How a dental group in California reduced no-shows by 34% with automated patient reminders

The problem

Pacific Dental Associates operates three busy locations across the San Francisco Bay Area, serving over 12,000 active patients. Their front-desk teams were spending nearly two hours every morning manually calling patients to confirm next-day appointments. Despite this effort, no-show rates hovered around 18%, costing the practice an estimated $22,000 per month in lost revenue.

The manual reminder process was inconsistent — staff would sometimes skip calls during peak hours, and patients who preferred text messages were unreachable by phone. The practice needed a solution that could automate outreach across all three locations without adding headcount.

The solution

Pacific Dental Associates implemented Borna Care's automated patient reminder system across all three locations. The setup took less than a day per office.

• Multi-channel reminders were configured to send automated texts 48 hours before each appointment, followed by a second reminder 2 hours prior
• Patients could confirm, reschedule, or cancel directly from the text message with a single tap
• The waitlist feature automatically filled cancelled slots by notifying patients who had requested earlier availability
• Staff dashboards provided real-time confirmation status across all locations, eliminating the need for morning call blocks

The results

Within 90 days of launching Borna Care's reminder system, the results were significant:

• No-show rate dropped from 18% to 11.9% — a 34% reduction
• Front-desk staff reclaimed 1.5 hours per day previously spent on confirmation calls
• The waitlist feature filled 73% of same-day cancellations automatically
• Patient satisfaction scores for communication improved by 28%
• Estimated monthly revenue recovery: $8,200 across all three locations

We used to dread Monday mornings because of the no-show chaos. Now our chairs stay full and our team can focus on patients instead of chasing confirmations.

— Dr. Sarah Lin, Managing Partner, Pacific Dental Associates