worst. No one enjoys arriving at the restaurant just to receive a call from the supposed date who can\u2019t make it because of a gold fish that needed veterinary care. But essentially, patient no-shows are the physician\u2019s equivalent to getting stood up. Except instead of simply wasting time, no-shows cost your practice money<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Some estimate that patient no-shows cost individual physicians as much as $150,000 per year<\/a>. Figures like this show why it\u2019s essential to do all you can to reduce no-shows.<\/p>\n

But there are certain things you don\u2019t <\/em>want to do when trying to decrease patient no-shows.\u00a0<\/strong>Going about it the wrong way can waste time, or even worse, damage relationships with your patients.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t<\/span>
\nDisregard patient convenience: <\/strong>Start by asking patients when they would like to come in, rather than assigning them the first available slot. A study from the University of Missouri<\/a> showed this controls as much as 1\/3 of the probability of patients showing up.<\/p>\n

Allow long appointment delays: <\/strong>Sometimes it\u2019s all the patient\u2019s or practice\u2019s schedule permits, but increasing the time between appointment setting and appointment date increases the chance of no-shows.<\/p>\n

Rely only on reminder phone calls: <\/strong>Nowadays, many patients prefer being reminded through text or email. A good practice management system will automatically send reminders using these methods.<\/p>\n

Send reminders using every method imaginable: <\/strong>Ask each patient for primary and secondary contact information, and stick to using those.<\/p>\n

Waste money on post-card appointment reminders: <\/strong>A University of Kansas study<\/a> found that these snail mail reminders have little effect on improving patient appointment-keeping behavior.<\/p>\n

Overbook appointments: <\/strong>Long office wait times were viewed by patients as a sign of disrespect that led to patient no-shows according to a qualitative study out of the University of Nebraska<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Have a flimsy no-show policy: <\/strong>The policy should be documented and displayed in a place highly visible to patients. It should detail the consequences of not showing up for appointments and eliminate wiggle-room for chronic no-showers.<\/p>\n

Go crazy with no-show fees:<\/strong> Allow patients a couple of warnings before incurring a fee. Also, don\u2019t make the fee exorbitant. It\u2019s a good way to send patients to the closest competing provider organization<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Take transportation for granted:<\/strong> This is particularly relevant if many of your patients use public transportation. Scheduling appointments for these patients when the route to your practice isn\u2019t running is basically asking for a no-show.<\/p>\n

Follow-up without a purpose:<\/strong> When following up, ask patients why they missed their appointments, then document the reasons. This allows you to spot general trends in no-shows that could possibly be fixed.<\/p>\n

Fail to show appreciation to \u2018do-shows\u2019:<\/strong> For those that do show up when scheduled, tell them how much you appreciate it. This encourages them to continue showing up to their appointments.<\/p>\n

Decreasing patient no-shows can be tricky at times, but avoiding these slipups will propel you toward that goal.<\/p>\n

Searching for more practice management tips? Check out our <\/strong>Complete Guide to Practice Management<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getting stood up is the worst. No one enjoys arriving at the restaurant just to receive a call from the supposed date who can\u2019t make it because of a gold fish that needed veterinary care. But essentially, patient no-shows are the physician\u2019s equivalent to getting stood up. Except instead of simply wasting time, no-shows cost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-revenue"],"yoast_head":"\nReducing Patient No-Shows: What Not To Do - Continuum<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's imperative to reduce patient no-shows, but there are certain things you want to avoid doing that may do more harm than good.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/carecloud.com\/continuum\/reducing-patient-no-shows\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reducing Patient No-Shows: What Not To Do - 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