No-Show Cost Calculator

The calculator multiplies your weekly appointments by your no-show rate to get the visits missed each week, then multiplies that by your average production per visit and the weeks you are open. The yearly figure is the production that was on the schedule and never happened. It does not include the wages paid for the empty chair, the second attempt to rebook, or the treatment that was never diagnosed because the exam did not take place, so treat it as the floor, not the ceiling.

The “back on the schedule” line assumes the rate is cut roughly in half, which is what practices commonly report once they track the number and send structured reminders. It is an estimate, not a promise.

Published figures for general dentistry sit between 12 and 18 percent, and hygiene recall visits run higher than treatment visits because a cleaning feels easier to skip. A practice under 5 percent is doing something deliberate. Many offices do not know their own rate because the schedule only shows what happened, not what was supposed to happen, so the first useful step is to count missed visits for one month and divide by the visits booked.

The pattern inside the number matters as much as the number. New patients miss more than established ones, Monday mornings and the first slot after lunch miss more than mid-afternoon, and a patient who has missed once is far more likely to miss again.

Ten percent sounds small until it is six empty chairs a week in a practice seeing sixty patients. Hygiene time is the hardest to recover because it is booked in fixed blocks months ahead, so a missed cleaning is rarely refilled the same day. The hygienist is paid either way, the room sits ready, and the patient who missed is now overdue, which is where periodontal problems and unaccepted treatment start to pile up. One missed hygiene visit often becomes a patient who drifts out of recall altogether.

Reminders that ask for a reply, not just announce the time. A text the patient can answer YES to turns a reminder into a commitment, and the ones who do not answer are the list your front desk should call. A short sequence works better than a single message: a confirmation when the visit is booked and reminders as the visit gets closer. Fill cancelled slots from a waitlist the same day rather than leaving the gap. And apply a clear, kindly worded policy for repeat offenders; the rules for charging a fee in Canada are covered in our no-show fee policy guide.

What does not work on its own is a bigger phone list. Calling every patient the day before is the most expensive version of a reminder and the first task that slips on a busy day. The practices that hold a low rate automate the asking and keep the people for the conversations that need a person.