Eye exam no show rates

**Keith M.** · 03-04-2005, 07:29 PM

Hi everyone,

I'm doing some projections for a new office and I was wondering if any of you keep track of your no show rates. I'm in a unique area and I was wondering how my offices stack up against the average office around the country. Or does anyone know of an information source that keeps this kind of information? Thanks for all your help.

**harry888** · 03-04-2005, 07:40 PM

No show rates vary by type of insurance they are on. Also varies with geographic area.

Here in Massachusetts, most VSP is with high tech companies, the very educated. My no show rate is about 2%. VSP demographic may be different in CA.

My Medicaid no show rate about 30-40%. I'm in a suburban area, when I worked center city it was well over 50%.

Colored contact no show rate is worse than Medicaid.

A recent alarming trend is the increase in self pay no shows.

Harry

**Bev Heishman** · 03-04-2005, 09:02 PM

We changed our phone recall to eliminate no shows.We pre appoint normally and then place a reminder call 2 days before. We also seek out vision insurance ID's ahead to check coverage. This method reduced no shows for our optoms to less than .5 percent.

**1968** · 03-05-2005, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by harry888

Colored contact no show rate is worse than Medicaid.

Amen. I know that if I see "new patient/no insurance/wants colored contact lenses" on the schedule, I can count on having a little bit of catch up time.

**For-Life** · 03-05-2005, 11:21 AM

We always confirm the day before even on Sundays. Yes, I will sit at home on Sunday and call everyone myself.

It has improved the amount of no shows.

**shellrob** · 03-07-2005, 01:23 PM

I agree with for-life. We do the same thing and our no-show rate is very low. By calling the patients, we avoid almost all no-shows or at least if they have forgotten, we can reschedule them during the reminder call. It works.