Background
Dental practices, both private-practice and public health, experience a varying number of patients who schedule an appointment but fail to show up for said appointment. These individuals are often classified as “no-show” patients. Currently, dental practices generally experience no-show rates above 20%. No-show rates in community health centers (CHCs) and private-practice represent lost revenue and reduced quality of overall patient and community health care. Many dental practices invest in appointment reminder post-cards, emails, text messages and other communication services to increase the likelihood patients show up for appointments. A cost-effective strategy to decrease the number no-show patients would benefit both patients and practitioners.

Discussion
Results show patient-centered reminder calls are an effective intervention in reducing patient no-shows. Another significant finding, which we had not anticipated, was the reduction of cancelations and rescheduling.