Did you ever have a day when EVERY patient was late? I have and I came home exhausted. I felt liked I had worked 2 days. Because the economy is down. We try not to send them home. Some do have new construction sites as an excuse, but some patients just stroll in. I have to compromise on patient education and other services along the way, just to stay afloat. I just would like to tell them in a nice way, next time please be on time.
What do you think?
If a patient is late then you only do as much of the treatment that you can in the time alloted. This will let the patient know that they cannot take from the next patient's time. So they would have to come back for the balance of the appointment. You must make sure that you are not running late for appointments because that will let patients know that time is not an issue. You usually do not have to do this too many times, they get the idea right away and understand the importance of an appointment. "Yes, Mr. Jones, I understand that you are 30 mins late for your 45 min appointment, sorry traffic was so bad. So today we will do the xrays and an exam. We can reschedule the prophy when we don't have to rush. I want you to be comfortable when you have your great cleaning completed"
ReplyDeleteWe all have bad days when things don't go according to plan, but you need to stay in your appointment frame so as not to offend the next patient. If this continues to be a problem with many patients you need to look further into what is really happening. Some patients actually like it if you call them an hour prior to the appointment to get them to be there on time. I have actually gone to pick up a patient who has no tranportation rather than not have them there.