Cancelled at 11:40. Filled by 11:44.
When a patient cancels, TurnUp World offers the slot to the patients who fit it, and the first to accept is booked. As a result, the chair fills up without a round of calls.
"The fastest we have ever seen was a slot taken within 33 seconds."
A short-notice cancellation usually stays an empty chair
Ringing round a call list takes time reception does not have, so most late cancellations never enter any recovery process at all. Too often, the practice writes the slot off before anyone has tried to fill it.
The cost is the same as a no-show: you still pay for the surgery, the team and the clinician, while the chair stays empty.
The number practices work on is rarely the one that pays
However, two figures decide how much cancelled chair time you get back. Entry rate is the share of cancellations that enter a recovery process at all. Refill rate is the share of those that get booked by someone else.
Almost every practice works on the refill rate. Still, the entry rate is the one nobody owns, even though it is the larger of the two by a wide margin.
Refill rate
60%On 7% of cancellations, this recovers 4% of the lost chair time. Easy to move and it looks good on a report.
Entry rate
90%At a 30% refill rate, this recovers 27%. This is where the chair time is, yet usually nobody holds it.
Entry rate × refill rate = chair time recovered
The worse refill rate recovers close to seven times more chair time, because every cancellation enters the queue by default.
How Last-minute Filling works
Your practice sets the rules once. The sequence then runs the same way every time, which is what makes it measurable.
A slot opens
First, a cancellation or a gap from a reschedule becomes an open slot.
TurnUp World ranks matches
TurnUp World scores waiting patients on treatment, duration and the availability they gave.
Reception sends it with one click
That click then contacts the best matches at once, with a one-tap accept.
First to accept takes it
Everyone else then hears the slot has gone and stays in the queue.
The diary updates
The booking counts as recovered chair time and, where your PMS supports it, goes straight back into the diary.
One cancellation, start to finish
The same sequence runs whether a patient cancels three days out or forty minutes before. Reception sends the offer with one click, and after that the rest of the sequence runs on its own.
Step through it at your own pace, or click any step below.
More of your cancelled time back in the diary
A late cancellation becomes a slot on offer
Instead of an empty chair, a cancellation the day before goes out to every matching patient.
Every match hears at the same time
Offers go out in parallel, so the slot never waits on one patient to call back.
One click for reception
Reception releases the slot and sends it. After that, replies, the booking and the diary update handle themselves.
Only offered to patients who fit
Matching checks treatment, duration, clinician and stated availability, and the slot closes the moment someone takes it.
Your rules decide what goes out
For each treatment, you also decide whether it may go out at short notice, how far ahead and to how many patients.
Recovered chair time you can count
Insights counts every refilled slot, so you can see how much chair time came back each week.
See Insights"Filling one gap used to mean ten minutes on the phone. Now the fastest we have seen is a slot taken in 33 seconds."
Kirsten Van HoePractice manager, Benedenti GroupCommon questions
01How quickly can a cancellation gap be filled?
02What happens if no one takes the slot?
03Does it contact patients automatically?
04Can we control which treatments are offered at short notice?
05Does the patient have to install an app?
06Does it work with our practice management software?
See a cancellation refilled from start to finish.
First, we walk you through what happens after a patient cancels: how TurnUp World chooses matching patients, how the offer reaches them and how the booking lands back in the diary.
