While we often associate white spaces with positive things such as cleanliness and serenity, when it comes to practice appointment diaries, they are far from desirable! However, there are ways to ensure they don’t trouble you too often.
When I worked in practice, even though we had 11 surgeries, we were seldom troubled by too many gaps in the diary. I attribute that to a number of things, one of which was a strict policy on taking deposits for appointments. When booking patients in for a course of treatment, we would request either 50 per cent of the cost of the treatment or an amount equivalent to the lab fees up front.
I know some practices may not feel comfortable doing this, but it is quite a common occurrence in other businesses. This practice should also be tied to a clear fail to attend (FTA) policy. So, if patients do not attend an appointment, some or all of the deposit will be retained. Obviously, there can be some discretion around this for cases where missing the appointment was genuinely unavoidable. However, knowing that there is a price to pay for not turning up seems to focus people’s minds more and they will make the effort to keep their appointments.
Plan ahead
White space can often be avoided, or at least mitigated, through good planning. Having staff rotas prepared well in advance can help with this. At least four weeks ahead is fine, but eight weeks is better. This allows you to have a clear view of what’s happening so you can move things around if needed. I would always advise rotas to be based on the clinic rather than the individual. That way you can have a clearer picture of how each surgery is being used and whether there are any times when it’s not occupied.
For example, on week one of your rota, you should already be looking at week five and planning for it. Should you have a dentist booked off on holiday, then theoretically you have white space in that diary. You then need to decide what you want to do about it. You’ll have a surgery free, so are you going to ask another dentist to come in and get some treatments done? How will you plan for that week?
Sadly, some practices don’t do that; they just get to that week and realise their diary is empty. Although a dentist’s holiday is not white space in the diary, strictly speaking, it still represents a cost to the business and also affects patients being able to be seen. A week off can take up to four weeks for a dentist to catch up on what they should have been doing. So, taking action to mitigate that can be very beneficial to the business.
Diary ownership
With regards to the day-to-day running of the diary, I would advise practices to print off a day list for the whole week so they know what it looks like. Then if a patient cancels their appointment, the front-of-house team, or the nurse working with that particular dentist, can make calls to try to get someone else to come in to fill the gap.
I suggest the dental nurse takes ownership of the diary for their dentist, as it can often be difficult for the front-of-house team to have the time to ring round while they’re still looking after reception and so on. Having the nurse own the dentist’s diary also means they can make sure that it has been planned correctly, not just because of white space, but because it just makes their day run more smoothly.
It allows them to plan what they need to do. For example, if they’re working with endodontics, and it takes that nurse 10 minutes to turn things around before the next patient, this may be something a receptionist might not realise and may book back-to-back endos. This would not give time to reset before the next patient, making things needlessly stressful. So, it always makes sense for the nurse to take charge of booking things.
Ask about availability
Ideally, we want to book patients in at times that are convenient for them. When I was in practice and we were booking patients in for big treatments, we would always ask about their availability and how easy it would be for them to come to the practice. If they indicated that they could come at any time, then they would be at the top of our list to call should any gaps appear in the diary, as they’d already told us they could probably turn up with very little notice.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
Although there seems to be a lower rate of FTA for plan patients, probably because they’re paying monthly, it does still happen occasionally. A way to minimise this is to book their whole year’s appointments in straight away, so it’s done. While you’re booking those appointments, I would advise you to separate their hygiene and oral health examinations. This is because if they fail to turn up and they are meant to see the dentist and then the hygienist afterward, both diaries are affected. Whereas if those appointments are on different days, there would only be the need to fill one blank space.
It’s also beneficial to the patient for their appointments to be split, as a dental professional will be looking at their teeth every three months, rather than every six months, which is the best possible dental care you could offer them. While this might not always be possible, it is worth trying to see if patients can adhere to this, especially all new joiners to the plan.
In summary, with careful planning and ownership of diaries being in the right place, white space can be kept to a minimum.