1. Your schedule
2. Empty slots and refills
3. Fees and reminders
4. Overbooking
Result
Questions people ask
How much do no-shows cost a small practice?
Multiply your scheduled slots per year by your no-show and late-cancel rates and by the revenue of a visit, then take off the slots you manage to refill and any fees you actually collect. The calculator shows each step so you can see which one moves the total most.
How many extra patients should I book per day?
The calculator treats every booked patient as arriving or not, with the probability that matches your no-show and late-cancel rates, and finds the number of extra bookings with the best expected value after the cost you assign to a patient who has to wait or be rescheduled. It also shows how likely an over-full day is at each level.
What no-show fee breaks even?
It is the fee per no-show or late cancel at which the fees you collect equal what the empty slots cost after refills, given how often a charged fee is actually paid. Below it a fee reduces the loss; at it the fees cover the loss in full.
Are text reminders worth paying for?
Enter what a reminder costs per scheduled visit and how much of your no-show rate you expect it to remove. The calculator shows the yearly saving, the cost and the highest price per visit at which reminders still pay for themselves.
Is this billing, legal or clinical advice?
No. It is arithmetic on the numbers you type in. It does not say whether a fee or deposit is allowed where you practise or under your payer contracts, and it makes no clinical judgement about any patient. Its defaults are placeholders.
Not decided
Whether you may charge a no-show fee or hold a deposit, how it must be disclosed, what your payer contracts or professional board allow, how to treat patients who miss for medical reasons, and which patients to double-book. The overbooking model assumes each booking arrives independently with the same probability and ignores refills on the day, so real days that cluster (weather, flu season) will be worse than it shows. The defaults are placeholders, not a benchmark and not a measurement: use your own schedule history.
Related tools: the appointment no-show analyzer (reads your booking export), the appointment overbooking optimizer (daily history and clustering), the appointment deposit calculator, the no-show fee calculator the dental PPO write-off calculator the optical dispensary margin calculator and the veterinary wellness plan pricing calculator.