Our office calls the day before and reminds patients of appointments. We have all different times for appointments.
Coughs, colds, ST get 10 - 15 min slots, New pts. get 1/2 hour.(we ask new pts to come in 1/2 hr early to fill out paperwork) Physicals get 1/2 hour, Sports CE's 15-20 mins. We never use a 45 min slot. We schedule procedures at the end of morning and last appt. of the afternoon so not to put our schedule behind since you never know how long a procedure will take.
As for billing patients for N/S and cancellations. We send a warning letter after 2 N/S or last minute cancellations and discharge on the 3rd one. We do charge a few patients $50 for N/S if they are a problem but it is better just to discharge and get rid of them we find they typically continue the behavior.
Unfortunately, there isn't a fool proof way to prevent N/S that we have thought of yet. But generally we seem to fill up the schedule with a walk in or work in appt.
Good Luck!
