Cancellations and Missed Appointments
We respect your time at Tall Grass Dental. Dr. Milgram thinks it is wrong that patients have to wait for a doctor who is obviously over scheduled. It is not uncommon to wait up to an hour to see the dentist at most offices. As a service to our valued patients we do not purposely double schedule appointments. Your time is valuable and you don't want to spend it waiting at the doctors office.
If you don't give proper notification that you will miss your appointment then the time goes unused. If you can't make an appointment we ask you to call 2 working days in advance. This will allow us to fill your apointment time slot. Missed appointments cost the office in many ways.
- The staff are paid to wait for the next patient.
- People who wish to be seen could have been seen at your appointment time with enough notice.
- A second slot of office time will be used in the make-up appointment.
The profit margin on the office time is too small to cover 2 appointments for the same procedure. As a result we charge our patients a missed appointment fee for unused time. The missed appointment fee is proportional to the length of the appointment missed. $10 per ten minutes. (If you have to miss an appointment at the last minute for work some companies will allow you to expense the missed appointment fee with your company as a cost of keeping you working.)
Keep in mind that hotels charge the full room rate for not cancelling reservations. Day care facilities charge $1 per minute for late pick-ups of children. There is a cost to a business for not keeping appointments. Dr. Milgram believes it is only fair to charge for his staff and facilities time.
Please contact the office at (630) 922-0005 as soon as you know an appointment will be missed!