Stop Cancellations from Destroying Your Physical Therapy Practice

Cancellations and gaps in your schedule are practice killers. The industry average for physical therapy private practice cancellations is 18%. Many practices don’t currently track cancellations properly and therefore don’t know how significant an impact can be made. At FYZICAL, we consider success to be keeping cancellations under 10%, with some members as low as 5-6% annually. How can you do the same?

1. Define a “cancellation” for your business and create a policy. At FYZICAL, a cancellation* is someone who cancels their scheduled appointment with less than 24 hour’s notice. It doesn’t matter if you fill that time slot with another appointment. Once you define what a cancellation is, you must communicate the policy to your patients and staff. Outlining a policy will help patients understand why showing up is so important and also define staff responsibilities, which prevents subjective judgment calls by employees… “Do I charge this Johnny but not Sally?”

Once a cancellation takes place, follow the next three steps to make immediate impact!

2. Reach out to referrals not yet scheduled and offer the opportunity to fill the slot. If successful, getting in earlier than expected is a patient benefit and confusion from moving existing appointments is avoided.

No referrals waiting? Move to step three.

3. Take a look at the existing EMR system and make a list of all the cancellations and no shows in the past week. Reach out and attempt to rescheduled in the newly cancelled time slot. These patients still need care to improve and won’t benefit from just skipping over an appointment in their plan of care.

Still no success? Try step four.

4. Call the last scheduled patient of the day and see if they would like the opportunity to come in earlier. If unsuccessful, work your way through the schedule from the end of the day forward.

If someone accepts coming sooner, then you can buy yourself more time to fill that last slot. If you cannot find anyone to fill that last slot, then let your staff go home early. Let the business take the hit, don’t let the therapist/staff take the hit.

No one wants to see gaps in their schedule, but if you do have to see them, you want them to happen at the end of the day to give you the opportunity to earn goodwill with your team.

Cancellations are inevitable but they can be controllable. Spend time with your receptionist and really train them on how to handle each of these steps. You will see a significant reduction in your cancellations!

** A cancellation is different than a ‘no show’ - a person who misses their scheduled appointment* without providing notice.