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5.3 Handling Missed Appointments
 Missed
appointments negatively impact productivity, but the downtime resulting
from them can be minimized by maintaining a list of patients who have indicated
that they are available on short notice for appointments. If no patient can
be reached to fill the available appointment time, staff can provide additional
services to the patients who are there or can take care of administrative duties.
If the demand for services at your clinic exceeds the clinic’s
ability to provide care, causing the clinic to limit the number of
new patients accepted for care, then missed appointments in effect
deny other patients care that could have been provided. The clinic
may wish to develop a written policy concerning missed appointments
and to present it to all patients at their first visit. Click
here to download a sample dental appointment agreement.
On the other hand, many clinics choose to not have a dental appointment
agreement because of the barriers faced by some of their patients, including
lack of transportation, lack of access to a telephone, inability to
find or pay for child care, health problems, and unpredictable or inflexible
work schedules.
Following are recommendations for preventing missed appointments and
for compensating for them if they occur.
Preventing Missed Appointments
- Schedule patients for appointments no more than 3 weeks in advance.
- Routinely ask patients receiving emergency care who need a follow-up
appointment to call back for that appointment, rather than scheduling
it at the conclusion of the emergency visit. Many patients seeking
emergency care will accept a follow-up appointment but then miss it.
An exception is patients with severe infections who need follow-up
to prevent serious consequences.
- Use reminders such as phone calls, postcards or letters, or e-mail
messages to remind patients about appointments.
Compensating for Missed Appointments
- Maintain a short-notice call list to fill gaps in the appointment
schedule.
- Schedule two patients for one time slot who have a history of missed
appointments. It works best if one of the patients is scheduled for
a simple procedure, in case both patients appear for their appointments.
- Whenever possible, use patients seeking emergency care to fill empty
appointment slots.
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