The patient cancellations, in layman terms – no- shows, is most prevalent problems dentists are facing now.¹ The most common forms of solutions related to overcoming this problem are limited to automatic or manual reminders such as staff phone call, postal mail, automated e-mails, automated SMS and no-shows policy^2,3,4,5,6. However, the success with these is not only unpredictable but questionable.^7,8 This could be attributed to inability or limitation in comprehensively addressing the root problems responsible for no-shows ^9,10

This qualitative study utilizes inductive research approach to explore root causes, mechanism, prevalent methods, implications and potential resolution.

The practicing dentists are often unaware of the comprehensive root causes, which could be one to thirty, that leads to patient no-shows. In addition to that, current solutions are directed at forgetfulness by reminding through various methods.^2,3,4,5,6 Moreover, negative reinforcement⁶ is used as method of compliance, which carries risk of increased patient dissatisfaction. As no-shows is in most instances a multivariate problem, it requires specific evaluation of root causes pertinent to each patient and prescribing solutions to each root cause This personalized method is the only promising method to ease the pain of no-shows.