What happens when you no show?

Have you ever wondered what happens when you cancel your doctor’s appointment last minute or forget that you had one altogether and just fail to show up? Believe it or not, “no showing” your appointment affects your doctor’s office in more ways than you think.  Appointment no-shows are a reality of medical and dental practices. They are one of the frustrations cited most frequently by physicians and dentists, and with good reason. Not only do no-shows put a crimp in the daily flow of patients, they are money losers. No one reimburses the doctor for a no-show, yet the overhead related to that missed appointment; staffing, leases, insurance, utilities, and so on, remains on the books (elizabethwoodcock.com).

Your doctor has a template for scheduling strategically set up for certain appointment types, and allots a certain amount of time for that appointment to visit with you and still see a full days worth of patients on a schedule. When you cancel without 24 hour notice and that spot now sits empty, the doctor and staff’s time is wasted and there is a gap in the schedule to fill. The doctor does not make money during that time and a patient who may have wanted to be scheduled in that time slot, can no longer be called to fill the spot in time.

Running late for an appointment can also be just as detrimental to your doctor’s schedule. If the doctor has allotted a certain amount of time to see you for your appointment and you are late enough to miss half or more than half of the appointment, you are now cutting into another patient’s allotted appointment time. If you put that into perspective, just think if the patient before you ran late enough to cut into your appointment time. Then not only are you being seen behind schedule, but so are the rest of the patients for that day until the doctor and staff can catch up. When you give a 24 hour notice, the doctor’s staff has a full day to try to call patients to move up to fill the empty space in the schedule, so that the doctor’s time and money for that appointment slot are not wasted.

What you may not know, is that most doctors will keep track of your appointment history, whether you’re on time consistently, late consistently or no show consistently, and consequences may occur, such as being dismissed from the practice. This is legal because you are failing to comply with your doctor’s scheduling policies and procedures by missing or showing up late to your appointment. In short, no showing an appointment affects your overall treatment time, especially in orthodontics. The more appointments missed, the longer you will be in treatment and the longer time goes by that you need to be seen for routine adjustments to keep treatment on schedule.

Make note of your scheduled appointments so that you can reschedule in advance if your something changes. Most doctor’s offices will send out reminder calls, but those are a courtesy to you and do not always take place. If you mark down your next appointment and keep it in a safe place, you can rely on yourself to make it to your appointments instead of an automated call system. Don’t blame your doctor for losing your appointment slip and for not calling to remind you. So try to remember these key points next time you decide to call last minute to cancel or fail to show up for your appointment. It keeps your treatment and your doctor’s schedule on track.

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