Life as a doctor can be frustrating. You may start the day with a packed schedule of appointments, only to waste hours waiting on no-shows. Those, along with late cancelations, can seriously cost your practice both time and money.

Sadly, that’s just how it is, the question we’re asking today is what you can do about it, specifically charging no-show fees. It will be a deterrent to patients skipping or canceling appointments, though it may also alienate patients who are chronically missing appointments.

The right option might not be readily apparent, so we’ve put together a list of 3 pros and cons each of charging no-show fees.

Pros

1. Patients will understand the inconvenience of no-shows
   No-shows or cancelations are almost never done maliciously. Something else comes up and patients simply don’t realize the cost and inconvenience to the practice. Instead of an actual business where appointments are the major source of revenue, most patients see the practice as similar to a hairdresser, for example, where missing an appointment is seen as inconsequential.Charging a no-show fee will make it crystal clear to patients that skipping appointments is a major inconvenience.

3. Cutting down on financial losses
   A no-show or cancelation causes losses in terms of both time and money. Each appointment missed is significant loss of income or revenue for your practice, the exact amount will vary depending on specialty. While a no-show fee will not completely cover the monetary loss, it will help offset it a little.Collect the fee by charging the patient’s card automatically, but only when payer contracts allow it.
4. Fewer no-shows
   The deterrent of a no-show fee will, in many cases, encourage patients to stick to their original appointments. No one likes paying extra fees, especially ones that are easily avoidable. With a monetary penalty attached to wasting it, patients might also learn to better respect their doctors’ time.

Cons

1. Losing patients
   While a no-show fee might encourage patients to be more faithful to their appointments, implementing them will push away a certain type of patient. Those with extremely busy personal or professional lives, where unignorable matters regularly show up, pulling at their attention and leading to them canceling or skipping appointments.For these patients, a no-show fee has a high chance of pushing them away from the practice, entirely. The added hassle of having to pay for missing appointments that they will feel they had to skip will encourage them to seek out your competitors.

2. Bad reviews
   Even patients that don’t miss appointments often might be left feeling burnt when they do get hit by the no-show fee. Not all of these patients will leave the practice, but many of them might give you bad reviews online.Patients will resent being charged extra for missing an appointment; not every skipped appointment will have a benign reason, some patients will have other commitments come up that they cannot avoid. The easiest way for these patients to retaliate is by leaving bad reviews online or badmouthing the practice to friends and family. Given the importance of online reviews in digital marketing, this could cost you many patients in the long run.

3. Collecting the fees might be a challenge
   The final big hurdle to charging no-show fees is actually collecting them. Collecting patient balances can be hard even at the best of times, and adding an extra fee on top can make patients even more evasive. Repeatedly mailing out bills may end up costing you more than the fee itself.Without the ability to charge the fees directly using stored card details, which will depend on payer contracts, no-show fees might not be worth the hassle.

Are no-show fees right for you?
Unfortunately, it is impossible to offer a conclusive answer to this question. We’ve laid out the various pros and the cons of adopting such a strategy, and whether or not it is worth it for your practice will depend on your specific situation.

There is no one size fits all solution here. Take your time, weigh up all of the pros and cons, as well the other options at your disposal, and then decide what is best for you.