Are you tracking delinquency?

Some time ago a dentist I was visiting had a gap in their appointment book. The book was full an hour earlier so I was curious what had happened.

"Mrs. X called and cancelled her appointment." Straight away I asked to see Mrs. X's record.

Fortunately this was an office that keeps a record of when patients cancel or no-show. Not every office does that – many just delete the appointment with nothing added to the patient chart.

The bottom line was this. Over the past 4 years Mrs X had made 27 appointments. 13 times she kept the appointment. 14 times she cancelled with late notice or failed to show up.

Let's do the mathematics on that. Assuming the running cost of the office is $200 per hour and the income is $350 per hour. These are nice round figures but not too far from typical.

Profit from 13 appointments kept = ($350 - $200) x 13 = $1,950.

Loss from 14 appointments not kept = $200 x 14 = $2,800.

So, to date, Mrs X had actually caused a net loss to the practice of $850 (and counting). If you knew this on day 1 when Mrs X first walked in your door you would have been better off to give her $500 cash and send her to a colleague down the street.

So, I have two questions.

Firstly, does your office track late cancellations and failed appointments?

Secondly, when you identify a problem patient do you have a system for managing them?

Dentistry is too difficult to be doing it at a loss.