Reduce DNAs and missed
appointments at your practice.
The BDA estimates millions of NHS dental appointments are missed every year. Each one is chair time you paid for that earned nothing. The single biggest lever most practices have is putting reminders on a channel patients actually open.
What a DNA actually costs
A missed appointment isn’t just an empty slot. The surgery, the nurse, the overheads all ran anyway — so the full chargeable value of that time is gone, with nothing to offset it. A missed private hygiene or check-up slot is straightforward lost revenue; a missed treatment appointment can be worth many times more. Across a busy week, a handful of DNAs quietly drains a meaningful sum, and each one edges a patient closer to lapsing altogether.
Why patients miss appointments
An email reminder opened around 20% of the time, or an SMS treated as spam, may as well not have been sent. The patient simply forgot.
If cancelling means phoning during opening hours and waiting on hold, a patient who can't make it just doesn't show. The slot is lost instead of re-filled.
A patient drifting away from the practice is far more likely to no-show. Catching them early, before they're gone, is a big part of the fix.
How WhatsApp reminders and reactivation cut no-shows
A reminder only works if it’s read. WhatsApp is opened by around 98% of UK recipients, usually within minutes, versus roughly 20% for email. SuiteGrowth uses that channel to attack DNAs from three angles:
- 1Reminders on a channel they open
A friendly WhatsApp reminder before the appointment, from your own practice number, that around 98% of patients will actually read — with a one-tap reply to confirm or rearrange.
- 2Easy rearranging, not silent no-shows
When cancelling or moving is as simple as replying to a message, a patient who can't attend frees the slot early instead of leaving a chair empty.
- 3Reactivation to catch the driftaways
Patients who miss appointments often start to lapse. Reactivation re-engages them over WhatsApp before they disappear, turning a would-be lost patient back into a booked one.
The honest part
We won’t quote you a magic percentage. Attendance depends on your patients, your reminder timing, and how easy you make it to rearrange — no software controls all of that. What we can say plainly is that moving reminders and reactivation onto WhatsApp, from your own practice number and connected to Dentally, gives patients the best possible chance of seeing the message and acting on it. That’s the lever; the size of the win depends on your practice.
The same WhatsApp engine that reduces no-shows also collects Google reviews after each visit and reactivates lapsed patients — one subscription, from one practice number. See the full breakdown on our pricing page.
Questions, answered
What is a DNA in dentistry?
DNA stands for 'Did Not Attend' — a patient who books an appointment and doesn't show up, and doesn't cancel in time for the slot to be re-filled. Every DNA is a block of chair time the practice has paid for (surgery, staff, overheads) that earns nothing, plus a patient whose treatment is now delayed. The BDA has long highlighted that a very large number of NHS dental appointments are missed each year, which is chair time and clinical capacity lost across the system.
How much does a missed dental appointment cost a practice?
It depends on the appointment, but the honest way to think about it is the chargeable value of the slot plus the fixed costs that ran anyway. A missed 30-minute private hygiene or check-up slot is straightforwardly lost revenue; a missed treatment appointment can be worth far more. Across a busy week, a handful of DNAs adds up to a meaningful sum, and it compounds because a lapsed patient often stops attending altogether.
Do appointment reminders actually reduce no-shows?
A reminder only works if the patient reads it, which is why the channel matters so much. Email reminders are opened around 20% of the time and SMS is increasingly ignored as spam, while WhatsApp is opened by around 98% of UK recipients, usually within minutes. A reminder a patient actually sees, on a channel where they can reply and rearrange in one tap, is far more likely to turn a potential no-show into either an attendance or a freed-up slot you can re-fill.
Can SuiteGrowth guarantee a specific reduction in DNAs?
No, and we won't pretend to. Attendance depends on your patients, your reminder timing, and how easy you make it to rearrange. What SuiteGrowth does is put reminders and reactivation on the channel patients actually open — WhatsApp, from your own practice number, connected to Dentally — which is the biggest single lever most practices have on no-shows. We'd rather set an honest expectation than quote a percentage we can't stand behind.
How does reactivation help with missed appointments?
A missed appointment is often the first step to a patient quietly lapsing altogether. Reactivation catches the patients who've drifted off — overdue for a check-up or hygiene visit and never re-booked — and warmly re-engages them over WhatsApp before they're gone for good. So alongside cutting no-shows on booked slots, it recovers the patients a DNA would otherwise have lost you.
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