No-show appointments can cost small businesses as much as $26,000 in lost revenue each year.
No-shows and late arrivals have a direct impact on productivity, efficiency, and the quality of care that your practice can deliver. Whether your practice has automated appointment reminders set up or not, it’s not uncommon to miss opportunities when sending out reminders.
If you want to boost revenue and reduce no-show appointments, avoid these 7 common appointment reminder mistakes, plus learn quick ways to fix them.
Managing appointment reminders manually
On average, 28% of medical practices that manually manage appointment reminders spend multiple hours a day just calling patients. Conversely, 87% of practices with automated reminders can handle an entire day’s worth of reminders in less than an hour. Automated reminders not only save your practice time, but they are also the most reliable tool to reduce no-show appointments and help patients arrive on time.
Sending only email appointment reminders
Most patients prefer to communicate via text messages and are more responsive to text reminders. The best way to ensure appointment attendance is to give patients multiple options to receive appointment reminders and to set up a fallback reminder to ensure patients never miss a reminder message.
No Fallback and Backup Reminder method
Another big appointment reminder pitfall is not setting up a secondary reminder method. Let’s say that you have opted to send your patients text reminders. If a patient has chosen to opt out of receiving text messages, they won’t receive your reminder. With Fallback Reminders, if a patient opts out of text reminders, the selected fallback reminder method, either email or voice, will automatically kick in.
Lack of customization and personalization
Many practices send out generic reminders that simply include the patient’s name, date, and time of the appointment. Of course, this information is necessary for appointment reminders, but it won’t help your reminders stand out. Email reminders give practices the ability to include personalized images, text, links, and more! These personal touches can go a long way towards capturing the attention of your patients.
Fortunately, lost revenue due to appointment no-shows is easily avoidable! By implementing a smart appointment reminder strategy, your practice can reduce no-shows and boost revenue. Download our free guide today to learn about common appointment reminder mistakes, plus learn how to fix them!
About Demandforce
Demandforce helps medical practices automate front office tasks and streamline patient communications with an all-in-one solution. From automated appointment reminders to robust reputation management, only Demandforce uniquely combines all the features and functionality a practice needs to grow, in one place. For more information, or to see a demo, visit www.demandforce.com.
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