How to Deal with No-Show Patients, with Patience

At the start of your day the schedule is full and beautiful, but then the no-show happens.  This can be stressful for all the team members, and sometimes it seems as no one knows how to handle it, or what to do about it.

No-shows happen, but it’s what you do about it that will make the difference.  A system must be in place specifying who does what, and how they should handle the situation.  Do we call the patient? Who calls the patient? What if they arrive late? How do we follow up on this no-show appointment?  All these are great questions; it is just a matter of creating a system for your practice so you and your team know what action to take.

First, establish a time period that you consider the patient to be late or will not show.  A good rule is at 5 minutes after the appointment time, the patient is late and should be called.  Ideally, the person who is scheduled to see the patient would make the call to the patient.  If for some reason that person is occupied, have a secondary person (typically someone from the administrative team) make the call.

It should be a courtesy call that expresses our concern for them. Try this:  “Hi Ms Davis, this is Angela from Dr. Baird’s office.  We were expecting you at 10 and it’s now 10:05 and I was concerned about you.  If you are on your way, we will see you soon, otherwise give me a call when you receive this message”.

If you actually reach the person you could say “Hi Ms Davis, this is Angela at Dr. Baird’s office.  Is everything okay? We were expecting you at 9.  Glad you are on your way, we will see you when you arrive.”

If they forgot or are not coming  you could say, “Is everything ok? Is there anything I can personally do to get you here?  I have you reserved with Michelle for the whole hour. Then let me find you another time….”.  We want to reschedule them, so you can always ask if there is a day and time that is better for them. Always give them a value statement on why it is important to keep regularly scheduled appointments.

Let’s talk about the patients that walk in the door five minutes after their appointment  or are just a few minutes away.  What are our guidelines on how to handle this? It is best to have a plan that the entire team knows and supports to handle the late patients.  When the patient does make it in, we can’t waste time saying “let me see if we can still see you”, or worst of all saying “let me reschedule you”.  The best answer is, “we will do what we can in the time that remains.” There is no need to greet the late patient and then go find the assistant or hygienist and ask if we can still see them.  That just wastes more time.

Have these guidelines and agreements in advance.  It is important to take care of the patient in front of you.  Even if they are late, what can we still make happen today?  I know it has happened to me – you turn a patient away because they arrived late and guess what? Right! The next patient didn’t show either! We could have seen the patient that did make it to the office.

No-shows and late appointments are stressful, but having a plan in place, and agreements as a team, in advance of these happening can make it less so.

So the first step is to create your plan for when a patient is late.  Start with what time we make the call and by whom.  Again, I recommend no longer than 10 minutes. The person making the call ideally should be the team member who patient is scheduled with, but can always get support and assistance from the administrative team.  The important thing is to make the call and show concern for them because they have not arrived. Secondly, when a patient does show up late, what is the plan? We should say “so glad you made it in hope everything is okay,” and finally ‘we will do what we can in the time remaining’.

Set up these few guidelines in advance and as a team.  You will cut down on the stress and confusion when no-show and late patients threaten your perfect schedule.