When patients cancel at last minute they don’t realize it leaves a costly hole in the schedule—and creates a last-minute scramble for the front desk staff, who must at least try to fill the hole. Previously, dental practices had to work fast to fill a last-minute opening manually. Someone would start calling the ASAP list of patients, one by one…but this was a time-consuming process. Or mass emails/texts would be sent to all patients, which were inefficient, not to mention annoying to patients. Not the best scenario.
Those days are over! Lighthouse 360 just launched a brand-new feature called “Fill-In” that automatically detects last-minute cancellations in the schedule and then reaches out to the patients who are most likely to want an immediate appointment.
When the software detects a cancellation, the practice gets notification right in the Lighthouse 360 portal asking if they’d like help finding a replacement patient. All staff has to do is click “Find Patient” and Fill-In automatically contacts a targeted group of patients (no more mass texts or emails) via text message to offer them the last-minute opening. When a patient responds yes, the practice is notified in the portal, and via email, so the new appointment can be approved and the patient is booked. That’s all there is to it! Fill-In also keeps a record of which patients received a text and automatically stops messaging them.
This is a totally new solution to an age-old problem—helping prevent costly holes in the schedule while saving staff time and manual effort, and providing patients with a great experience by offering more immediate appointment times.
Of course the best way to find out more about this really exciting new feature is to take a demo. Just click here.