Hi ​@Anne-Maree Siderides Thanks so much for sharing - and I definitely concur in that we are seeing quite a rise in cancellations across many clinics Australia-wide, many of these occurring at short notice. 

This idea of having a ‘noticeboard’ or similar within the Dentally Portal is something I did mention to our Product team recently, particularly useful to act as an area to display practice policy digitally. 

Do you utilise the patient portal currently to upload consent forms i.e. consent forms which mandate practice policy around cancellation tolerance and associated fees? This workflow is digitised and offers the ability for patients to ‘sign’ in a similar way as they would an estimate raised from within the treatment planning/charting area. This article might be helpful in case you are not using the workflow currently.

Alternatively, housing your practice policy on your website would be recommended and then this link can be simply input into a text message to save on characters!

Hi Lauren,

We are definitely planning on housing the policy on our website  and referring it to our SMS reminders soon (I didn’t realise you could add a link to SMS to save on characters- does it have to be displayed as the full html address or is there a shorter way to display).

However, it’s most practical and simple to have the patient simply be notified at the point of  booking with a simple message or popup (much like many other service providers across industries).
Even for example if I book a haircut (where the salon uses the Fresha booking system), at the Payment screen there is a section for “Deposit Policy” and “Additional terms and conditions” - surely as best practice, Dentally could add something similar?

Not all patients are diligent about using the portal to complete all forms, so we couldn’t rely on the portal as a way to communicate our cancellation policy - I don’t think it makes practical sense either.

Hi ​@Anne-Maree Siderides 

Totally agree, and would love for there to be a pop-up or similar enablement of notification via the portal to disclaim to patients around practice policy.

In the interim I definitely recommend you house practice policy somewhere on your website and refer to this in outgoing comms via SMS (you can use link shorteners such as https://tinyurl.com/ to create space efficiency- you could even look to send a bulk email to all patients as a gentle reminder of practice policy and to act with respect for your time as we approach spring/Christmas?

With new patients I would always recommend iterating practice policy at this point, and using the consent form workflow could be a way of getting new patients to sign such a waiver. They could then actually sign this consent in-clinic if you guys utilise Concierge mode with tablets. The workflow here is the same as with estimates getting these digitally signed in-clinic.

Hi ​@Anne-Maree Siderides!

Thanks for the feedback. I just wanted to keep you in the loop as we’ve raised this with our Product team and together with ​@Lauren Farquharson Rosaroll so it can be considered alongside other improvements. I can’t promise timelines, but I’ll keep this post updated as soon as there’s movement.

Thanks Saymon, I think it’s just one part of the puzzle to  diary management, but an important part. I think its now essential to have some cancellation info shown to the patient at booking stage, so the patient can’t say ‘you didn’t tell me’.

This is best practice across the services industry - so far I myself in the last week have booked 2 online appointments for hair and beauty and noticed that they displayed this info at the booking confirmation stage!

We are going to be launching it on our website and link it in to our SMS’s as Lauren mentioned, but I do believe having it at the actual booking point is critical.

Good to see that Dentally has this on the radar. It could be a simple improvement, just an extra section added on the booking confirmation page to make the patient aware that cancellation fees may apply if notice is not given.
Ideally, it would be great if this is a free text box so each practice can tailor how they message it to patients.