December Is Full by November: Book Unfinished Treatment Now
David Selva · · 3 min read
Treatment Plan Follow-Up, Dental Practices, Year-End Planning
The patient who said "let me think about it" in March has a benefit year that ends December 31, and your December schedule will be gone before they remember.
Open your schedule for the second week of December and count the empty chairs. Now open the list of patients who accepted a treatment plan this year and never booked the visit. Those two numbers are about to collide, and the second list almost always loses.
Most of those patients are not avoiding you. They said yes to the crown or the second half of a treatment plan in spring, went home, and the appointment slid behind a vacation, a school year, a busy quarter at work. Nobody on your side called, because nobody owns a list of people who have not done anything.
Why this month and not December
Many patients have insurance benefits that reset on January 1, and whatever is left unused simply goes away. I am not going to guess at how many of your patients are in that position, because I do not know your mix of plans. You can find out, and I will show you how below.
What I do know is how the calendar behaves. In the last two weeks of the year, everyone with a deadline calls at once. Your front desk offers them the 7:15 a.m. slot on a Wednesday and the patient says no. A patient asked in October gets Tuesday at 10. A patient asked in December gets whatever is left, and often nothing.
Build the list first
Before any message goes out, you need a clean list. Pull every patient who has a diagnosed, accepted treatment with no future appointment booked. Sort it by how long ago the plan was presented. Then remove anyone who told you a specific reason to wait, such as a planned pregnancy, a move, or a financing question you are already working through.
That removal step matters. A reminder that ignores what the patient told you reads like a mass mailing, and it should not.
What the message says, and what it never says
Keep the text short and plain: the practice name, a line that the end of the year is a common deadline for benefits, and a direct way to book. Offer two or three real openings from the next three weeks rather than a link to a blank calendar.
Do not put a procedure name, a diagnosis, or an amount in a text message. Say "the visit we discussed" and let the conversation happen on the phone or in the office. I am not a lawyer, and you should check how your own state and your own policies treat patient messages, but leaving the clinical details out is a good habit regardless.
If the patient replies, the automated messages stop and a person takes over. A scheduled nudge arriving after someone has already called back is worse than silence.
Where it breaks
This does not work on a patient who has no benefits left to lose, or who is paying out of pocket and cannot afford the work this year. For them, a deadline message is pressure without a reason. That is why I would split the list by whether they have insurance at all, and send the self-pay group a different note with no year-end angle.
It also fails if the front desk is not ready to say yes. Texting forty people and then having two open slots a week is a mistake you only make once.
One list to pull by Friday
By the end of this week, run the report of accepted treatment with no appointment booked, and count it. Then count the open chair-hours you have between now and Thanksgiving. If the first number is larger than the second, you already know October is the month to start.