If you were to analyze what prevents you from achieving the highest earning potential for your chiropractic business, you would find out that no-shows are the main cause. When a patient fails to come for their appointment, you lose both time and money.
It is too late to schedule another patient. Of course, you can perform a few administrative tasks to pass the time. But these tasks do not generate revenues for your practice.Honestly, if you are to focus on improving one area of your business, you should strive to reduce the no-show rate. And today we will show you an effective way of doing this with the help of our chiropractic software.
Appointment Reminders Are Your Best Solution to Reduce No-Show Rates
Something as simple as a reminder sent as an email or SMS message can tip the balance and increase the number of actual appointments. In many cases, patients do not come for an appointment because:
- They are busy and forgot about it
- Something urgent came up
- They have a previous engagement they forgot about when they scheduled the appointment.
Even if you cannot bring all the scheduled appointments to completion, reminders will at least prompt patients to cancel/reschedule, leaving you sufficient time to book another patient.
How to Create Effective Reminders
Now let us show you how to compose and schedule effective reminders for your patients.
1. Consider the Medium
Reminders can be sent by email. There are three key elements of the email: the subject line, the title, and the body of the text.The subject line must be short and self-explanatory: appointment reminder. The title must include the person’s name and the salutation. In the body of text, include relevant information, such as:
- A summary of the patient’s treatment schedule
- The procedure you will perform during the upcoming session
- A link to the booking application.
Thus, if the patient cannot attend the appointment, they can easily reschedule it.
2. Consider the Timing
Too many reminders can be annoying and counterproductive. A patient may decide to stop coming to your practice if you keep pestering them with notifications and reminders. As a rule of thumb, you can send three reminders:
- The first one when the appointment is made, including the details: clinic, doctor’s name, type of procedure
- A second email one day before the appointment
- The last reminder on the day of the appointment.
3. Ask for Appointment Confirmation instead of Sending a Reminder
Here is a smart tactic to reduce the no-show rate. Instead of reminding the patient about their appointment in the second email, ask them to confirm their presence. People are used to receiving requests for confirmations (the RSVP message for family and business events).Thus, they will make a conscious effort to make sure that they will be able to attend, once they confirmed their presence. Alternately, they will let you know ahead of time that they cannot come and request a rescheduling of their appointment.
4. Add a Personal Touch to All Messages
Always address your patient by dear name in the messages. Avoid the standard salutation “Dear Madam/Sir”. It shows that you do not even know who you are writing to. Also, include clear directions to your practice in the message. Even if the patient knows how to reach your chiropractic office, they will appreciate the effort you make. Directions in the reminder email are especially useful if your patient is driven by a family member who does not know the address of your practice.
Using the Digital Patient Chart chiropractic software is the simplest way to create and schedule effective reminders to reduce the no-show rate for your practice. Find out more about our solution here: https://digitalpatientchart.com/