Fail to attend policy / Late cancellation policy
At Saving Smiles our aim is to see patients as soon as possible when they require an appointment with us. However, we lose valuable surgery time each week due to patients who fail to attend their appointments, or who cancel outside of our 48-hour notice cancellation period.
Due to the short notice, especially with patients who cancel on the day of their appointment, this makes it difficult to accommodate other patients who would like to book an appointment or require urgent care. Should you be unable to attend your appointment please advise us by telephone or email no later than 48 hours before the appointment is due.
NHS PATIENTS
Under NHS Regulations, we are unable to charge NHS patients a fail to attend fee.
However, a patient who fails to attend their appointment or cancels at short notice will lose their entitlement to NHS dentistry at Saving Smiles if a second appointment is missed or cancelled at short notice within a two-year period.
In the event that a second appointment is missed or cancelled at short notice within the two-year period, we will withdraw the offer of NHS dentistry at this practice. Should you then wish to remain a patient at the practice you would need to register on a private basis.
This policy does not affect your ability to seek NHS care at another NHS practice.
PRIVATE PAY AS YOU GO PATIENTS
Should you be unable to attend your appointment please advise us by telephone or email no later than 48 hours before, or a fail to attend fee may be charge.
We realise that from time to time things happen beyond your control and therefore we would not charge, if this is the first appointment that you have missed. However multiple failed appointments will result in a charge of £2 per minute automatically added to your account (For Example: a 30-minute failed appointment will be charged at £60). Further appointments will only be bookable after settlement of your account. You may also be asked to pay in advance for any future appointments.
DENPLAN AND PRACTICE PLAN MEMBERS
As members of Saving Smiles your membership is costed based on the number of appointments required within the year, therefore should you be unable to attend a booked appointment please notify us within the 48-hour notice period.
We will allow one late cancellation or failure to attend an appointment in a 2 year period and thereafter a charge of £2 per minute for future late cancellations or failures to attend.
TEXT AND EMAIL REMINDERS
To help our patients and remind you of booked appointments, we offer a free text and email reminder service on request. If we have your mobile number and/or email address on record, a reminder can be sent to you a few days prior to your appointment. All text messages and emails sent by our system are logged when successfully sent.
It is your responsibility to check texts and emails and to inform us of any changes to your contact details. We will assume that you have received your reminder if it has been logged as successfully sent.
We would encourage you to add our email to your contacts so that any email from us is not delivered into your junk folder.
Please note, text messages and emails are sent out of courtesy, not necessity. It is your responsibility to turn up for an appointment on time. Failure of the reminder system for any reason is not sufficient reason for failing to attend your appointment.
Our practice policy specifies, if you do not attend for over 3 years you will be removed from our existing patient data base and we may not be able to offer you further dental appointments.
