Free tools → No-show cost
What are no-shows costing your clinic?
A patient who books and doesn't arrive costs you twice: the fee you didn't collect, and the slot someone else could have taken. Two or three a day feels like nothing. Over a year it usually isn't.
Not sure of your no-show rate? Between 10% and 20% is common for outpatient clinics. Count a single week to get your own number — it's worth doing properly.
An estimate from the numbers you entered. It assumes an empty slot isn't filled by a walk-in — if yours usually are, your real cost is lower.
Why patients don't turn up
Very few no-shows are deliberate. People book two weeks out, life moves, and the appointment simply falls out of memory. Nobody rings to cancel because cancelling feels like an admission, and because it's easier to say nothing.
That's worth knowing, because it tells you what works. A reminder isn't a nudge to attend — it's a prompt to tell you they can't, early enough for you to give the slot to someone else.
What reduces no-shows
- Remind the day before, not the morning of. Same-day leaves no time to refill the slot.
- Make cancelling easy and guilt-free. A reply to a WhatsApp message is the lowest bar you can offer.
- Keep a short callback list. Patients who wanted an earlier date are the fastest way to fill a gap.
- Watch repeat offenders. A patient who has missed three appointments is better served with a same-day slot than a booked one.
- Confirm at booking. Reading the date and time back cuts a surprising number of honest mix-ups.
Sending reminders without doing it by hand
RoboSensy can message patients about upcoming appointments, and lets you filter your patient list — for example, everyone who hasn't visited in six months — and message them together, with each patient's name filled in automatically.