How to Design the Ultimate Patient Booking Strategy
April 8, 2008 on 8:01 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments OffA couple of years ago we noticed that although we’d had a great year as far as new patients were concerned, our return visits seemed to have flattened out. Patients seemed pleased with the service, success rates were high, but it still felt like we were gaining new patients but not growing.
The problem, of course, was in the scheduling.
If your office is reasonably busy, a great booking strategy can increase your profitability almost overnight. If you’re not-so-busy, there’s good news here as well: Effective booking drives return visits like nothing else.
Here’s how we worked with our staff to create a more effective appointment strategy.
Strike While The Iron’s Hot
There will never be a better time to book the patient in question than right now. Whether they’re on the phone, or standing at your front desk, do it now. The patient who doesn’t book now is going to come back fewer times. Or never. It’s that simple.
Tell, Don’t Ask
You need to approach booking from a place of confidence. Adopt the attitude of assuming patients will book/rebook. Why? because your inner confidence is reflected in how you speak, in subtle ways that shift the likelihood of success.
- Wrong: “Did you want to schedule a follow up?”
- Right: “Let’s schedule your follow up.”
Small difference in words. Big difference in outcome.
Leverage Our Love of Routine
Humans tend to be creatures of habit. We like consistency. Giving your patients recurring appointments in the same time slot makes it easy for them, and gives them a sense of ownership in the process.
- Wrong: “When would you like to come back?”
- Right: “If this time slot is convenient, I can get you in at the same time on Wednesday at 10:30.”
If you can’t offer the same time, offer the same time of day: “We can get you in again on Wednesday morning next week.”
Narrow the Options
While you’re at it, consider offering just two options for any appointment. It’s easier for everyone. There’s some surprising research that shows that people buy more when their choices are not overwhelming.
- Wrong: “What day is good for you?”
- Right: “We have an opening on Wednesday at 10:30 again, or Thursday at 2:15.”
Don’t Create Islands
When you’re offering up those two time slots, pick them carefully. Cluster your appointments back to back. You’ll work more effectively than if you schedule appointments haphazardly over the day, and you won’t end up with tiny windows that people who might need longer appointments, like new patients, can’t fit into. There’s nothing more frustrating than having a day full of holes, but not being able to see a new patient.
Create Scarcity
Many people (like me) don’t want to book a follow up if it’s too far in the future. Others just don’t want to commit ever. What gets me every time is the idea that if I don’t book, I might not get an appointment.
- Wrong: “Okay. Call us in three months.”
- Right: “The schedule tends to fill up quickly. We should book it now so that we can be sure to get you in.”
Remind People
I also don’t like to book too far out because I’m afraid I’ll forget. Reassure your patients by giving them an appointment card, and by telling them you’ll call a few days before the appointment to remind them.
Step On a Crack
We also have a monthly protocol for catching those stray patients that might fall through the cracks. Every month, we print a list of every patient whose birthday is in that month. That report shows the patient’s status (active, inactive, etc.) and when their next appointment is. Every active patient who doesn’t have a next appointment is examined to make sure we haven’t lost someone along the way.
If you know the annual value of a patient, it’s not hard to see that the few minutes it takes to scan through a few pages of names is well worth the time.
Protect the Schedule
All your best scheduling efforts are in vain if your patients don’t respect their appointments. Read our master list of tips for reducing no-shows, cancellations, and reschedules so that your booking strategy pays off.
Implementing most of these strategies is as simple as educating your staff. This list is essentially the blueprint that we used to write up a short booking policy for our front-line people. Use it if you find it helpful. What works even better is to use this list as a starting point for discussion - have your staff read it over, and then discuss any additional ideas and adjustments they might have.
Then, of course, let us all know in the comments!
Related posts:
- No Islands A Patient Booking Strategy for Your Alternative Health Practice
- Reducing Cancellations and Reschedules
- How to Reduce Cancellations, Reschedules and No-Shows: Our Strategy
- Avoiding the Pitfalls of Advance Patient Scheduling
- Charging for Missed Appointments
How to Reduce Cancellations, Reschedules and No-Shows: Our Strategy
March 25, 2008 on 1:41 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments OffWe’ve discussed scheduling problems in the past, pointing you to a few resources here and there, but we’ve never really provided a comprehensive approach for those scheduled appointments that go off the rails due to patients canceling, rescheduling, or simply not showing up at all.
Here are the exact strategies we’ve put in place over the last few years. If you’ve got something that works in your practice, leave a comment and share it with us.
Make Reminder Calls
We all forget things, and appointments (particularly those with a long lead time) are among the easiest things to lose track of. Appointment cards are helpful, but in the end, a phone call is your best bet. Email, text message and other automated solutions are starting to make some headway, but a good old-fashioned telephone call is still the most effective tool to combat schedule disintegration.
- Provide some lead time. Don’t make your calls the night before. Give patients at least 2-3 days notice.
- Don’t leave wiggle room. Saying, “Call us if you can’t make it,” is an invitation for people to reschedule.
I don’t think we started making these calls as early as we should have. When you’re not busy, it can feel like it doesn’t matter as much, but the truth is that it does matter. In fact, you could argue that it matters more - those cancellations are pretty painful in the early days.
Some practitioners argue that reminder calls encourage people to reschedule. I don’t buy it. Better to know, and take steps to deal with it, then have a sudden hole in your day.
Stay on Time
If you want patients to respect your time, then you need to start that process by respecting theirs. Make sure you stay on time. Don’t reschedule patients. Keep regular office hours.
Yes, emergencies crop up, but your clients will accept that if you explain it to them, apologize, and don’t let it happen regularly.
Book Tightly
What we’re really after here is teaching your patients to value their appointment. A large part of that is demonstrating that you’re busy and run a tight ship. Many practitioners tend to spread patients out over the course of a day, but for us the looser the schedule gets, the more reschedules we seem to encounter - patients figure they can get an appointment on just about any day, so what’s the big deal? It is a big deal, and it starts with effective scheduling.
Don’t Overbook
However, if you’re tempted to treat your appointment book like a discount charter flight and book it 120% full, you’re going to have problems. Overbooking to deal with last-minute scheduling changes is like treating symptoms instead of causes - it’s not getting to the root of the problem. In fact, just like running late, it’s probably creating more of them.
Book Acute Care Visits ASAP
Acute care visits are fertile ground for scheduling glitches. When patients call with an acute care issue, it’s because they want to be seen now. If you can’t see them soon, recognize the fact that they might get better or find someone else in the meantime. That increases the likelihood of a no-show or cancellation.
Follow the 1-2 Month Rule
When a patient wants to reschedule or cancel, remind them that they may not be able to get another visit for 1-2 months. Patients often reschedule simply for convenience, and this technique can often resurrect the appointment. You can read more on this approach here.
Deal With Repeat Offenders
You may discover that a large proportion of your problem appointments are with the same small group of patients.
We do have a no-show fee, but we use it with discretion. And while we don’t often charge people for missed appointments - unless they have some hard cost like custom formulated IV treatments - we do try to educate these people over time by explaining that someone else could have used their time slot.
Failing that, we follow a three-strike rule. After they bail a third time, we usually don’t hurry to call them back. If they call, we try to fit them in that day, or tell them to call back again another day when we might be able to provide same-day service.
Track Your Results
Although you may have a general sense of how well your appointment book holds together over the course of a month, nothing beats having some hard data. The easiest way is simply to have your staff track the numbers. This also lets you identify patterns that might crop up based on the time of day, week or year.
If your software doesn’t do this for you, it’s still easy to implement using pen and paper. Head to CalendarsThatWork.com, and print a lined version of their monthly calendar. Use the first line for reschedules, the second for cancellations (with no reschedule) and the third line for no-shows. Have your staff just put a tick on the appropriate line each time, then add them up at the end of the week/month. You can even enter your email address, and the site will send you the same calendar just before the start of each month.
Everyone has a role to play in keeping the schedule healthy -you, your staff, and your patients - and much of this is about teaching everyone involved about the value of a scheduled appointment. Consider yourself the Dean of the School of Appointment Value, and train your students accordingly.
We’ve noticed some dramatic improvements over time using these strategies - if you’ve got any other tips, we’d love to hear them!
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AHP Gets a Top 50 Nod
March 7, 2008 on 5:32 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments OffThe Online Nursing Degree Directory listed us in their Top 50 Alternative Medicine Blogs. Thanks to the ONDD!
The list is worth a gander from a practitioner perspective. It’s well categorized, with a few good sites I’d never seen. Head over and take a look.
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Are You Hunting or Farming for Patients?
February 27, 2008 on 3:24 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments OffA few weeks ago we talked about how to increase professional referrals to your practice. Developing this referral source is essentially a networking exercise, but the point of the post was to provide a framework in which to do it without feeling weird, creepy, or uncomfortable.
I know there are a lot of alternative and complementary practitioners who are involved with networking groups like BNI. While I don’t generally promote those groups a great deal, I read a fantastic tidbit from Ivan Misener, the founder and CEO of BNI, in a piece on Entrepreneur.com:
3. Word-of-mouth is more about farming than it is about hunting.
Building your business through word-of-mouth is about cultivating relationships with people who get to know you and trust you. People do business with people they have confidence in. One of the most important things I’ve learned in the past two decades is this: It’s not what you know, or who you know, it’s how well you know them that counts. [emphasis mine]
It’s a great metaphor for the development of your professional referral base. The approach we recommend - of slowly gathering background and connections before you approach someone - is aboutchoosing to farm relationships. Nurture them gradually in the form of inquiry, research and contemplation. Plant them, water them, and watch them grow, but don’t harvest them until they’re ready.
And whatever you do, don’t hunt them. That’s what everyone else is doing because they haven’t yet realized that you can only eat prey once, but you can harvest a garden forever.
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The Best Acupuncture Practice Management Resources on The Web
February 13, 2008 on 7:43 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments OffHere are our favorite acupuncture-specific online resources for practice growth and management, in no particular order. Have we missed any? Let us know in the comments.
- Workshops, coaching, teleconferences, books, distance learning…ABS just about has it all. In the words of founder Andy Rosenfarb: “ABS is a developing resource for L.Ac.’s who want to better their situation in clinical practice. We want to provide real methods that work, rather than just a lot of fancy marketing talk. There are quite a few practitioners who are doing well and ABS was created to start to get these acupuncturists out of the woodwork and share what they are doing and what’s working for them. ” That sounds pretty darn fine to me.
- Lisa Hanfileti is a working acupuncturist who’s not only dedicated to helping other practitioners, she’s plenty nice too. Her site has a lot to offer, particularly for practitioners interested in passive income, and using the internet to market their practice. She’s also got a great list of online resources.
- Community Acupuncture Network (CAN) is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to make acupuncture more affordable and accessible. The members are lively and active. You might also do yourself a favor and check out founder Lisa Rohleder’s book The Remedy, and her fantastic (and free) little ebook Love Your Microbusiness.
- Kevin Doherty offers coaching, and a couple of great books. The first is Build Your Dream Practice, a beautifully put together ebook on practice management, filled with some great wisdom and advice. Kevin’s latest project, allows to co-author your own customized version of How to Thrive in the Modern World: A Laypersons Guide to Chinese Medicine, for educating your patients and prospects. You can see samples of both books on the site.
- Burton Kent’s blog is relatively new, but his new book Never Market Again has got some great business advice, and is on sale until Feb 14th at 50% off.
The Acupuncture Marketing Blog
- Bonnie’s blog is a great source of insight into marketing ideas and online resources circulating through the internet. There’s well over a year’s worth of blog posts - lots to keep you busy for a while.
- Acupuncture Media Works is best known for their broad range of promotional print and office materials - everything from business cards and brochures, to charts and displays. What gets them on this list, though, is the remarkable quantity of stuff available in the “Tips/Free Stuff” section - a huge array of letters, forms, info sheets and more, all free for the taking.
- Acufinder acupuncture referral services has a solid list of practice management articles in their Learning Center.
- Dr. Eric Schneider provides some free articles on the site, but a quick signup will also get you a free copy of the ebook 52 Integrity Based Ways to Fill Your Acupuncture Practice. The book’s nicely arranged, and there are some real gems in the 52.
Other Resources:
Any Suggestions?
I know there are lots of resources out there - if you’ve got a favorite that we’ve missed, do tell. Don’t be shy!
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