The following is a guest article by Joep Leussink, Head of Growth at AddEvent
There is no busier time of the year for most of us than the holiday season. Shopping, office parties, family time, and any number of other commitments are heaped onto our already stacked to-do list, and even our most important tasks and appointments can slip through the cracks or be squeezed out by a school play, a music recital, or a volunteer night at a soup kitchen.
Yet the reality is that even when the snow settles in January, and all throughout the calendar year, most of us overbook our schedules or are guilty of forgetting key dates from time to time. That may turn out to be a small inconvenience for individuals, but when each of those missed engagements begins stacking up at a healthcare facility, it becomes a massive drain – financially and otherwise – on an entire operation.
With healthcare operations setting goals and evaluating their needs for 2026, now is the right time to take a closer look at an often-overlooked challenge in the industry: no-show medical appointments. No-shows in the industry cost an average of $150K per physician annually, and beyond the significant financial losses, they cost healthcare operations in other immeasurable ways, including wasted resources (staff, rooms, equipment, etc.), delayed patient care, increased wait time for others and, often, strain on the patient-provider relationship.
There is no foolproof method for ensuring patients show up and arrive on time for their healthcare appointments. But there is at least one measure that can drastically improve any facility’s patient turnout rate and operational efficiency: Add to Calendar functionality.
Why an Add to Calendar Button Is Needed in Healthcare Settings
No-shows cost the healthcare industry as a whole an estimated $150 billion every year, and one recent study found that the average wait time for a new patient in 15 of the largest cities in the United States was 26 days. That figure is up 8% since 2017 and 24% since 2004. It’s a quiet logistical epidemic in the healthcare setting, and it not only costs practices money but is also keeping more patients from being seen, cared for sooner, and walking away satisfied with their experience.
Reminder cards, phone calls, text messages, and email notifications require real-time and budget from the front desk, reception, and operations teams. They also depend on staff consistently following through to ensure patients actually come to the appointment. Each has already proven to be minimally effective in reducing no-show rates. Patients lose cards, ignore incoming calls from numbers they don’t recognize, and overlook emails in a sea of inbox spam. What healthcare operations are coming to find is that one of the most effective ways to combat appointment no-shows is by integrating Add to Calendar functionality into scheduling confirmation and appointment reminder workflows.
Why the Add to Calendar Function Works
One of the most common reasons patients miss appointments is that they forget about them or have a scheduling conflict. Add to calendar tools allow them to click and add appointments to their personal digital calendar with one click. Meanwhile, the back end of the tech allows healthcare providers to customize appointment information for patients with low-effort, minimal-touch functionality.
Dynamic add to calendar links personalize each appointment for patients, pulling their specific details (time, location, telehealth link, time zone, etc.), ensuring that their information is in their calendar and accurate so that they are most likely to make their appointment. It doesn’t require continuous manual intervention, so healthcare teams can focus on other value-added tasks.
But the differentiator for the add to calendar button is, of course, the calendar. When a patient clicks, they allow a healthcare facility access to space on their personal calendar, allowing for additional reminders and notifications, but also a presence on premium real estate where most patients check their to-do lists, day-to-day deadlines, and engagements frequently.
As no-show figures continue to grow across U.S. healthcare operations of all kinds, providers must find ways to essentially meet patients where they’re at and simplify the appointment process as much as possible for both sides. A drag on office wait times, delayed new-patient intakes, and a heavy financial burden for healthcare operations are all part of the fallout, but the stakes are even higher. Delayed patient care puts the health of patients at risk by curtailing and putting off opportunities for early intervention for aggressive illnesses and diseases.
Meanwhile, there is a tool available to healthcare operations that helps reduce no-show appointment rates and improve the overall patient experience. Add to calendar buttons offer rich appointment and notification functionality that other alternatives can’t match, while also being essentially a simple, single-use, easy button for patients.
Joep Leussink is the Head of Growth at AddEvent, a San Francisco-based platform that provides event and calendar marketing solutions. With a proven track record in driving growth for B2B SaaS companies from Series B to post-IPO, Joep leverages his expertise in demand generation and growth marketing to make AddEvent known and accessible to everyone.
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