In the U.S healthcare market, practices lose over $150 billion in missed appointments annually. A single missed appointment currently costs individual physicians an average of $200. As a healthcare provider, you’ll want to keep missed appointments in check as they can significantly impact your business.
Why Do Patients Miss Appointments?
Cancellations are a major challenge for any practice. While every practice is different and unique factors may be to blame, gender, age, and financial challenges are often responsible for patients not showing up on time or at all. Generally, the top reasons for missed appointments are as follows:
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Financial challenges
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Anxiety or fear
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Transportation challenges
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Forgot appointment date
In some cases, the wait time is too long, or the practitioner has difficulty easing the patient’s anxiety over a future appointment.
How Do I Address Missed Appointments?
Regardless of the reason, it’s important for doctors to look for patterns in patient no-shows and cancellations. By identifying key reasons for missed appointments, you can remedy a solution that works for your practice and its patients.
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Implement appointment reminders
Many practices may use phone, email, or text messages to remind their patients of upcoming appointments. Some practices use different combinations of channels to get the reminders out. However, a 6-month study determined that electronic reminders (email and SMS) resulted in lower no-show rates than phone calls. This study resulted in an average no-show rate of 2.4% across 1193 appointments. It is to be noted that SMS text messages had the lowest no-show rate with 1.9%.We recommend using appointment reminders to remind patients when their appointment is scheduled, as well as in the days leading up to, and on the day of, their appointment. CGM’s appointment reminders system is integrated with Medisoft to schedule reminders as you’re creating appointments.
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Offer telehealth
2 in 5 Americans take time off work for their medical appointments. Whether it’s anxiety about traveling, fear of contracting COVID, or just a busy schedule, there is a growing need for making healthcare more accessible for those who need it. Telehealth visits make getting healthcare more accessible by eliminating travel time, patient intake forms, and waiting room time.
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Telehealth has made it possible to receive medical care from the comfort of your own home. It also increases access to healthcare in rural areas and cuts down on travel time and waiting times for both patients and providers. A solution like Vosita makes it easy for both patients and providers to find quality telemedicine doctors on their terms anywhere in the US, making it possible for them to schedule visits at times that match their needs.
With the high cost associated with no-shows, it pays to use education and communication to bridge the gap between patient and provider. Without a doubt, appointment reminders play a key role in reducing the amount of last-minute cancellations or no-shows. Contact Microwize to get started with a solution that works for you.
