Challenging missed dental appointment charges and refusal of treatment

GlasweJen

I use public transport to get pretty much everywhere and I live in a village with appalling service. People who leave early don't tend to miss the bus, I don't see how you can think I'm being simplistic in advising you to leave your house earlier to catch a bus.

Bethrezen

I can't believe you think this is acceptable. You have excuse upon excuse. How about taking responsibility for your actions. I have been going to dentists as an adult for 25 years and in all that time I think I only missed an appointment once. I'm very busy too, working and bringing up 3 children.

If there was only one bus an hour, I would be aiming to get the bus before the one I needed and would take a book to read.

We all have busy lives, but we don't all miss appointments, let alone 6-12 in 5 years.

did I say it was acceptable no and I'm not disputing that missing appointments is bad form and that you should turn up on time

what I am saying however is that missed appointments are a fact of life they are going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it stuff happens and there can be any number of reasons why you might miss your appointment or be running late and be unable to get there on time it happens to all of us at one point or another and people just need to accept that and make appropriate allowances a little flexibility would be nice because if when booking appointments you make the assumption that there are going to be a certain number of people that are not going to show at the appointed time then you can factor in margins for handling that when making appointments

for example if I cant make it at the proscribed time for what ever reason then why not have me come in at the end of the day when you’ve have seen every one else so as to minimize disruption

or have me come in on the next bus and while waiting see the people that are sitting in the waiting room that where supposed to go after me a little early so when i get there there is time enough to see me once finished with the other patients yes it means I might have to wait a while but that’s fine because its my fault for not getting there sooner

because in my case when I miss an appointment its not normally that I cant come its just for what ever reason got held up and couldn’t make the appointed time

ok yes its annoying and disruptive but this is in my opinion a far better way to handle things

I use public transport to get pretty much everywhere and I live in a village with appalling service. People who leave early don't tend to miss the bus, I don't see how you can think I'm being simplistic in advising you to leave your house earlier to catch a bus

simple really you are making assumptions with out all the facts you assume that I'm not leaving early when in fact this isn't correct as it happens I do normally try to leave about 15 mins before the bus is due when I know I have to go somewhere so I got plenty of time to walk to the stop however sometimes I get held up due to unexpected occurrences and subsequently miss the bus because of that or on occasion even when I get the bus on time I'm still fail to get to my appointment on time because of some unexpected occurrence like road works for example

this is what I meant about that being a overlay simplistic view point because things are never that simple

the irony here is that if I had my own transport or the buses ran more frequently this wouldn't be a problem its just the fact that its so far a way from where I stay and the fact that there is only 1 bus that only runs every hour only serves to compound this problem because if you do get held up you have no way to get there and this more than anything is why I have a hard time making appointments with this dentist

when it comes to appointments that are in the local area like doctors or jobcenter careers etc I never miss them because there only like 10 or 15 mins walk from where i stay

A dozen times in 6 years is consistently missing appointments.

I guess you and I just have a slightly different definition of consistently but I would say consistently in this case would be missing close to every appointment while I do admit that I miss far more than I should its hardly a consistent failure

Your point about alienation is an interesting one. For what it's worth I don't think the dentist would chase you for the money. I don't think they would inform another Dentist either. If you are a serial "Fail to attender" I think they would just be happy to see you go elsewhere.

oddly enough there is one case i heard of where a privet dentist started charging for missing appointments and in about 6 months ended up going out of business because it lost about half its clientele as a result and they simply couldn't make enough to run the practice with the few patients they had left on there books i think eventually though it reopened as a NHS detist rarther then a privite one how much truth there is to that I'm not sure cant believe everything ya read on the net after all but it is a cortionay tale none the less that just goes to show that its not wise to do things like that

Toothsmith

If you were my patient, you'd have received a letter suggesting that your needs might be better met by a different dentist 4 or 5 years ago.

Sazzarella

Do you not think if everyone had an attitude like you then there would be no need for an appointment system and the whole thing would be a farce! If everyone thought they should be able to turn up when they want then nothing would get done!

shellsuit

Is this a wind up?

If you're constantly late for the appointments, don't leave 15 minutes before the bus is due, leave an hour an 15 minutes before, so you can get on the earlier bus! You'd be there in plenty of time then.

You're messing people about and taking the Michael. The dentist, the admin people, the people who may have an emergency but are turned away or who have to wait longer etc...

Jesus, I've missed about 4 appointments in my whole life and only one of those times I didn't ring up because I genuinely forgot.

If there is one thing I can't bear and find so rude, it's when people are late or don't turn up at all.


I bet if you were paying for treatment and had to pay upfront you'd be there on time!

Al1x

how can missing appointments be a fact of life?

If you are unemployed why don't you have the time to leave an hour early for your appointment?

missing 12 appointments in 6 years is just shocking. My dentist will refuse treatment after missing one appointment without giving 24 hours notice!

Why not make your appointment for a more convienent time?

Bethrezen

Do you not think if everyone had an attitude like you then there would be no need for an appointment system and the whole thing would be a farce! If everyone thought they should be able to turn up when they want then nothing would get done!

first off that's not true my old doctors in Liverpool ran a first come first served open access system where you could just drop in when ever and that actually worked very well and was popular with patients because they could go see the doctor when ever was required no appointment necessary

they also ran an appointment based system for people that needed more extensive exams/consolations because on open access days it could get quite busy so they wouldn’t necessarily have the time to do extensive exams on open days

secondly your completely missing the point that I'm trying to make so I'll make it simple

fining people wont stop them being late for or missing appointments and will only server to cause aggravation for both parties therefore a much better way to handle it is to just keep a block of time at the end of the day to see people that where not able to make it in for there appointments for what ever reason

I suggest at the end of the day because this limits the amount of disruption this causes this is better for both parties because the patient still gets seen and the dentist doesn't lose money

if the patient fails to show for a second time on the same day then fine them or kick them off the books at least that way you are giving the person a fair chance first

ok this is hardly an ideal solution and may not always be possible depending on various factor like how busy they are do they have any emergency cases how many people missed there appointments that day etc in which case you would have to book them people in another day but even give that its still a better way to handle things

or another suggestion would be to run an open access system like the one my doc’s in Liverpool ran where people can just come in no appointment necessary so long as they don’t need extensive work so the sort of people who would benefit from that would be people who maybe only need a filling which only takes about 10 or 20 mins to do tops granted this system would be limited in the number of people you could see in a day by the number of staff available to participate but it could work

Is this a wind up?

If you're constantly late for the appointments, don't leave 15 minutes before the bus is due, leave an hour an 15 minutes before, so you can get on the earlier bus! You'd be there in plenty of time then.

You're messing people about and taking the Michael. The dentist, the admin people, the people who may have an emergency but are turned away or who have to wait longer etc...

Jesus, I've missed about 4 appointments in my whole life and only one of those times I didn't ring up because I genuinely forgot.

If there is one thing I can't bear and find so rude, it's when people are late or don't turn up at all.

I bet if you were paying for treatment and had to pay upfront you'd be there on time!

not if some unexpected occurrence over which I have no control happens which subsequently screws with even the best laid plans and if you read what I wrote you would see that actually I do call them up when I'm running late and I'm not going to be able to make it in for my appointment time

no one wants to be late when they have places that they need to be but it happens all the same and a lot of times there isn’t anything you can do about it because the problem that’s holding you up is beyond your control so like I said before **** happens its a fact of life why it is that people automatically assume that its your fault when you say ya missed ya appointment ill never know because that’s not always the case sometimes it is yeah but not always and any one who actually takes the time to consider it will realise that

This is the problem with systems like this there to ridged and inflexible and I'm sorry but you are never going to convince my that ridge and inflexible system like that are anything other than a bad idea yes there needs to be order or nothing gets done but the system also needs to have some flexibility built in to deal with the unexpected in the case of places like dentists etc the unexpected would be late or absentee patients

how can missing appointments be a fact of life?

simple like I said above unexpected things over which you have no control happen you and others might see that as an excuse and you are entitled to your opinion but it still doesn't make it any less true

Why not make your appointment for a more convenient time?

how about because I'm busy ? I mean you assume that just because I'm unemployed I'm not busy ? what you think I just sit round on my hands all day ? seriously ? you must have a pretty low opinion of the unemployed if that’s what you think

or how about the institution in question is busy and doesn't have the times available because they have a lot of people on there books as it stand right now the dentist in question has on average wait times of between 2 and 4 weeks to get appointments sometimes longer because they have that many people on there books so it can be difficult getting appointment times that are convenient which means you simply have to take what’s available and this is by no means unique to this dentist I've seen this lots of places because there understaffed

like I said before I don’t deny that missing appointments particularly medical appointments is bad form but it happens regardless and no amount of complaining or penalizing people is going to change this so why try to handle it in a way that’s only going to result in aggravation for both parties it’s ludicrous

I don't expect everyone to agree with me but it doesn't mean I'm wrong

System

Bethrezen wrote: »

fining people wont stop them being late for or missing appointments and will only server to cause aggravation for both parties therefore a much better way to handle it is to just keep a block of time at the end of the day to see people that where not able to make it in for there appointments for what ever reason

I suggest at the end of the day because this limits the amount of disruption this causes this is better for both parties because the patient still gets seen and the dentist doesn't lose money

So the dentist keeps some appointment slots empty at the end of the day for earlier no-showers?

Not only is he now losing the money from the original appointment but you are now asking him to reduce his productive slots on the off chance that the original no-show thinks it fit to turn up at the end of the day?


Please leave cloud cuckoo land and join the real world.

Blitz01

You are using every excuse under the sun, when in reality, all you need to do is drag your lazy carcass out of bed earlier.

withabix

Catch an earlier bus.

Use that extra hour to visit the Job Centre.

Problem solved. Maybe two problems solved.