Dentaltown June 2015 - (Page 14)

professional courtesy column The Appointment is Broken and You Can't Fix It No-shows and broken appointments are common management topics on the Dentaltown message boards. When patients reserve your time and cancel on short notice or don't even bother to cancel at all, this is lost revenue to the practice, plain and simple. Your frustration is compounded when you know there are other patients who are pushed out a week or two due to a full schedule. Let's face it, this problem will never be solved, regardless of the fact that many approaches have been developed over the years in an attempt to mitigate this problem. Here are some of those approaches and their inherent flaws. Charge a deposit over the phone for the appointment. I know that people who do this claim it works because everyone who pays the deposit will show up for his or her appointment. Winning? Yes, until someone can get an accurate count of how many paying patients have left the practice in search of another provider. This doesn't just alienate the deadbeats or people without money, by the way. I can afford every appointment that I make, but I would not be inclined to do business with someone who operated on the assumption that I could not be trusted to appear as promised. Confirming appointments by phone, email or text. This technique has been proven to be effective, but not 100-percent effective. People who say, "Yes, I will be there at 10 a.m. tomorrow" are not immune from finding something better to do, or having a meeting at work, or a sick puppy ... you get the idea. I think the multitudes of appointmentreminder services that have been developed over the last five years are some of the greatest innovations for practice-management since scheduling software. These services significantly reduce the number of hours that the front-office staff spends hunting people down. Many patients tell me that they love getting the email reminders for their appointments. No matter which method you employ, people will still say they didn't see or hear the reminder. Charge a penalty for the no-show after the broken appointment or short-notice cancellation. I have utilized this policy in my practice and I will add that we are very lenient on enforcement. This policy gives the patient coordinators in our practice an "arrow in their quiver" to deal with patients who abuse their good nature. We charge $1 a minute, so the penalty is directly related to the amount of time lost. I am not under the delusion that this policy will "fix" people. There are two primary outcomes: people who believe they are entitled to miss appointments may leave the practice, and people who are flaky by nature will pay their penance and be guilt-free the next time they call for an appointment. Should new patients schedule with the doctor or hygienist first? Every discussion of no-shows includes new patients. In this case, the no-show has more to do with the conversation on the phone than the patient's personal problems with keeping appointments. In other words, if patients don't like your policy of seeing the doctor before the cleaning, they may take the appointment, then find an office that will clean their teeth at the first visit, and not bother to call you back and cancel. If the patient doesn't like the demeanor of your patient coordinator over the phone, he or she will take the path of least resistance (accept the appointment) and then never call again. Some people are kind enough to call back and say, "Something suddenly came up," but not everyone has that courtesy. Listening to recordings of your new-patient phone calls is a powerful education, whether you see one or 100 new patients a month. In my office, new adult patients are scheduled with the doctor first for a couple of reasons. First, you never know how long the first visit will take-what X-rays will be needed, whether the patient has a large treatment plan, whether there by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine 14 JUNE 2015 // dentaltown.com http://www.dentaltown.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown June 2015

On Dentaltown.com
Howard Speaks: Dentists: Let's Band Together to Improve Public Health
Professional Courtesy: The Appointment is Broken and You Can't Fix It
Continuing Education Update
Poll
Forensic Odontology: Solving Crimes One Tooth at a Time
Routine Equipment Maintenance and Checklist
Minimally Invasive Approach: Implant Prosthetics and Aesthetics of a Lateral Incisor
Electric Toothbrushes: The Benefits of Tech
OFFICE VISIT: The Ninja Dentist Reveals Her Training Ground
The Best 401(k) Plan: Pooled or Participant-Directed?
The State of Little Teeth: Answers About the ACA and Access to Care for Children
How to Successfully Administer Insurance in Your Practice
Continuing Education: Slow-Growing Nodule of the Hard Palat: Differential Diagnosis and Management
Corporate Profile: DentalMarketing.net: Maximizing the ROI of Your Practice
Products in Practice: Ivoclar Vivadent
Disney for Dentists: How Walt’s Principles Can Improve Your Cash Flow
Burnout: The Dental Pain No One Mentions
New Products
Ad Index
Improve Care, Increase Revenue: The Case for Midlevel Providers
How to Calculate Maximum Dosages of Lidocaine and Articaine Anesthetic
Not Your Everyday Oral Pathology Lesion
Overcoming the Entrepreneurial Conundrum
Dentally Incorrect

Dentaltown June 2015