Cancellation of appointments is a regular phenomenon, and the dental healthcare industry is no exception. While practices cannot force patients to keep their appointments, they need to try and minimize dental cancellations. This helps in the smooth running of a dental practice.
The key result of this is a potential loss of business revenue, especially if cancellations are a common occurrence. A few tips that can help prevent dental cancellations of appointments are as follows:
This may seem trivial, but the dental team must confirm a patient appointment on several occasions. This is crucial if the dental appointment has been made a few weeks or even months in advance. The team should ideally call or email patients at defined dates or cycles to remind them of the date and time of their appointment.
As patients are also busy running their own lives, it might be possible that a dental appointment might get forgotten or skipped. This is more prominent when it comes to routine checkups or if minor issues need to be addressed.
If the patient has made an appointment for a major operation or treatment, the interaction about scheduling the appointment should also include details about insurance eligibility and benefits. The financial outlay for the course of treatment should also be discussed. The patient must be given all information at least a couple of days before the appointment.
These are the most important elements to be discussed with a patient, and there should always be an understanding of fees that need to be paid and the estimated insurance coverage for the same. The dental team needs to glean through all the files and information at hand and ensure that patients must not assume what is covered or not under the ambit of the insurance policy.
There are urgent procedures and services, such as root canals, that need special attention by the dental team. A discussion with the patient should highlight why the appointment must be kept as the treatment might get more extensive and expensive over some time.
At the time of making the appointment, the dental team needs to collate information regarding insurance policy details and services that would be needed. At this point, the team can ask the patient about the mode of communication that would be preferred. These could be text messages, phone calls, emails, or even calendar invites.
The team can convey to a patient confirmation of the appointment a few times depending on how far out it has been scheduled. This can be done by using the preferred mode of communication.
Such follow-up and reminders will help ensure that a patient does not miss the appointment. The team must also ask patients to respond to confirmation requests that have been sent. Practices that use automated solutions or software programs might ask for a confirmation with just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Dental teams can utilize options within email, calendar settings, and practice management software that can remind patients of scheduled appointments. This not only helps to automate the reminder process but also reduces the administrative burden of the dental team.
When sending a message to a patient through a text message or an email, the dental team needs to ensure that all crucial vital information is conveyed while also personalizing the message and making it more relatable. The team can also make use of applications and templates that enable the user to customize the automated reminders.
On many occasions, it might not be viable to suggest an exact timeframe a certain treatment might take. The dental team should, however, provide an estimation of time that could prove useful to a patient.
In case an appointment takes about ninety minutes, a patient might not confirm the same due to a lack of time. This estimation also helps the practice gauge the response of patients and schedule appointments that can reduce the probability of cancellations. This also helps patients block out the time required for the appointment.
It is important to honor the time scheduled for each patient, as this makes them feel the value of honoring their appointments in turn. Complimenting the patients on their punctuality, oral health, etc., is a great way to appreciate them and connect personally with them
Patients who feel that the practice is concerned about their oral health are more likely to continue the treatment journey and keep appointments.
The dental team should focus on calling patients who are chronic defaulters and cancel appointments frequently. They should focus on calling younger patients, as they are more likely to cancel appointments rather than older patients.
Patients who avail of a government plan or Medicaid must be called, as well as those who might be visiting the practice after a long time. In case an appointment has been made by a partner or spouse, then the actual patient who will visit for treatment needs to be called for confirmation of the appointment.
Patients can forget about their appointments or overlap them due to oversight. A dental practice can minimize cancellations by implementing a few tips to keep patients on track while also protecting the revenue cycle and saving valuable time.
