Digital Appointment Reminders to Decrease No Shows by 38%
How this veterinary hospital focused on appointment reminders to decrease no-show rates
Clinic Overview
Bluemound Animal Hospital has been the trusted veterinary hospital for Brookfield, Wisconsin for more than 28 years. The 4 doctor practice, founded by Dr. Weaver, provides medical, surgical, and dental care with more than 10,000 appointments set every year. BAH is using PetDesk for all of their appointment and reminder needs.
The Problem: Busier Clients, More Missed Appointments
They experienced an increase in no show rate to about 13%. This is pretty high but not uncommon for a larger practice seeing so many patients every week. Clients were getting busier and more forgetful so calling the day before was losing its effectiveness. This problem accounted for more than 1,500 missed appointments and most of these slots were unable to be filled afterward.
The Solution: Digital Appointment Reminders
Dr. Weaver instituted the full PetDesk App and Reminder System to boost business and address this issue. Clients were reminded and asked to confirm that they were coming two days before each appointment.
App users also had an appointment set in their personal calendar on their phone for a day-of, hour-before reminder. Unconfirmed clients were still called the night before.
The Result: Dropping no-show rate, retained more clients
The new system was able to lower the number of missed appointments by 38%. Their no-show rate dropped from 13% to 8%. As a further result of the app and reminders BAH saw 10% fewer lost clients (clients who had not been in for 18 months) than the previous year.
These trends continued through the decade and the practice’s appointments and revenue continued to increase.
