Best Approaches To Handle The Patient Appointment Cancellations
The healthcare industry is built around its patients. This is why patient appointments are crucial for medical or dental practices and/or other healthcare units. The new patient appointments and a boost in them surely delight everyone associated with a practice, but patient appointment cancellations hurt almost equally, if not more. Now, what happens in the middle of a patient check-in and cancellation is what we term a no-show. The patient no-shows hurt as much as the cancellations but cause even more harm due to the unprecedented nature of the act.
The healthcare industry is always on a mission to treat the patients well, along with helping them achieve a quality experience in the healthcare they receive. However, many practices often note a drastic reduction in the patient it sees. This happens due to more than one reason. While sometimes, the practices fail to book new appointments as per their requirements, the other times, they see an abominable number of missed appointments or cancellations, which ultimately pulls down the overall patient inflow.
Main factors that reduce patient appointments, cause missed appointments, or patient no shows!
If you are wondering about the lack of new patient appointments in your practice, or you are largely dwelling upon the increasing missed appointments or patient no-shows that you are seeing, then there's surely something wrong at your practice. Here are some of the prominent issues that lead to a drastic reduction in new patient appointments, cause missed patient appointments, and patient no-shows:
Lack of patient first appointment
Patient first appointment is the key to building decent patient experiences. Patient appointments in a patient-centered care should enable easy bookings of the patient appointments and should help reschedule and cancel their appointments without hassles.
While 81% of the patients have preferred to schedule their own appointments via secure web service, another 68% of them would like to enjoy the facilities of easy booking, rescheduling, and cancellation of patient appointments. Providing all of these facilities to the patients can be easier with GrowPractice's improved medical office solutions, which will help practices increase new patient appointments, and reduce missed appointments and no-shows.
Limited access for appointment bookings
Around 34% of the patients have proven to book their appointments outside of the standard business hours. Therefore, if your practice is not equipped to book these appointments, then you might be missing out on a considerably large portion of patient bookings. However, you don't want your practice to lose out on these crucial bookings, do you? For this, you need to be empowered with the advanced software and solutions that GrowPractice brings your way. This software would not only help book appointments but manage them effortlessly, along with extending a wide array of benefits.
Little or no follow-up
Booking appointments is not the be-all and end-all of things because these bookings should be followed up well. The lack of which can result in patient no-shows or missed appointments. Recent data reveals that nearly 57% of the patients expect that their providers would follow up with reminders for their upcoming treatment. These follow-ups and reminders can be something that you would never miss out on with the help of the latest follow-up facilities from GrowPractice, which will not let your patients forget their appointments and bring in no-shows.
Lack of patient engagement
Engaging patients properly, giving them time, and communicating with them whenever they show an urge to, is rewarding indeed for the providers. The drive for patient engagement is very much real and trending today even in 2022. GrowPractice further focuses on engaging the patients with its secure and interactive two-texting methods, along with other software and tools that help drag down the patient wait times.
No digital access for patient appointment bookings, reschedulings, and cancellations
Around 42% of the patients today are more likely to book patient appointments online, which should be followed with facilities for easy rescheduling and cancelation of their appointments. Here, the lack of digital access for patient appointment scheduling is a strict no-no, and if your practice still lacks it, then it is important that you install the same facilities as soon as possible to stay ahead and updated.
Along with these prominent ones, there are many other factors too that reduce the number of patient appointments, and might also lead to missed appointments or no-shows. Some of them are:
Now that we know of the main factors that tend to pull the trigger on the new patient appointment bookings, missed appointments, and no-shows, you should be monitoring these to improve on the mentioned fronts. However, dealing with patient cancellations can still be a tough affair.
The patients that have booked their appointments successfully can still cancel and most importantly, many of them are even doing so, which is largely helping the practices today. While some practices are efficiently managing the patient appointment cancellations, many others are still finding it difficult to handle it. Nevertheless, it is important for them to do so in order to be informed of the patient's visits and see less of the missed appointments and no-shows.
Handle the patient appointment cancellations effortlessly with these proven ways!
Cancellations of the patient appointments should really be a focus now when the patients are aware of the disadvantages of no-shows and in a world where the patients are alert, informed, and educated about everything.
As per a recent report, the US healthcare industry loses around $150 billion annually due to the missed appointments it sees. Proper cancellations of patient appointments can help practices improve on their lost revenues, save their time and even utilize it effortlessly!
Here's a list of smart methods that will help your practice handle patient cancellations without many troubles:
Make your portal accessible 24x7
Cancellations, much like patient appointments, can drop in at any odd hours. This is why both the appointments and the cancellation portals need to be open 24x7. Manage your patient appointments and cancellations effortlessly now with GrowPractice, which automatizes the filling of patient appointments and cancellations. This reduces the staff time and all the hassles involved in the process.
Extend easy patient appointment cancellation facilities
Easy cancellation facilities are a rare advantage that the practices of today have. Though many of them have considered it mandatory to have the patient appointments booked at any cost, they are not so cooperative about the cancellations of these appointments, which may stand as a big problem. Taking the cancellations lightly not only harms the practice's credibility, reputation and revenue but can also lead to a reduction in the future booking of appointments.
Keep a cancellation policy handy
As cancellation has a direct impact on the patient practices, there should be a proper cancellation policy that each of them must enforce. Such a policy can make the patient appointments retain and help the practices see less of the cancellations that they usually see.
Engage experts in the cancellation desk
Communication is something that can change the whole twist of a story. Similarly here in the healthcare industry, and especially the cancellation desk, a practice needs to have professionals deployed who are completely at home with their communication skills. Such professionals can also make patients retain their appointments, schedule their appointments or cancel them without any ill will.
Keep a cancellation fee
As cancellation today is being less of a big deal, many patients are taking it for granted and abusing the cancellation policy that is handed over to them now. Putting a cancellation fee into practice can help in some interesting revelation for sure and may even stop these patients from turning the cancellation into a joke. Many other patients who are availing of the cancellation policy for less important reasons can consider and also might retain their appointments if a cancellation fee is enforced. However, you need to check that with the practice and its management.
Show empathy
A patient rushes to their nearest practice only because of a gnawing illness and may only cancel their appointments for more important reasons. Therefore, showing empathy on the call is the least you may do if a patient wishes to cancel his/her appointment. Connecting with your patients emotionally would not only help the patients realize that they are valued, but also improve the credibility and reputation of your practice. Sometimes, such conversations can also lead to retaining an almost canceled patient appointment.
Some other ways to handle patients who wish to cancel their appointments are:
Opt for GrowPractice to boost new patient appointments and decrease missed appointments!
GrowPractice is one of the most secure and effective solution providers for medical practices that bring trusted software solutions to private medical offices/practices and urgent care units. Boosting new patient appointments and reducing missed appointments and no-shows has a new name, now known as GrowPractice, which has been the ultimate solution provider for countless practices today. Here are some of the many benefits that GrowPractice provides them with:
