Booking strategies essential to keep patients happy

It is not uncommon to hear people talk about the health of their practices by confidently stating how far they are “booked out.” How long it takes for a patient to get an appointment is often a statement of practice wellness.

We have become convinced that filling our appointment books should be our primary goal, but managing capacity effectively can build genuine confidence in our practice's stability and growth. Because filling the appointment book has been so effective, we put a lot of energy into filling the slots. Nevertheless, many established practices that haven’t shown significant growth find themselves “booked out”—a problem that can hinder patient retention and future expansion.

Full appointment book offers false security

A filled appointment book requires that your patients are willing to wait until you are available to see them. This requires your patients to be both patient and loyal—or they have no other reasonable choice. If you are in a community where options are limited, either by location or by service choices, a full book may serve you well. But is that the case for your practice? Or are you doing business in a highly competitive environment and do not want to miss the opportunity to recruit new patients? Or even worse: you hate the idea of starting to lose your returning patients that have highly contributed to your business’s growth.

Today’s patietns are less willing to wait for what they want and are less loyal to your practice than ever before. A recent Consumer Health Study found that 61% of patients would change their doctor for a more convenient appointment, compared to 47% who would change for a better price.

These are existing patients willing to switch providers. New patients don’t have that much loyalty and may schedule an appointment with you but then have an treatment at a competitor later that afternoon.

The cost of no-shows

A recent study by the National Institutes of Health in the USA estimates that no-shows cost an average healthcare practice over $1,000 each day, highlighting the need for effective scheduling to protect revenue.

While simply not showing up for an appointment is rude, changing the appointment also costs our practices money. Staff time spent communicating with patients about the need to change an appointment can add up to significant expenses. People tend to cancel appointments with little notice. The longer patients must wait to reschedule, the more likely they are to cancel.

Consider this strategy

Commit to keeping your schedule at 80%, instead of 100% full. Full capacity is measured at 100%, and anything above that level causes stress and strain. Think about what happens to a balloon when it exceeds capacity. If you are booked at 100 % and add an emergency appointment, it is difficult to perform at your best.

Reserving the final 20% of appointments for emergencies, urgent care, and new patients can empower your team to confidently handle unexpected needs, reassuring patients that their care is prioritised without overloading the schedule.

Pre-appointing vs. recall

Most Medical Aesthetics treatments require consistency in the treatment protocol. Often, multiple sessions are needed to complete treatment and deliver optimal results for each patient. This means that patients must return to your practice several times throughout each year. Your practice must implement a recall or pre-appointment strategy to help your patients adhere to their annual treatment plan. These systems have many names and employ a variety of techniques. For the sake of this discussion, we will break the systems into two well-accepted categories: recall and pre-appointment.

Recall is any action that reminds patients it is time to schedule their next session. Postcards, phone calls, email, and text messages are some examples of tactics used to make contact. Sometimes the messages are automated to maximise efficiency; real people deliver others to add a personal touch. Recalled patients do not have an existing appointment scheduled when being “recalled.”

Pre-appointing is the close cousin of recall, with one difference: Patients already have an appointment scheduled. A pre-appointment differs from a standard appointment because it is planned.

As the appointment approaches, many techniques are used to remind the patient, and instructions are given to confirm or adjust the appointment time. If confirmed, the pre-appointment is converted to an appointment.

While working with many clinics in that field, we have identified that pre-appointed patients are more likely to schedule their next session. Thus, as a contradictory finding, pre-appointed patients are also more likely to cancel or no-show for their appointments than recalled patients.

The answer is the strategy you design and follow.

Proper scheduling techniques depend heavily on the practice’s situation. The most important factor is having an established monitoring tool in place and adjusting it frequently as your circumstances change. New practices with plenty of openings may be a perfect place for pre-appointments, but a “booked out” practice trying to attract new patients should consider discontinuing their pre-appointments practice.

Define the primary scheduling objective of your practice by deciding which is more critical: Availability for new patients within the next few days or the comfort of a full appointment book for the next few weeks.

The strategy mentioned is not perfect for every practice. Remember that every scheduling plan needs a clear strategy and a sequence of actions. We can work together to identify and implement the approach that suits your practice, utilise your resources, study your patient database, and train your staff to perform the booking and recall strategy with excellence, maximising your income and boosting your growth.

‍