The key to reducing no-shows: Empower your patients

Medical practices and health systems everywhere struggle with no-shows. When patients don’t attend their appointments, care suffers—and so does the organization’s bottom line.

As many as 30% of patients may not show up for their appointments, creating major gaps in their care. When providers’ schedules aren’t kept full, the effects can ripple through the entire organization. In the U.S. alone, no-shows cost the healthcare industry billions of dollars each year, between lost revenue and patient attrition.

But there is a better way: Engage patients before and after their visit (or no-show) by modernizing your appointment-scheduling strategy. Positive, consistent patient engagement minimizes no-shows because patients are more likely to show for appointments when they feel respected and valued while receiving care.

Here are five ways you can reduce no-shows at your organization and give patients the digital-first experience they expect.

Many healthcare organizations still schedule all of their patient appointments by phone. Appointment call centers can become overwhelmed in the process, leading to long hold times and a poor overall patient experience.

Online self-scheduling is a tech-enabled alternative that makes booking an appointment easy and convenient. Allowing patients to self-schedule not only minimizes no-shows but also reduces the administrative burden on staff. This means patients can spend less time on hold if they do need to call their provider’s office, ultimately improving overall patient satisfaction, according to research published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Appointment reminders are critical to reducing no-shows — one study found that when parents of pediatric patients received a text message in addition to a phone call reminder, no-shows dropped by more than 14%. However, manually messaging or calling patients can be a huge burden on staff. When you automate appointment reminders, you ensure that patients receive consistent outreach — and you free up your staff for more complex tasks.

Reminding patients about upcoming appointments through text messages or email also helps you meet their growing expectations for tech-enabled healthcare services, with the added benefit of improving your organization’s efficiency.

While high no-show rates for in-person care are concerning for patient outcomes, as well as your bottom line, data shows that virtual visits have the potential to provide relief. A 2020 study in Telemedicine and e-Health found that telehealth visits have a no-show rate of just 7.5%, four times lower than the average in-office no-show rate prior to the pandemic. That difference increased even more during the pandemic, according to the study.

When sending appointment reminders or responding to cancellations, offer a telehealth visit if a patient says he or she can’t make it to the office. Providing a virtual-appointment alternative not only helps that patient get needed care, it ensures retained revenue for that patient’s visit.   

You can’t prevent all no-shows or last-minute cancellations, but you can respond to them more efficiently. Staff may spend hours each day calling patients to fill cancellations, but automation can accomplish that task in a matter of minutes without requiring any staff effort.

An automated schedule-management tool can turn cancellations into opportunities. When a patient cancels a visit, the tool identifies other clinically relevant patients with upcoming appointments and automatically sends them a text message offering the earlier, reopened appointment slot. The first patient to reply gets that appointment—no waitlist sign-ups, apps, portals or staff work required.

Follow-up after a cancellation or no-show is important, not only for patient retention but also to ensure that essential medical needs are addressed before they get worse. Following up within 24 hours of a missed appointment can keep patients engaged in their care.

Technology and templated messaging can help automate this process and prompt patients to reschedule promptly by offering upcoming timeslots for self-scheduling or allowing the patient to make an appointment request with a quick click.

Reducing no-shows is possible when patients are empowered with the right tools. That’s why it’s so important for provider organizations to put innovative technology in the hands of patients—before, during and after their visit—so that they can take an active role in their own care. 

Learn how Phreesia can help streamline the appointment process and help providers avoid empty timeslots.

Phreesia gives healthcare organizations a suite of applications to manage the patient intake process. Our innovative SaaS platform engages patients and provides a modern, consistent experience, while enabling our clients to maximize profitability, optimize their staffing and enhance clinical care.