Pre-appointment Confirmation Process

Pre-appointment Confirmation Process: Since these appointments were set up quite a while ago, you do need to put more effort into the confirmation process, or you may end up with a bunch of holes in your schedule! The first key is to make sure that the pre-appointments are easily identified within the patient schedule by type and/or color code. These pre-appointed patients will need to receive several confirmation and reminder messages well beforehand. We recommend that the first notice is sent at least 4, if not 6 weeks ahead. You will most likely employ a combination of methods to reach the patient, but the key is you need to find out if the patient is planning to come in at the pre-appointed time or not. Ideally, you need to know this at least 1 or 2 weeks beforehand, so you have time to fill any canceled appointments. If your office is currently pre-appointing, please review the confirmation tools and procedures your office uses for pre-appointments and make sure you understand them thoroughly.

VERY IMPORTANT POINT about pre-appointments! If a patient does not keep or reschedule their pre-appointment, they should be moved immediately to your regular recall system, so that you don't lose touch with that patient! We don't want them to fall through the cracks.