No-show rate

A no-show is a slot held for one patient and used by nobody. The clinician is paid, the room is ready, and someone on the waiting list could have had it.

For a physical therapy clinic, missed sessions also break up a plan of care that depends on regular visits. For a med spa, an empty injector slot on a Saturday is revenue that never comes back, since the diary is the only stock a clinic cannot put back on the shelf.

Airlines live with the same problem and answer it by selling a few more seats than the plane holds. A clinic cannot overbook a surgeon in the same way, which is why reminders and easy rescheduling do most of the work.

There is no single figure that holds up. Published studies report very different no-show rates depending on the specialty, the setting (a hospital outpatient clinic, a family practice, a private dental or aesthetics clinic), the region and the patients served. They also count in different ways: some include late cancellations, some leave them out, and some look only at first visits.

So a number sold as the average for doctor appointments usually blends clinics that have little in common with yours. Before you compare against one, check who measured it, where and how.

The figure worth tracking is your own. Pull a full year of bookings from your scheduling system, apply the formula above with the same rule every month, then split the result by appointment type and by clinician. New patient visits and appointments booked far ahead may behave differently from routine follow-ups, and the split shows where reminders will help most.

A no-show gives the clinic no warning at all. A late cancellation gives some warning, though often too little to fill the slot. Tracking the two separately helps, because the fixes differ: no-shows respond to reminders and easy ways to cancel, while late cancellations respond to a short waitlist and a clear policy.