Consistency with keeping appointments is key for clients to benefits from your therapy services. Yet, as many clinicians and private practitioners can attest, last minutes no shows and cancellations come in the way of the client benefitting from his participation in therapy sessions.
Last minute no show and cancellations, and missed appointments not only take clients away from progressing towards their goals, they come at a huge cost to the clinician and the private practitioner. In just a span on one year, the last minute missed appointments attributed to a cost of $150 billion to the US healthcare industry.
Many families have a rather hectic work schedule and struggle to manage a work life balance. In the middle of a hectic work day and with the economic hardships that COVID-19 has brought to many of the families, it is indeed a struggle remembering all the upcoming appointments and also working on keeping them.
Here are some tips that will certainly help you improve your show-up rates and boost up consistent attendance. They will also help your clients make the most of the services that you offer and help you strengthen your relationship with your clients.
Help your clients remember their upcoming appointments
Text messaging has grown to be most common way of communication in the United States. It is quick, timely and preferred way of communication for many. A timely and friendly text reminder of your upcoming appointment can make the impact you are seeking.
To make it further useful, you want to include relevant fact of the upcoming appointment in the text message. Include what time and what location is the appointment and who is it for.
Timing of your text reminder is also an important consideration. Many families receive and respond well if the text reminder of an upcoming appointment is a few hours leading up to the appointment. Select a practice management platform that allows you to determine the timing of your appointment reminders and also automate the reminder for you.
Email reminder of an upcoming appointment is also a polite way of reminding your clients of their upcoming appointment. This method can be less intrusive and yet helpful and helping your clients be reminded of their upcoming appointment.
A friendly email reminder of an upcoming appointment that includes relevant information such as the appointment start time and the location helps the clients be in anticipation of the upcoming therapy session.
While there is not one golden rule as for the timing of the email reminder, automating an email reminder to the clients anywhere 24-72 hours ahead of their upcoming appointment results in them being reminded and not miss the scheduled appointment.
While automated text and email reminders do great for regular reminders and help towards minimizing missed appointments, custom messaging is another great way to custom the message to specifically cater to your clients.
Practice management tools that offer a way to automate and easily set up reminders will facilitate you an a practitioner or owner of your clinical practice to avoid missed appointments, improve consistency with attendance, strengthen your relationship with your clients and avoid monetary losses to you and your practice.
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