The dreaded “no-show” – when a patient does not come to a scheduled appointment.
Practices have been searching for effective ways to fill empty slots to make the most of a physician’s time, including imposing no-show fees which barely make up for the lost revenue. But that’s not all it’s costing organizations.
People think of no-shows as a singular incident; a patient doesn’t show and the practice loses revenue for that empty appointment slot. But they are losing more than that, because 72%* of no-shows are never rescheduled - ever. That means the patient who fails to show for their appointment will likely cost you the lifetime value of that patient, roughly $3,000. Multiply that by the 15%* average no-show rate across the United States and the math quickly escalates into a billion-dollar problem.
The right question is not, How do you fill a no-show? The right question is, How do you reschedule a patient who no-shows? Generally, medical organizations either send the patient a message (voicemail, text, postcard, etc.) requesting them to call in, or they just place the ball in their court and wait for the patient to reschedule when ready. This requires the patient to take more initiative, which may not be the most effective approach.
One of our developer partners offers an innovative app called QueueDr, an automated “hands off” scheduling assistant for missed appointments. It automatically fills cancelled appointments, reschedules patients who no-show and re-books bumped appointments using text messages. Thousands of providers are using this solution to experience fuller schedules, happier patients and more productive staff. One provider had this to say:
“I can’t say enough about this program QueueDr. The time I’ve saved by no longer monitoring the schedule has freed me up to work on other projects. I am excited about this program; it has done everything it said it would do and I would highly recommend it to anyone." -- Kim Middleton, Practice Administrator, Hollingshead Eye
* QueueDr derived these statistics from its own data.
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