The Cost of No-shows and late cancelations: How to Prevent them

We all know how hard it is to maintain a client who does not show up for appointments or cancel at the last minute and the overall effect on the management of your business.

In this article, we explore what you can do to reduce the impact of no-shows and late cancelations, and some tips for dealing with those difficult patients who always seem to choose the 9th option when it comes to showing up for appointments.

1. Incorporate automated reminders

A system that puts a dent in no-shows: Reminders are a great tool to help clients stick to their appointments. Clients who fail to show up could be empowered with a text or email reminder.

Additionally, if clients need to change or cancel an appointment, a reminder allows them to connect with you in advance — giving you time to reschedule the visit for a later date and assign the time to another visit.

With CompanyOn you can send automated appointment notifications and reminders via email and SMS. You can choose what clients and services you want to send reminders about. And let’s not forget the ability to add customized notes.

2. Build a patient wait list

A patient wait list can be a tremendous asset in growing your practice and saving you money. By having a list of clients wanted to be seen as soon as a slot becomes available, it’s easy to schedule visits that were canceled or rescheduled by other patients.

Having a system where you can easily access the client’s information and book an appointment as soon as possible, is priceless.

To learn more about how you can create your own patient waitlist, click here.

CompanyOn offers you the feature to set penalties for no-shows, that could be automatically set as part of your services charges.

3. Create a no-show/late Cancellation policy

Studies have shown that even if this policy is never implemented, notifying clients of a no-shows/ late cancellation policy, decreases no-shows at a high rate.

Within CompanyOn you can set penalties for no-shows/late cancelations, as part of your services charges.

At CompanyOn, we’re committed to supporting our community of solo practitioners, no matter if they are just thinking in pursuing professional independence, or they are already well established solo practitioners.