How to Encourage Your Dental Patients to Keep Appointments

If you have more than 1% of your appointments canceled at the last minute or resulting in a no-show, your dental practice is losing money and time. If you find that this is a frequent occurrence at your office, you need to figure out a way to prevent it from happening. Otherwise, it could spell disaster for your dental practice.

Encouraging Patients to Keep Their Appointments

Below are a few tips you can use to help encourage your dental patients to keep their appointment with you:

• Update your Office Technology – It’s a good idea to invest in a confirmation system that sends automated texts, phone calls, or even emails to your patients in the few days before their appointment. Sometimes a simple reminder is all it takes to get your more forgetful patients into the office. Make sure your office forms gather phone numbers and emails for patients so you can utilize this system.
• Follow Up Quickly – If and when a no-show occurs, follow up with the patient as quickly as you can. If it’s the first no-show for this particular patient, you may want to consider waiving a cancellation fee. Let the patient know of some appointments that ‘just opened up’ to see if they would work for the patient.
• Educate Your Patients – Lastly, the best way to encourage your patients to keep their treatment appointments is to educate them about what could happen if they choose not to follow up. Communicate with your patients about their dental problems, why the treatment is necessary, and what could happen if they choose not to undergo the necessary procedure. If your patient is well-educated and knows the risks involved in refusing treatment, you’ll see a decrease in cancelations and no-shows.

The above tips can help when you’re trying to cut down on the number of cancelations and no-shows in your dental office. For more tips on helping your dental practice be as successful as possible, please contact CTC Associates. We’re here to help with it all!