How Far in Advance to Schedule Appointments

Ideally, appointments should be scheduled no more than 3 weeks in advance. This allows multi-appointment procedures such as root canals or crown and bridge procedures to be completed expeditiously and preserves the quality of care. Experience also shows that the incidence of broken appointments increases when appointments are scheduled more than 3 weeks in advance.

If appointments need to be scheduled more than 3 weeks in advance, a mail- or telephone-based reminder system should be considered.

If appointments are scheduled more than 3 weeks in advance, other considerations come into play. If the clinic has only one dentist, then the dentist’s unscheduled absences (e.g., because of illness or family emergency) can seriously impact the appointment system. Under no circumstances should appointments be scheduled more than 2 months in advance; rescheduling patients beyond that time frame is inconsistent with quality care. Many clinics keep portions of 1 week per month or certain times each day unscheduled or lightly scheduled to use for rescheduling patients or to treat emergencies.

One way to make it easier to schedule appointments no more than 3 weeks in advance is to limit the number of new patients admitted to the appointment system each week. Over time, with adequate data collection and analysis, the clinic can determine the average number of appointments each age group will need to complete all planned treatment. This information can be used to estimate the number of new and recall examinations that the clinic can accommodate each week without overloading the appointment system. For example, if clinic appointment data reveal that the average 3- to 6-year-old child requires three restorative appointments after the oral examination, it can be determined that each examination for a patient in this age range is going to generate, on average, three additional appointments.

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