5 Ways To Protect Yourself From Flaky Patients
You dropped the kids off early, rushed to your clinic and you’re all set up. You’ve cleaned down everything, checked your notes, the chemical peel is ready to go, the plinky plonky music is on and the Neom is steaming away. You’re ready.
The patient is five minutes late.
‘She’ll be here soon’ you think, hopefully.
The patient is 15 minutes late.
‘She needs to arrive now, I’ve got a Botox patient in 45 mins….’
The patient doesn’t turn up.
Late cancellations and no-shows are bad for you and bad for your business. Unreliable patients who don’t respect your time or value your service need to be handled.
5 Tips To Avoid Late Cancellations and No-Shows
Try to avoid taking bookings over DM/whatsapp. It’s likely that the patient is making the appointment spontaneously and their intent might be lower. Ask them to make the appointment using your online booking system (if you have one!) because this requires more thought and planning. Sure, some people might forget/not bother but then they’re exactly the patients who are also more likely to cancel or not show up!
Make it clear what your policy is for late cancellations and no-shows. Exert your boundaries. Many practitioners will charge up to 50% and in some cases 100% of the treatment fee if not rescheduled in a reasonable amount of time. This is normal, this is what businesses do. If you don’t turn up for a spray tan, you’re charged for it.
Ditch any patients who continually and habitually cancel/fail to show, they are costing you time and money. Cancel them before they cancel you.
Do not let irate patients who get frustrated that they’re being charged discourage you. So long as your policy is clear and communicated it’s all gravy. It’s their problem, not yours.
Save yourself all the effort and woe and use GlowdayPRO!
How GlowdayPRO Does It
GlowdayPRO has an inbuilt process for late cancellations and no-shows. We clearly communicate to our your patients at multiple points during the booking and confirmation
Before they select a time and date
During booking confirmation
In the confirmation email sent to them
We send an email to patients a few hours before the time your policy will be activated
If the patient then still fails to show or cancels in the policy window, your fee is collected by us and deposited straight into your account. No awkward chats, no faff, no messing about!
You set your late cancellation and no-show percentages/fees when you build your Glowday treatment menu.
It couldn’t be easier, it doesn’t require any additional admin from you and we take the awkwardness out of the whole process.
And Other Practitioners Love It!
"I have mine set at 25% and 30% now. I do like how it's a proportion of what treatment they were in for." Jess
"Had my first no show. Called her, left a message saying hope all OK but a charge would be made but I'd take it off a reschedule. Gave it an hour, then charged it." Shelley
"If I hadn't booked her into my Glowday diary, I'd never have asked her for a payment for a no show." Gemma
To sign up for GlowdayPRO where this is just one of many incredible features, head here.
What About Deposits?
Deposits come with a whole heap of issues. Firstly you need to collect them (more admin). Then there are some ethical considerations - does paying a non-refundable deposit put undue pressure on patients to go ahead with treatment? It’s a risk. And a little known fact is that deposits, legally, don’t hold much water. You can easily be challenged.
Instead, having a late-cancellation/no-show policy is a far simpler/clearer form of protection and one that we encourage you to use!