Appointment Failure Policy

Effective: September, 2002

Background: In response to past, and recently growing, concerns about the number of patient appointment failures in the University of Minnesota Dental Clinics, this policy was developed to encourage each patient's active participation in an appropriate continuum and timeliness of care offered by our clinic personnel. Additionally, it provides for certain consequences for patients who do not practice an adequate level of responsibility and allows the U of M Dental Clinics to keep its pledge of providing "comprehensive care in a timely and continuous manner and with reasonable regularity."

In the absence of a policy and/or its enforcement, patients will continue to put stress on all of our systems and, ultimately, put at risk the very care that they seek from our clinics. With each patient failure, a student dentist or hygienist loses valuable, and often essential, educational experiences. And, despite a popular belief that our students are paid for their work in our clinics, they, in fact, pay the School of Dentistry and, in return, are promised extensive experiences and teachings in the many disciplines of dentistry. It is difficult for them to recover the lost time and costs of these failed appointments.

Additionally, each day support staff and faculty instructors are scheduled for an anticipated level of clinical activity. If the level of expected patient activity does not materialize due to large numbers of patient failures, an institution as large as the U of M Dental Clinics may suffer losses in clinical profits that will, consequently, affect the level of our clinic fees. We try hard to regulate our costs and are proud that we are able, in most cases, to keep our fees significantly below the level of the private sector.

Major Policy Features

• Patients will be allowed a total of three (3) documented appointment failures* within any twelve month period, after which they will be informed that the U of M Dental Clinics will no longer continue to provide dental services to them.
• This policy applies to all patients treated within the U of M Dental Clinics with limited exception in our Orthodontics Clinic.
• All patients will receive a written notification after their second appointment failure* informing them of the actions the Dental Clinics will proceed with if one more failure* occurs within a year of their first recorded failed appointment.
• Upon the third failure*, patients will be properly notified of their rights as a patient regarding any dental care in progress and then given a date after which they can no longer receive care within our clinics.

*Failed Appointment Definitions

1. Any appointment for which a patient does not arrive and does not notify the Dental Clinics, or, even if the patient arrives late, the operator is no longer able to treat the patient during that session.
2. Any appointment that is cancelled by the patient less than 24 hours before the originally scheduled date and time.

Approved by Clinical Affairs Committee - May 20, 2002