Helping Your Patients Keep Their Dental Appointments

If even around 1% of your patients cancel their appointments at the last minute or just neglect to show up at all, your dental practice is losing money and time. If you find that this is common at your office, it’s important that you find a way to prevent it from happening as often.

Helping Patients Keep Dental Appointments

Below are a few habits you can incorporate into your office to encourage your patients to keep their follow-up appointments:

• Keep your patients educated – The very best way to encourage your patients to keep their dental appointments is to keep them educated about their dental health. If they know the importance of treatment or follow-up appointments, they’re much more likely to keep them. Make sure you let each patient know his or her diagnosis, the reason treatment is necessary, and what may happen if they choose to refuse treatment.
• Implement automatic reminders – You may want to consider investing in a confirmation system. This technology is used to send text, phone call, or email reminders to your dental patients in the days and weeks leading up to their appointment. Some of your patients may just be forgetful and this system can help increase the likelihood that they’ll remember their appointment and show up. Use patient paperwork to gather phone numbers and emails.
• Follow up quickly with no-shows – If you do have a no-show, have a member of the front office staff contact the patient to make sure everything is okay. You may want to consider waiving a cancelation fee for the patient if this is their first no-show. Make a note to call the patient back in the next day or two to offer an appointment that has ‘just opened up.’

Using a combination of the above methods can help you reduce the number of cancelations and no-shows that occur in your office. Here at Pro Dental Designs, we can help you learn how to bring in more patients and keep the ones you currently have. For more information, please give our office a call today.