Why Are Dental Appointment Reminders Important?

The best way to ensure that you do something without fail is two critical things.

One, you need to block your calendar to know exactly when (and on which date) you should take action.

Two, you need to have a system of reminding yourself that you have a task to attend at such and such date.

Once these two elements are placed, you know you won't miss out on a given task you set out for yourself.

Now, if we talk about dental appointment reminders, it does the same job.

It helps your patients know beforehand that they need to block their calendars for a particular date for the appointment, and they shouldn't miss the appointment because they need to rebook for another slot.

In this guide, we will investigate why dental appointment reminders are important for your dental practices and how it helps you reduce the no-show-rates of your patients.

Why are dental appointment reminders important?

Little things are big things. And when you pay heed to the little things in your business, your business drastically improves.

For your dental practice, one such little thing is dental appointment reminders. You may use appointment reminder software or go with a top-notch dental patient engagement app. The idea is to make sure that you take care of this tiny thing.

Here's why.

Do you know how much this tiny little thing called the appointment costs the healthcare industry? A whopping $150 billion a year.

And dental clinics are equally affected by this disease called 'no-show.'

A study claimed that a dental clinic loses 443 production hours from a 'no-show.'

So if your dental office is not generating the revenue you're looking for, maybe it's because of this one tiny thing called missed appointment.

Take charge of this little stuff, and you'll make more money than you've ever imagined possible from your dental practices.

When you want to make sure that no appointments are missed, you may think that you cannot do much about it.

But with dental appointment reminders, you are in a driver's seat.

You can transmute the no-shows into a fully-booked appointment chamber.

You'd know that how many tasks your front desk executive/s handles. It could be a hundred. And amid all of these tasks, if you tell them to pick up the phone to send the patients - appointment reminders, it's taxing to add one more task to their kitty.

Solution? Make it automated.

Use the appointment reminder software that's easy to use and doesn't cost a fortune. And make dental appointment reminders seamless.

What if you know that by tweaking this tiny thing, you can skyrocket your revenue? Won't you do it? Who won't?

Here's why sending personalized dental appointment reminders will skyrocket your revenue:

• When you automate sending appointment reminders, you will have fewer overhead costs, and your return on investment would also be higher.
• When you send a personalized reminder, your patient understands that you care and they can trust you. More trust equals more referrals. More referrals equal more revenue.
• Fewer patients will miss appointments, meaning you will have more success rate with whoever book the appointments.
• More patients will show up for the appointments, meaning you will earn more money and have more influence.

When to send dental appointment reminders?

You may think why we're focusing on the timing of sending dental appointment reminders. Because it makes the difference between whether your patients will show up at said date and time or not.

A study published in AJMC concluded that when the patients are sent two reminders (at 3 days prior and 1 day prior) instead of one reminder, patients tend not to miss the appointments. And sending two reminders instead of one also doesn't reduce patient satisfaction.

When you opt for a medium that a patient prefers to communicate through, there's an instant win-win for both of you.

The research published in the Angle Orthodontist concluded that SMS & Email are the most effective way of sending appointment reminders than phone calls. It also said that SMS has the lowest no-show rate, i.e., 1.90%, email has the second-lowest no-show rate, i.e., 2.68%, and the phone calls have the highest no-show rate, i.e. 3.49%.

Dos and don'ts of dental appointment reminders

• Set a separate appointment reminder for your new patients (and the method of sending the reminders would be different than your existing patients) since they don't know what to expect from your dental office
• Let your patients choose the medium to receive reminders from - phone calls/emails/text
• Send your patients a personalized appointment reminder
• Use two reminders instead of one to improve the return on investment (ROI)
• There are a hundred patient engagement platforms in the market. You need to choose one that's user-friendly, hassle-free, and provides training to your executives whenever required.

• Don't use any appointment reminder software because you're in a hurry to install a patient engagement platform. Make a list of pros and cons, and then make a prudent decision.
• Don't send multiple reminders separately to different members of the same family. Club the reminders and send them twice before the appointment
• Even if your patients equal money, don't treat them as the source of revenue. Treat them as human. Because human connection always goes a long way

In the final analysis

It's important to think beyond profits. Remember that you're in the business of reducing the suffering of your patients the way we have made this for you.

We wish you all the very best and hope this has inspired you to embrace dental appointment reminders and make a tiny tweak in your dental practice.