Let’s face it, Patients that skip out on appointments create a cascade of issues for your schedule, your staff and the entire office. They have a detrimental to clinical productivity, cost and quality of care, and treatment outcomes. Following are key features to reduce no show rates for private practice owners.
Most importantly, No Show’s affect the profitability of your private practice. Sign up for a demo today! to learn how a comprehensive healthcare payment processing solution can help drive more sales for your provate practice .
In a UNLV study on the No Show impact to private practice, data points to an increased need for Physicians to employ proactive measures to prevent these from happening, but…
The #1 most commonly reported reason for missed appointment “I forgot”.
With a National no- show rate as high as 17%, many “Best Practices” by top performing medical group are being shared. Following are the top three single items a private practice can do to Reduce No Show rates:
- Clearly defined and distributed “No Show Policy”
It’s important to communicate with your patients that you have a clear No Show Policy. Each practice will employ their own specific tactics, but most want a 24 hour notice, and most include a fee. This conversation needs to happen as early as their first booking.Collecting a credit cardover the phone to secure an appointment may be overkill at your practice, but other private practices that have employed this tactic have show to drasticly reduce No Show rates.
- No-Show Consequences
Most people immediately think of a fee. And Yes, the “fee for no-show” provides the economic incentive for your patient to show up, but it’s not the only option. One tactic that has proven successful is the “Illusion of limited availability”. Here’s how it works, if your patient is calling in to cancle or reschedule within your 24 hour window, you simply don’t have any other availability for the next 6 weeks. Explain that your office is very busy, which is why all appointments are scheduled out so far.
Make sure your practice is using a payment processor that can collect and store card data for both the appointment and anyremaining patient responsibility.
- Multi-method reminder system
Leveraging today’s technology to reduce No Show rates. Providers can easily connect with their patients to remind them of their appointments. But don’t stop there, leverage the fact that over 90% of your patients are never more than an arm’s length away from their mobile phone. Mobile solutions exist that allow you push any message type via SMS, and your patients can do everything from downloading forms and simple one-click payments of their medical bill.
Following Best Practice that have been proven by other private practices, will have a significantly positive impact on the profitability of your private practice. Please share any other best practices you’ve employed at your private practice, and what type of impact it made.