Emergencies happen. And sometimes, patients have no choice but to miss or postpone their appointments. Cancellations and no-shows are inevitable, and often rise during the holidays when everyone’s schedule becomes packed. 

As people are busy tending to their shopping lists, get-togethers, and vacation plans, dental offices can also find it more difficult to keep appointments. This can result in long idle times, lost profit, and low employee morale. 

But with the right strategy, you can minimize missed appointments. Whether it's a new patient or a recare appointment, here are tips to avoid cancellations and no-shows year-round.

1. Connect with patients.

Take care of patient relationships. Make visits a pleasant experience by greeting and talking to patients. 

Some patients are anxious about being in the dental office. Note specific concerns or requests to help them feel better. One effective way to keep clients coming back is to make them feel heard and valued. 

Establishing personal connections helps set you apart from your competitors. Keep the environment as warm and friendly as possible. 

Leaving a positive impression of your dental office culture is crucial to winning long-term patient relationships.

2. Educate patients.

Some patients tend to say "yes" to treatment plans only because they're too shy to refuse. But there are also reasons why they aren’t on board with suggestions from their dentists. 

Helping patients understand their condition and how treatments will benefit them will help encourage them to follow through. They’re less likely to ignore dental appointments if they know very well the consequences of leaving issues untreated. 

But don't scare your patients. Instead, help them to feel confident about their decision—that they’re keeping their appointments because they’re necessary and not because they couldn't say no.

3. Set follow-up appointments after each session. 

Remind your patients what they accomplished for the day and what their next visit will be for. Then, schedule their next appointment before they leave the office. 

Take this opportunity to confirm their preferred communication method. Be sure to validate their contact information and update it when necessary. 

And inform them that you’ll send reminders. You don’t want follow-ups to annoy your patients, so keep them minimal. 

Check-in with them after a few days to see how they’re doing after their treatment and advise them to get in touch should there be any issues or if they have questions.

4. Offer rewards for keeping appointments. 

Encourage your patients to keep their appointments. Offer discounts, gift cards, or coupons. 

If this isn’t sustainable for your practice, you can also host a raffle for all loyal patients and, of course, inform those who are eligible to win a prize. 

Your happy patients can help you promote your office effectively, so it helps to develop referral incentives too. Your tokens don't have to be fancy. 

Simply by keeping your relationship with patients intimate, you can inspire them to stay and spread positive word of mouth about your practice.

5. Minimize wait-times.

Wait times happen, but do your best to minimize them as much as possible. No-shows and tardiness can disrupt your office workflow, and so can long wait times for patients. 

Allocate enough time for each patient depending on their scheduled procedure and reduce the gaps in between. Inform patients as well about your rules on late visits. 

A 5-minute delay may be okay, but a 15-minute wait time can hurt your productivity. This can have a domino effect on your schedule. Imagine if a couple of patients showed up late. That time could have been spent on new or additional appointments. 

6. Automate reminders.

Some patients tend to miss appointments because they forget about them. Avoid these situations. 

Advise clients you’re calling or leaving a message to remind them of their visits. For example, a week before and a day before their appointment. 

Reach patients where they prefer to be contacted. Some like emails because they’re less intrusive.

Make a confirmation request, especially for difficult patients. And make it easy for them to confirm. A simple "Y", for example, can mean they’re coming.

7. Make scheduling appointments easy.

Offer to reschedule the same day a client calls to say they won't make it to their appointment. If they’re unsure of their availability, offer a call back so you can check with them again.

If they'll be late for their appointment, ask if they would like to move their slot a few hours later and check if you can move some patients earlier. This is better than having an empty spot for the day.

Integrate an online appointment scheduler into your website and communicate with patients as soon as requests are received. It also makes booking appointments more convenient since some patients are only available to do so after practice hours. 

8. Be clear and firm about cancellation policies. 

Last-minute and late cancellations are frustrating. While you understand that some reasons are justifiable and inevitable, you can end up losing if you’re not able to fill that blank spot immediately. 

First, acknowledge the reason they’re canceling. Show your sympathy where applicable. Then, offer to rebook their appointment. However, if the reason doesn’t seem valid, remind them that you have cancellation policies. 

Make this clear, as you don’t want negative comments or feedback should difficult patients be charged. Explain that the spot is reserved for them. 

Some patients move to a new office and take their families with them rather than face penalties. At the end of the day, the goal is to avoid these incidents and see them come back. Be calm as you talk about the consequences of frequently missing appointments.

9. Maintain a web-based calendar.

Sifting through paperwork can be tedious. Keep your dental office schedule easy to check and manage by using a web-based system. This will help make collaboration and calendar planning easier. 

You can decide to reduce or extend practice hours depending on what the office bookings look like. Of course, you'll want a loaded schedule. But on slow days, consider shortening operations to avoid your team members having nothing to do.

Keep your dental practice booked even during the busy holiday season

It's possible to protect your office schedule and keep your revenue cycle solid. Make it a habit to set appointments during checkouts. Manage patient communication, especially during the holidays. 

For more expert tips to keep your dental practice booked, contact us at Dental Growth Strategies. We offer a free 60-minute webinar where you can ask questions or listen to our live demonstration. 

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