At Professional VisionCare-we have several patient policies that help our office run smoothly both in patient care and employee flow. In this module, you will get to learn about some of the policies that PR team members need to be most familiar with. Please note-these are not all of PVC’s policies, and our policies are always subject to change!
No Show Policy
What is the no show policy? When a patient “no-show’s,” aka doesn’t show up for their scheduled appointment without any notice to us, this causes an unexpected opening on our schedule that could’ve have been filled with another patient. No shows cost the practice financially, but they also cost another patient from getting the care they need during that appointment time. So as a practice, we want to do everything we can to prevent and reduce no shows. We do this in a few ways:
Every patient gets a few reminders regarding their upcoming appointment, and they are asked to CONFIRM the appointment via text, email, or phone call. We provide these plentiful reminders so they don’t accidentally forget about their appointment and therefore “no show.”
We also have a “no show” policy that is referenced in the patient’s appointment reminder messages, so that they understand the action steps we will take if they fail to appear for their scheduled appointment.
The “No Show Policy” is outlined below:
If a patient no shows for their appointment (any type of appointment), we will assess a $40 fee to the patient’s account. PR will continue to track these no shows by adding the patient to the No Show Spreadsheet, and posting the fee to the patient’s ledger. We will no longer make alert messages regarding no shows, and any alert messages regarding no shows that you come across can be expired out.
If a patient calls/texts/emails us any time that same day to cancel their appointment, we will NOT charge them the fee. Since they made an effort to communicate, we will not penalize them. This will not be advertised on the policy that patients sign-it will simply state that we request a 24 hour notice to cancel an appointment, and that a $40 fee will be assessed for any no shows. This will help thwart folks from cancelling willy nilly, but will also allow us to give great news to patients who do their due diligence to call us to cancel as we now get to tell them we are happy to waive that fee for their special circumstance.
Since we are still tracking no shows on our spreadsheet, it will be frequently reviewed to identify chronic no show patients. We will continue to have the QC Manager review these patient’s accounts and decide on a plan of action.
Every time someone no shows, we will send the patient an email reminder that we missed them at their appointment (as we currently do), and let them know that we have assessed the $40 no show fee. PR should make every effort to collect payment for this fee before scheduling their next appointment, but if a patient insists on paying when they get to the office, please make a detailed alert message of the conversation. Remember, the goal is to have the patient return for their important eye care appointment, so don’t let the no show fee stop them from getting that care!
If a patient had something TERRIBLE happen to them that caused them to not appear for their appointment, or if the patient is irate because they were unaware of the policy and unwilling to reschedule their appointment because of the no show fee-it’s okay to waive the no show fee! You have the power to do this for the patient at your discretion—just keep in mind that if you do waive the no show fee for a patient, to let them know that you are happy to do this for them just this once, but that any future no shows will result in that same fee, and you won’t be able to waive it then. Remember-exceptional patient care is always the priority, so if you need to “bend the policy” for a patient to feel heard and satisfied, you CAN do this-but make sure you fully communicate that we can only do this once.
Late patient Policy
As you know, life can happen that can make you late for your appointment. The same is true of our patients. On their way to their scheduled appointment with us, they might run into excessive traffic, get stuck behind a train, get lost, or have an infant that threw up all over them. You just never know WHY patients are late-but its important to know what to do when patients ARE late to their appointments. Because our schedules have patients scheduled back to back, when a patient is late it can cause our doctors and staff to fall behind schedule, which then makes other patients seen late, etc. But on the other side of the coin, we want to be as accommodating as possible to our patients who are late-after all, they’ve been through some stress to get to their appointment! Nothing is worse than being told you need to reschedule after the stress of trying to arrive as soon as possible. Here is the policy that we have adapted to try to help both the late patient AND the practice:
If a patient is 15 min late or less, we will see them as per usual, no questions asked. We will greet them and let them know we are thrilled to see them as per usual. The front desk team member should ALSO let the OA and Doctor know that the patient has arrived asap so they can get crack-a-lackin on taking them back and catching up.
If a patient arrives 15 min or more AFTER their appointment time, the PR team member will simply contact the doctor that patient was scheduled to see and ask the doctor if they are still able to fit the patient in. Here’s how to do this:
The PR team member will still greet the patient with a huge smile, tell them how great it is to see them today, and then tell the patient: “Let me check our schedule real quick to see what we can do,” and then either ask the patient to have a seat or put them on hold.
Then, to contact the doctor, the PR team member can IM the OA, call to the exam room, or physically find the doctor. Let the doctor know the situation, and the doctor will instruct the PR team member from there! Our doctors will communicate the situation with their OA, and will make a decision on how/if we can fit the late patient in, or if its best to reschedule their appointment to another day.
For threshold appointments, if a patient arrives more than 5 min past their scheduled appointment time, please use the same verbiage as above, but contact the threshold OA instead of the doctor.
Again, the ultimate goal is to provide exceptional patient care, so always make sure the patient feels welcomed and not guilty for being late-it happens to us all! Anytime we CAN make an exception to care for a patient best, we will!