No-Show Stoppers: What Does it Take to Get Your Patients to Arrive for an Appointment?

Patient no-shows are a frustrating issue for medical providers, administrators, and office managers

Forgetfulness is killing your business—but not in the way you might think.

For almost everyone in the medical field—whether you’re a provider, administrator, or office manager—patient no-shows are one of the most frustrating parts of the patient care puzzle. 

Not only do abandoned appointments cost your practice money, but every time a patient fails to arrive, your team’s carefully planned schedule is disrupted. This constant upheaval can lead to burnt-out staff and decreased satisfaction levels for the patients who do show up on time. 

In a 2019 study published by the National Institutes of Health, 37.6% of patients surveyed reported that they didn’t come to an outpatient appointment because they simply forgot—or they didn’t even know they had an appointment, to begin with. 

You might be wondering how that’s possible. Aren’t most healthcare providers reminding patients about appointments these days? How can these appointments still be slipping patients’ minds?

48-Hour Advance Reminders Don’t Work

It’s long been an accepted best practice to issue appointment reminders via phone calls, emails, and/or text messages. Many offices have a dedicated process for leaving voicemails or sending automated communications well in advance. 

Unfortunately, this sort of notification lacks the immediacy necessary to keep the appointment top of mind. 

Think about it this way. When you’re waiting for an Uber, the app doesn't tell you that the car will arrive at your house in two days at 3:15 p.m. If it did, you'd likely forget about it by the time it arrived! 

Instead, for scheduled Uber rides, you’ll get a reminder 30 minutes before the trip, a notification when your car is en route, and a text when your driver arrives. When there is a change or delay, the app notifies you immediately. 

With real-time updates and reminders like this, it's unlikely you’d ever forget that you booked an Uber. 

Don't Contribute To Patients' Information Overwhelm

Compare the Uber communications to the usual health care appointment reminders. What happens when you contact a patient 48 hours before they are scheduled with a provider? The message often gets lost amidst the hundreds of other communications and notifications they receive. 

Consider that, on average, a person sees over 100 alerts in a single day. From emails and phone calls to text messages and app push notifications, patients are bombarded by so much information that many messages simply get lost in the noise.

This isn’t to say that 48-hour advance communications are unimportant. They can be valuable for confirming appointments and helping patients prepare. But 48-hour advance messages should not be confused with reminder messages. To prompt patients to appear as scheduled, communications must be delivered on the day of the appointment. 

3 Ways to Break Through the Noise 

Effective reminder systems can significantly decrease no-show rates and, in turn, reduce staff and provider frustration, while boosting practice revenues. Here are three things to think about when setting up or improving your process:

1. Make your reminder timely

The biggest thing you can do to make your message stick is to reduce the time your patient must remember the information. In other words, the closer in time, the reminder is to the appointment, the better the chances a patient will show up. This means that it’s critical to send a day-of reminder.

2. Unsure if your message is recognizable

You’re not a marketer selling a product, but branding is still vital. Your patient needs to know, at a glance, that a reminder message came from their healthcare provider, not some spam bot or app. Consistent branding can help ensure your patient not only receives the message but also opens, reads, and remembers it. 

3. Provide clear, consistent communication

If you want to maximize positive impact, augment day-of reminders with real-time updates as patients are seen and schedules are affected. This tactic can help patients arrive at the right time when the office will be ready to receive them. By preventing patients from cooling their heels in the waiting room for hours, these updates result in a better patient experience. 

Before you shrug off this suggestion as too logistically complex or labor-intensive, consider a solution like DOCPACE. Our technology automatically notifies patients about their appointments on the day off and updates them with the actual time they will be seen. It’s a turnkey way to solve the no-show problem and improve patient satisfaction simultaneously. 

Take heart in the fact that, for the most part, no-shows don’t intend to be disrespectful of your team’s time and effort. Patients are simply busy and inundated with messages, just like everyone else these days.

The good news is that helping patients remember appointments is easy with a solution like DOCPACE. Head to www.docpace.com to learn whether such an automated system might be your “no-show stopper.”