Failure to attend and Late cancellation appointment policy
Failure to attend and Late Cancellation Policy
Dental Appointments
Missed appointments and late cancellations represent a cost to the practice, to you and to other patients who could have been seen in the time set aside for you.Failed appointments can interfere with dental treatment, creating unnecessary scheduling problems for other patients. We strive to accommodate the appointment needs of our patients and make every effort to keep on time for appointments scheduled. Occasionally this may not be possible due to unforeseen circumstances. If we have to cancel and/or re-arrange your appointment, we will endeavour to provide as much notice as possible.
Please arrive in good time for your appointment. Arriving a few minutes late has a knock on effect and makes us run late for the patients after you. We do not want to rush your treatment. If your appointment time becomes inconvenient for you, we are always happy to change it if you provide us with 48 hours’ notice. This allows us to schedule in a patient who may be in urgent need of our care.
A patient who fails to attend their appointment or cancels with less than 24 hours notice will be contacted to advise them that they will loose their NHS entitlement at the practice and will be given one more chance of rebooking the appointment. In the event that a further appointment is issued and that appointment is cancelled at short notice or missed we will withdraw the offer of NHS treatment for the patient at this practice. Our policy of two failed or missed appointment follows the recommendations from NHS. The NHS dental services website states, “Your dentist can terminate your treatment if you miss your appointment without letting the dental practice know. You may then need to pay again for a new course of treatment. While the practice can’t charge you for not turning up, NHS England has the right to ask you to find another dental practice if you continue to miss appointments.”
As with all medical facilities, we aim to see our patients on time but due to the nature of health care, this is not always possible. However, if a patient turns up late for their appointment such that the planned treatment cannot be carried out, this will be counted as failure to attend.
This policy does not affect your ability to seek NHS care at another NHS practice.
Private Dental Appointments & Hygienist Appointments
You are required to pay a deposit when booking to see the hygienist or a private appointment. The deposit for a hygienist appointment is £30.00 and the deposit for a private appointment is £20.00. In the event that you fail to attend an appointment or cancel an appointment with less than 24 hours notice, in line with our practice policy we will not be able to refund the deposit paid.
It is understandable that sometimes cancellations cannot be helped due to illness or emergency and discretion may be used if there is a good reason for the appointment being missed. If an appointment is cancelled within the same treatment session you are due to be seen, it will be deemed as a fail to attend. The practice cannot be responsible for individual travel arrangements and appointments missed due to transport problems or running late due to traffic will still incur a fee. If you are sick and cannot attend on the day of your appointment, please call as soon as possible in the morning or email us to avoid a fee for a late cancellation. We also reserve the right to refuse further treatment to patients who fail to attend two consecutive appointments or any three of five consecutive appointments.The patient may not be seen for a further appointment until any outstanding fees have been paid.
Text, Email and Phone call reminder system
All texts and reminder phone calls are logged on our system when successfully sent. We will assume that you have received your reminder if it has been logged as successfully sent.
Phone reminders are available for all appointments. If we have your contact information on file, we will always provide a reminder call 24 hours in advance of your appointment. If we cannot speak to you in person we will always leave an answer phone message, where the option is available to do so. It is your responsibility to check your phones (Home/ Work/ Mobile if all are provided) for missed calls or answer phone messages and ensure that we are informed of any changes to your contact information.
Finally, our goal in communicating our cancellation and failed to attend policy is to avoid any extra charges being passed on to the patient. We thank you for your cooperation and understanding. Remember Non-attendance or short notice cancellation is surgery time lost.
Cancellation with good notice has the potential to benefit yourself and all our patients by allowing us to accommodate emergency and rescheduled appointments so that other patients can receive their treatment sooner.
Reviewed 01/04/2024