Estimate how much revenue missed appointments put at risk each year, and how much of it live confirmation calls could bring back. The default rates and revenue come from published research and eye care practice data, and you can replace each one with your own numbers.
Your practice
Drag a slider or tap a number to change it.
Enter 5 to 120.
Enter 1 to 7.
Faculty (attending physician) clinics in a 2015 University of Virginia eye clinic study.
Enter 0 to 50.
Average revenue per eye exam in GPN practice data, 2020 to 2021. Use a lower figure if many visits are not full exams.
Enter $0 to $3,000.
Live calls versus automated reminders in a 2010 randomized trial (American Journal of Medicine).
Enter 0 to 60.
Time for confirmation calls and recall, billed at $10 an hour.
Enter 1 to 40 hours.
Revenue at risk from no-shows each year
$196,515
495 missed visits a year
Per year
How it works: a virtual assistant calls each patient before the visit, reschedules the ones who cannot make it, and fills the open slots. $10 an hour, billed weekly.
An estimate for planning, not a quote. Some patients rebook on their own, so treat these figures as upper bounds.
Missed visits are your appointments per day, times clinic days per week, times 50 clinic weeks, times your no-show rate. Each missed visit is valued at your revenue per completed visit. The default, $397, is the average revenue per eye exam in GPN practice data, so use a lower figure if many of your visits are not full exams. The result is labeled revenue at risk rather than revenue lost, because some patients rebook on their own and some open slots get filled.
The recovery estimate comes from a randomized trial that compared reminder methods head to head. At an academic multispecialty outpatient practice, no-show rates were 23.1 percent with no reminder, 17.3 percent with an automated reminder, and 13.6 percent when front desk personnel called patients three days ahead (Parikh and colleagues, American Journal of Medicine, 2010). Moving from automated reminders to live calls cut no-shows by about 21 percent, which is the default. Moving from no reminders cut them by about 41 percent.
If you already text patients, expect less. A Cochrane review found attendance of 67.8 percent with no reminders, 78.6 percent with text reminders and 80.3 percent with phone call reminders, with texts and calls performing about the same (Cochrane, 2013). Lower the drop to match what you do today.
The virtual assistant cost is the weekly hours you set aside for confirmations and recall, at $10 an hour for 52 weeks.
It depends on the patients and on how far ahead they book. At the University of Virginia eye clinic, the no-show rate across 46,655 appointments was 6.6 percent in faculty (attending physician) clinics and 21.7 percent in resident clinics, and in both it rose as the time between booking and the visit grew (Clinical Ophthalmology, 2015). Across single specialty medical practices, MGMA reported a 6.81 percent no-show rate in 2023, close to the 7 percent it recorded in 2019 (MGMA, 2025). The calculator starts at 6.6 percent. Your practice management system can give you your own rate.
Published figures run from about 6 to 7 percent in faculty (attending physician) clinics and single specialty practices to more than 20 percent in resident clinics. A University of Virginia study found 6.6 percent and 21.7 percent respectively, and MGMA reported 6.81 percent across single specialty medical practices in 2023.
In a randomized trial that analyzed 9,835 patients, no-shows were 17.3 percent with automated reminders and 13.6 percent when front desk personnel called. A Cochrane review found that texts and calls improved attendance about equally compared with no reminder, so the gain depends on what you do today.
Not all of it. Some patients rebook and some slots are refilled, so treat revenue at risk as an upper bound. The recovered figure uses the same revenue per visit, so it is an upper bound too.
Calls each patient before the visit to confirm, reschedules the patients who cannot make it, fills the open slots, and calls patients who are overdue for their exam. An EyeCareWorks virtual assistant does this in your own scheduling system for a flat $10 an hour. See our patient recall service.
The no-show rate comes from a 2015 study in Clinical Ophthalmology, revenue per exam from GPN practice data reported by Eyes On Eyecare, and the drop in no-shows from a 2010 randomized trial in the American Journal of Medicine. Every source is linked at the bottom of the calculator.
All three are on the calculators page.
A short call to look at your schedule, your no-show rate, and how many hours of confirmation calls and recall would cover it.
