---
title: "What Is No-show? Dental Practice Glossary | Copeland Consulting Services"
description: "A no-show is a patient who misses a scheduled appointment without giving notice, leaving the time unused and often the provider and team unable to fill it."
url: https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/no-show
publisher: Copeland Consulting Services
email: drcopeland@joncopelanddds.com
contact: https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/contact
---

Practice management

# No-show

A no-show is a patient who misses a scheduled appointment without giving notice, leaving the time unused and often the provider and team unable to fill it.

A no-show differs from a cancellation, where the patient gives notice first. A paper on dental appointments in PMC reports that patient no-shows are a significant problem in healthcare, reaching up to 80 percent of booked appointments in some settings and costing billions of dollars. The same paper focuses on predicting which patients are likely to miss so clinics can respond. The ADA also lists strategies to reduce missed appointments. Many offices record every no-show and follow up with the patient. A written [cancellation policy](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/cancellation-policy) sets the expectations, and the [no-show rate](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/no-show-rate) shows how often it happens.

[Next stepPractice consulting with Dr. Copeland](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/contact?topic=consulting)

## Related terms

-   [No-show rate](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/no-show-rate)
-   [Cancellation policy](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/cancellation-policy)
-   [Recall](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/recall)
-   [Hygiene recall](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/hygiene-recall)

## Sources

1.  [PMC, Predicting no-shows for dental appointments](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9680883/)
2.  [ADA, Strategies to Reduce Missed Appointments](https://www.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/ada-org/files/resources/research/hpi/medicaid_provider_resources_reduce_patient_missed_appointments.pdf)

## Talk with Dr. Copeland

[Contact Dr. Copeland](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/contact)[Email](mailto:drcopeland@joncopelanddds.com)