Knowing Your No-Show Rate

I know of a very important statistic that I bet you may not even keep, and that is your percentage of people who no-show you each month.

You see, if it gets too high, your practice is going to plateau. Let me give you an example; if you have 13% or more people who no-show you over the month, no matter how many new patients you get or no matter how big your practice is, your practice is going to start to plateau.

Here is how we count no-shows. There are two different types of no-shows, but they both count as a no-show. The first one is somebody that cancels to a later date, so somebody is scheduled with you on Wednesday and they say, “I can’t make it this Wednesday, you just keep me on the schedule for next Wednesday or put me on the schedule for next Wednesday.” That’s a no-show, even though they re-scheduled, is still considered a no-show. And then, there’s the other kind of no-show that just no-shows you completely, doesn’t call in, doesn’t say anything, just doesn’t show up. Now, those are both no-shows.

What you have to do is look at your practice and you have to see what percentage of people no-show you. You use both of those types of how many people no-show you. So, in a month, if you see 100 patients, if you have a hundred patients visit schedule and 13 of them no-show you, then you have a no-show rate of 13%. Now, like I said, if you have a high enough no-show rate, your practice will plateau. No matter how many new patients you get and no matter how big your practice is, once your no-show rate goes above 13% you will start to plateau.

How do you get your no-show rate below 13%? One of the easiest ways is just to make sure you firm up the appointment when they leave the previous day. And the second easiest way is make sure you call everybody and give them a reminder call the day before their appointment, reminding them of their appointment that day. You do those things, you check your no-show rate, I think that rate will go down. If you keep it below 13% you’re bound to grow.

This is Dave Kats, thanks for listening.