Question: Can patients “confirm” their appointment?

Discussion: Our experience is that some clinics will use the following workflow:

1. Patients are booked appointments in person or by phone.

2. Patients will be contacted in advance of their appointment again, and asked to “confirm” their appointment. Sometimes this is done by phone; sometimes this is done by email.

3. Patients who don’t confirm their appointments are contacted again and/or have their appointment cancelled.

The fundamental goal of this workflow is to minimize no-shows.

At present, our system does not accommodate this workflow on the basis that our experience is that clinics using our existing system end up with a sufficiently low no-show rate that they don’t need this “confirmation” procedure anymore. For example, some of the things we do to minimize no-shows:

1. Patients can book an appointment at a convenient time for themselves

2. Patients receive a confirmation email immediately listing their appointment time

3. This confirmation email includes a calendar event for patients to add the appointment into their personal calendar

4. Patients can cancel and reschedule appointments anytime

5. Patients receive a reminder email

Should your clinic be running into a higher than desired no-show rate, please speak with us and we can explore options for addressing this issue. Creating a “confirmation” procedure is also possible should enough active clinics on our system need it!