Dealing with no-shows when re-opening your clinic
Anyone who runs an aesthetic clinic will have had to deal with patients not turning up for their appointments at some time or another. These “no shows” are frustrating at the best of times but in the current climate when appointments are like gold dust, managing them and making sure valuable time is not wasted is even more crucial.
While the dates for when close-contact cosmetic facial treatments can resume across the board keep changing [at the time of writing, the Government had just reversed the 1 August date to 15 August at the earliest], many clinics have already re-opened either because they are carrying out medical procedures or because they are doing bodytreatments. Others are gearing up to open fully this month. Whether you are open yet or are re-opening soon, everyone will be have to get used to a different set up to the one they had before lockdown.
One of the main reasons why non-attenders will have more of an impact now is that clinics are not able to offer as many appointments as usual. Due to new guidelines and safety measures to help prevent the transmission of covid-19, appointments have to be spaced apart to reduce the amount of people in clinic at any one time and to allow for social distancing and decontamination of treatment rooms, bathrooms and waiting areas. So when patients fail to turn up it’s frustrating, not merely from a financial point of view but also because there are other patients who want to be seen after months in lockdown who would have taken that slot.
Another issue is that many clinics are re-opening without their full staff in place. Some have staff members still on furlough; others have employees who cannot come in or are afraid to come back to work due to health issues or pregnancy; while others may even have had to let staff go. All of these factors mean that many clinics will be operating a skeleton team, which may make it even trickier to manage the demand for appointments, especially if the staff members who are not at work are front-of-house or administration staff who would usually answer phones or manage appointments.
Online and app-based booking systems can be a godsend but they can also make appointments easier to cancel from a patient’s perspective. The ease of booking, especially if there is no booking fee, can make it too easy for people to book and then forget or back out.
Having been closed for months, losing money from lost appointments is more serious than ever as many clinics are struggling financially. So what preventative measures can you take?
Plan of action
There are a number of ways you can tackle missed appointments head on to reduce their numbers. One of the first things you can do is send an email out to your patient database asking them to be mindful of the impact it has when they don’t show up for appointments; to make sure they cancel them ahead of time if they need to; and to give you plenty of notice where possible so you can offer the slot to someone else.
Of course sometimes there are genuine reasons that people need to cancel or cannot attend, so if a patient hasn’t shown up it is worth speaking to them to ascertain whether their reasons are genuine or if this is the type of patient who is going to be more trouble than they are worth.
Taking a booking fee which is redeemable on the treatment but lost with non-attendance is a good deterrent and is the most effective method according to practitioners who use it.
Stevie Potter, who runs The Wonder Clinic in Axminster, says, “I always charge a deposit of £50 to book an appointment. This is lost if they cancel within 24 hours of the appointment. I’ll usually send an email, text or DM afterwards just to politely ask if everything is OK and if they want to rebook. To be honest, with the deposit, I don’t remember the last time I had a no-show.”
Similarly, Tracey Dennison from East Riding Aesthetics says, “I have an amazing booking system which takes card details to confirm appointments. It doesn’t cost the patient anything but if they don’t turn up and don’t cancel first there is a fee. I don’t have any no shows these days – apparently money talks.”
Meanwhile at Novelus Aesthetics in Newcastle Dr Steven Land takes a £25 deposit which is refundable against treatment, and the clinic has a 36-hour cancellation policy.
“We haven’t taken deposits recently as it’s been absolute chaos booking, cancelling and rebooking people over the last couple of weeks,” says Dr Land, “And we recently had two no-shows on a Saturday morning. That shows that taking booking deposits works.
He explains, “If a patient hasn’t arrived five minutes after their appointment time we give them a call just to make sure they aren’t lost , and then a phone call at the end of the day inviting them to rebook if we haven’t been able to get through to them.
“Our booking system shows people who have a high no-show and cancellation rate and lets us know if they try and book in again.
“We introduced this last November and our no-show rate plummeted. We asked for patient feedback and none of them minded at all, particularly when we explained that we’d had to do it due to no-shows. Our genuine customers were actually angry on our behalf that people would waste our time like that.”
Ways to discourage no-shows
• Put a statement on your website about cancellations to make it clear what your policies are
• Send an email to your database about cancellation policies and any charges
• Charge a booking fee that is redeemable on the treatment but is lost if the patient does not show up
• Charge a consultation fee
• Revoke booking access online or via your app to patients who fail to show up
• Remember if patients continuously waste your time or routinely don’t turn up its OK for you to refuse to rebook them
