Home Forums Discussions Problems How to track "No shows"

I different take on a previous post. Is there a way for AC to track "no shows." These are patients who had an appointment and did not show. I know I can mark them as "no show" in the schedule but when I do this, it removes the patient from the schedule (WHY?) and then you get the option of saving to the chart. But I can't find a way of printing, for example, a list of patients that did not show for the past week, month, year, etc.

I use 6.6.7. Do newer versions have a fix for this?

Thanks.

I know you can click on the red x on the patient list and send to a provider. This could be a made up one so you would have a list of no shows. I do not know if this automatically deletes the patient from the schedule. I wouldn't think so.

But, you then have a list of all the no shows, but I do not see anyway of printing them other than using a print screen shot. The joys of the AC workarounds.

Thanks Bert. I have a workaround in place:
(drum roll)
Another excel spreadsheet
(/sarcasm font off)

Another spreadsheet means double entry of data.
I have to pay for someone to input that data.
Not to mention the time that it takes staff away from more important tasks.
AC should, and must, be able to do it.

This "little annoyances" will eventually make me switch to something else.

Gerardo

I know. I could have sworn at some point you could click on no show, and it would be recorded in the patient chart.

Gerardo,
Looks like a few people in two different threads are trying to help with this, without making you happy.
Maybe we don't exactly understand what you are trying to do. Can you explain, in a perfect world, how this would work, so we can try to help approximate that?

My understanding is that you want your staff to make a an entry when some one no-shows. You want to be able to run a report, say at the end of the month, giving a list of those patients. Then you want to write a letter to each patient (or call them) asking them to reschedule. Is that correct or is there more to it?

Hi Dr. Carcamo --

This is not a direct answer to your question, but it might help reduce your no-shows overall.

Amazing Charts is about to introduce Amazing Reminders, an automated appointment reminder service linked to your patient schedule. It will call, email, or text, depending on the patient's preference. Studies have shown that such a service can reduce no-shows by 30% or more!

Look for the announcement in a few weeks.

Thanks,
Charlie Schachter
Senior Director of Marketing
Amazing Charts

Hi Dr. Carcamo,

I believe I know what you are trying to do, and unfortunately I don't believe AC can do it at this time. You can mark a patient as a No Show in AC (we call it a DNKA.. Did Not Keep Appointment). This is done by either clicking the red X under the patient list as Bert suggested, or right clicking on the appointment and selecting DNKA. This will allow you to mark the appointment as a no show and send the notification to the provider. The provider would then double click on the email to open the Addendum and then save that addendum to the chart. Once those addendums are saved to the chart you can see how many times that particular patient has no showed (it's on the summary sheet in the lower right corner). You cannot, however, see how many patients no showed in a given time frame (which I believe is what you are looking for).

I have submitted an issue to DEV about this to see about adding the ability in a future release. To give the issue more weight, I would also ask that you submit a "Recommended Improvement" ticket. The more of these that get submitted for a particular issue, then the more likely it is they will get it in quicker. To submit this type of ticket, click on "Help" and then "Recommended Improvements" right in the program.

This is what I do to track no shows: http://amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/54897/Re:_Report_on_DNKA's;_reducing#Post54897

It's worked pretty well.

JBS nails it.
Every other solution or workaround offered so far requires that you know the name of the patient up front. This is just not practical in a busy practice. In general, most doctor's office that even bother with no shows only do so when the office is quiet, as do we. To have to take the time to write down the name of the patient and add to a list to call later is just cumbersome. There has to be a better way of doing this, and indeed there is. We currently use MOMSAT, a local PM, which is how we actually tract office appointments. In that program all I have to do is click, "no show list" and select the date range and a patient list of no shows is given, minus those patients that have already been contacted and rescheduled. THAT is what I need. Unfortunately MOMSat does not interface well with AC so we have to do "double data entry" in order to keep track of the patients.

So here is the deal: I am actually trying to figure out if it will be possible for me to switch to AC alone and start using AC's PM. Obviously at this point I can't. Alas, AC just does not measure up to the task.

@Bert: AC is able to record a "No show" but once it is saved, it disappears in never-never-land, only to be seen if you search for the particular patient in which case it will show as an addendum under past encounters. This is this useful, but only if you happen to see Mr Smith again a year later and he complains he could not come see you because you had no appointments. The you can tell him that he no showed 3 times in the past 3 months...

One of my pet peeves is the fact that once you make a patient a "no show," the appointment is removed from AC. Again, why? that appointment was made and the slot was assigned to that patient. Removing the name from the schedule implies that there was no appointment then, which is not true. The appointment should be marked RED or have a strike through, but it should be left on the schedule.

What would be really helpful is to have a list of no shows that your office can try to contact, reschedule, and re-engage in your practice. Now you might say why bother with no shows, and part of me would agree with you. But this is not always appropriate. there are cases where you need to contact the patient. Say, you just did a lap chole and the path shows gallbladder cancer... then there is the financial aspect.

@JBS: Although both treads are similar, they are not the same. This one deals with no shows, or patients who have made appointments and did not show. The other deals with patients who have been referred to my practice by a referring physician and have never contacted us, or we have been unable to contact them, to make an appointment. Two different patient populations. No shows made an appointment so we were able to contact them at one point and an appointment was made. The other group is sitting in limbo somewhere.

@Marc@ac. I appreciate your honesty. Short and to the point. I will make a recommendation, but why would it add more weight to my request? This is what I would consider a very basic task for ANY PMS: to track patients. That you think we have to ask for it to be implemented already tell me more than I need to know about AC's PM.

Again, I am making comments on AC 6.7.7. I have not used later versions. Someone please tell me this has been fixed in later versions. As it stands now, we are reaching a deadline. In 90 days I have to switch to AC 8.x. I need to make a decision if I am going to stay with AC or move on...

Gerardo,

James responded in another link, and I haven't had time to look at it or have someone kick the tires on this, but I suspect that the data is in the database somewhere.

We are backlogged right now, so you may want to reach out James to get you what you need.

Bert:

I understand now what you are talking about. Sorry about not getting it earlier.

After I typed my response I went back to the schedule, right clicked on a dummy appointment I made and selected "did not keep appointment (DNKA)" As expected AC deletes the appointment from the schedule and gives you the option to save an addendum and notify a "provider" AC then allows you to pick anyone with an account in AC as the provider (Really AC?). I could then send the patient to a provider called "frontdesk" and anyone with secretarial privileges would be able to see it. This could be a workaround, although cumbersome. It is annoying that it removes the appointment from the schedule. The message states which doctor the appointment was with and time.

However, if you instead search for the patient in the "patient list" and click on the red "x" you can set "did not keep appointment (DNKA) for the day and send a message for "frontdesk" WITHOUT removing the patient from the schedule. Again, cumbersome, but at least the appointment is not removed from the list and the patient is marked as a no show. However, the message only states that an appointment was missed, and does not tells specifics, such as which physician the appointment was with or the time of the appointment. No big deal.

Also, if you send the patient to your inbox and right click on it and select "did not keep appointment (DNKA) and you can send a message to "frontdesk" as well without removing the appointment from the schedule. Again, the message does not include the name of the physician that the patient DNKA with or other specifics.

This could work.

However, my point stands... Why do we have to go through these work-arounds! AC should be able to do this!!!

Gerardo,
If you set up the flag system, you can use the AC search function to get a list of people who have been flagged DNKAx1, DNKAx2, etc.

Serene:

That is very useful. I have not used Flags before. I will start now. Thank you!

Serene:

That is very useful. I have not used Flags before. I will start now. Thank you!