July 2009

Software can help reduce no-shows by 40%

by Dr. Stephane Laverdiere

A colleague recently told me he was totally frustrated with the number of no shows in his office -- about 10% of his appointments didn't show up.

He isn't the only one facing this problem. In fact, it's a situation that's affecting all health care providers. Several years ago, the British Medical Association conducted a survey and found that missed appointments was costing the National Health Service more than £185 million a year (about $3 million) because of more than 10 million missed visits!

In the US, one study found that more than a third of the medical practices surveyed had a no-show rate of over 21%! (Dixon, Chapman & Nuovo, 1999). Another study found that both no-shows and cancelled appointments together amounted to more than one-third of all appointments made (Moore, Wilson-Witherspoon & Probst, 2001). This same study also found that the cost of these no-shows amounted to between 3-14% of an office's total yearly income.

Obviously, you can't run an efficient and successful practice when 10-20% of your patients don't bother showing up!

As in most chiropractic offices, my colleague's policy is to have the CA call if the patient is 15 minutes late -- but by then, it's too late. Even if the patient wants to come in, it'll take him or her time to get to your office and you'll end up shuffling appointments.

Many doctors take a more pro-active approach in reminding patients of their appointments by making confirmation calls a day or so before the appointment. This, however, requires a great deal of time and -- if your office is like most -- your CA has more pressing tasks to perform.

Auto-dialers are available but they're expensive and impersonal. Few patients appreciate a machine calling them about their appointment!

The best solution is to use e-mail for patient reminders. About 80% of the US population has some experience with e-mail, so it's likely that most of your patients can receive messages this way. What better way to communicate with them? It nets the highest result with the lowest cost and effort.

Here's where the right software comes in. Your software package should be able to automatically send e-mail reminders without staff effort. It should also allow you to schedule when patients receive appointment reminders -- the day of the appointment, a day before, or even two days before the appointment.

Ideally, it should even allow you to create your own reminder message template rather than just a "canned" one that comes with the software package.

Many doctors find that e-mail appointment reminders can decrease their no-show rate by 40% or more.

Even more pro-active

To cover all bases, you should remind your patients of their next appointment before they even leave your office! Either the doctor or, preferably, the CA, should check the appointment software, write the date on an appointment card and say "See you next Thursday at 10."

If the patient needs to change the time or day, your CA can do it right then and there ... cutting down on the need for later rescheduling and missed appointments.

Although the standard appointment card still has its advantages, a good chiropractic office computer system also offers features such as reminding patients of upcoming appointments right on the check-in screen, and even producing a calendar map of all their appointments times. The visual effect of seeing this information on a computer screen is to reinforce the CA's reminder and to make the appointment more concrete and official.

In order to have an efficient, successful practice, all chiropractors need to automate as many administrative functions as possible, including appointment reminders. To do so requires the right office software since -- unlike word processors and spreadsheets -- chiropractic software packages can offer widely differing features.

A software package that doesn't provide a way for you to automatically send reminder e-mails could cost you valuable time and money.

While you're shopping for software for your office, be sure to look to the future rather than the past. You want software that also incorporates dynamic new features, such as the ability to send patient education videos to patients via e-mail.

Technology is changing quickly and your software has to be able to keep up with the times.

(Dr. Stephane Laverdiere is a 1995 graduate of National College, is a highly respected expert in the use of technology such as e-mail for chiropractic marketing and patient communication. For more information about the newest features available in today's chiropractic office software, call 877-602-8527, e-mail acs@atlaschirosys.com, or visit www.atlaschirosys.com.)