How to reduce No-Shows
No-shows are a bummer. They mess up the carefully planned Practitioner’s schedule. Last-minute adjustments are difficult and the Clinic loses out on certain revenue as that block of consultation time goes unused. Clinicea has a smart set of No-Show Specialist Tools that can help you massively reduce No-Shows.
We do this by removing the human element from the management of No-Shows and enabling Clinicea to take over the responsibility. Clinicea follows an approach of “**MITIGATE, IDENTIFY, FOLLOWUP”.**
Clinicea will monitor your appointments 24/7/365 ensuring there is no chance of a slip-up. It will send multiple reminders to patients when their appointment is due, and it will do so intelligently at the right moment, to make reminders effective. It will then start monitoring your Calendar, and identify the no-shows at the end of every day, reach out to them automatically, and offer them the option to reschedule. Let us put it all in action.
1. MITIGATEPrevention is better than cure. Setup Clinicea to prevent No-Shows in the first place. How? By reminding the patient, and doing so intelligently.
a. Send the 1st reminder as soon as the Appointment is made. So that the Clinic Phone number and Address both get onto the Patients mobile phone. This can be saved as a Contact on the Patient’s mobile for easy recall later on.
b. Follow up with a 2nd reminder. This reminder will go 1 day before the appointment is due, but it will go out at the exact same time when the appointment is due the next day. Ex: If the appointment is due at 2 pm on Tuesday, this reminder will go out on 2 pm on Monday. So that when the Patient sees the reminder, they know this time tomorrow they need to be with you in the Clinic and need to act now to clear up this block of time for tomorrow.
c. And then comes the 3rd reminder on the morning of the Appointment at 9 am. You can change the time to suit your needs. It makes sure that the when Patient is planning their schedule at the beginning of the day, they are aware of their appointment with you and can plan the day accordingly.
To set it up, Goto Tools | Organization | Select your Clinic | Scroll down to Communication Preferences and switch on these preferences.
2. IDENTIFYIf in spite of the reminder, a Patient fails to turn up, then it is often left to the Receptionist to identify such Appointments and reach out to them to reschedule. This is error-prone as the Receptionist may be having a busy day and may not be able to reach out to everyone 100% of the times. Setup Clinicea to identify who are the No-Shows.
Goto Tools | Organization | Calendar Preferences | Switch on “Auto-Mark Patients as a ‘No-Show’ if they remain ‘Scheduled’ at the end of the day”
Now at the end of every day the System checks for Patients who were supposed to come in, but have not. It will auto mark them as a No-Show and set it up for a followup SMS reminder. More on it in the next step.
3. FOLLOWUP
It’s time for some action. Enable the system to reach out to the Patients who have been identified as No-Shows. Clinicea will then start contacting them asking them if they would like to re-schedule.
NOTE:
You can manually also tell the system which appointments are No-Shows. Just go to Calendar, check scheduled Appointments for the day.
Ex: Lets stay its 2pm right now and you goto the Scheduled window on the Calendar. By default you appointments ordered by their Appointment Time. So all appointment appearing at the very top with times such as 10am, 11am or 1pm etc are No-Shows. Simply change Appointment Status from Scheduled to No-Show.
The Appointment status changes to No-Show, color bar changes to black, and the patient receives the No-Show SMS.
We do this by removing the human element from the management of No-Shows and enabling Clinicea to take over the responsibility. Clinicea follows an approach of “**MITIGATE, IDENTIFY, FOLLOWUP”.**
Clinicea will monitor your appointments 24/7/365 ensuring there is no chance of a slip-up. It will send multiple reminders to patients when their appointment is due, and it will do so intelligently at the right moment, to make reminders effective. It will then start monitoring your Calendar, and identify the no-shows at the end of every day, reach out to them automatically, and offer them the option to reschedule. Let us put it all in action.
1. MITIGATEPrevention is better than cure. Setup Clinicea to prevent No-Shows in the first place. How? By reminding the patient, and doing so intelligently.
a. Send the 1st reminder as soon as the Appointment is made. So that the Clinic Phone number and Address both get onto the Patients mobile phone. This can be saved as a Contact on the Patient’s mobile for easy recall later on.
b. Follow up with a 2nd reminder. This reminder will go 1 day before the appointment is due, but it will go out at the exact same time when the appointment is due the next day. Ex: If the appointment is due at 2 pm on Tuesday, this reminder will go out on 2 pm on Monday. So that when the Patient sees the reminder, they know this time tomorrow they need to be with you in the Clinic and need to act now to clear up this block of time for tomorrow.
c. And then comes the 3rd reminder on the morning of the Appointment at 9 am. You can change the time to suit your needs. It makes sure that the when Patient is planning their schedule at the beginning of the day, they are aware of their appointment with you and can plan the day accordingly.
To set it up, Goto Tools | Organization | Select your Clinic | Scroll down to Communication Preferences and switch on these preferences.
2. IDENTIFYIf in spite of the reminder, a Patient fails to turn up, then it is often left to the Receptionist to identify such Appointments and reach out to them to reschedule. This is error-prone as the Receptionist may be having a busy day and may not be able to reach out to everyone 100% of the times. Setup Clinicea to identify who are the No-Shows.
Goto Tools | Organization | Calendar Preferences | Switch on “Auto-Mark Patients as a ‘No-Show’ if they remain ‘Scheduled’ at the end of the day”
Now at the end of every day the System checks for Patients who were supposed to come in, but have not. It will auto mark them as a No-Show and set it up for a followup SMS reminder. More on it in the next step.
3. FOLLOWUP
It’s time for some action. Enable the system to reach out to the Patients who have been identified as No-Shows. Clinicea will then start contacting them asking them if they would like to re-schedule.
NOTE:
You can manually also tell the system which appointments are No-Shows. Just go to Calendar, check scheduled Appointments for the day.
Ex: Lets stay its 2pm right now and you goto the Scheduled window on the Calendar. By default you appointments ordered by their Appointment Time. So all appointment appearing at the very top with times such as 10am, 11am or 1pm etc are No-Shows. Simply change Appointment Status from Scheduled to No-Show.
The Appointment status changes to No-Show, color bar changes to black, and the patient receives the No-Show SMS.
Updated on: 06/06/2023
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