Cancelling Appointments

What you'll learn: How to cancel appointments, choose cancellation reasons, and handle no-shows properly.

When to Cancel an Appointment

Cancel when:

• The patient requests cancellation
• The provider is unavailable
• The appointment needs to be moved
• Circumstances prevent the visit

How to Cancel

1. Find the appointment on the calendar
2. Click to open appointment details
3. Click the Cancel button (X icon)
4. A prompt appears asking for the reason
5. Select the appropriate reason
6. Confirm the cancellation

Cancellation Reasons

No Show

Use when:

• The patient didn't attend
• No prior cancellation notice was given
• The appointment time passed without contact

Impact: Tracked in patient reliability metrics.

Cancellation

Use when:

• The patient called to cancel
• The practice needed to cancel
• Either party gave advance notice

Impact: Appointment is marked as cancelled in records.

Rescheduled

Use when:

• The appointment was moved to a new time
• A replacement appointment was booked
• The original slot is now available

Impact: Links to the rescheduling action.

After Cancellation

• The time slot becomes available
• The appointment shows as cancelled in history
• Patient records reflect the cancellation
• You can book other patients in that slot

Handling No-Shows

When a patient doesn't arrive:

1. Wait a reasonable time after the appointment start
2. Attempt to contact the patient if possible
3. Open the appointment
4. Select No Show as the reason
5. Confirm

No-Show Best Practices

Document consistently — Always mark no-shows; don't just delete appointments.

Follow up — Consider contacting no-show patients to reschedule.

Watch patterns — Repeated no-shows may indicate a problem worth addressing.

Review policies — Some practices have no-show policies to communicate to patients.

Cancelling Same-Day Appointments

For last-minute cancellations:

1. Cancel as normal
2. The slot may be difficult to fill
3. Consider reaching out to patients on a waitlist
4. Track same-day cancellations for pattern analysis

Undoing a Cancellation

If you cancelled by mistake:

• You may need to create a new appointment
• The original appointment remains in history as cancelled
• Patient history shows both the cancellation and new booking

Cancelling vs. Deleting

Cancelling:

• Keeps the appointment in history
• Tracks the cancellation reason
• Affects reporting and metrics
• Recommended approach

Deleting:

• Removes the appointment entirely
• No record remains
• Doesn't affect metrics
• Generally not recommended except for test entries

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Next: Provider Availability | Previous: Appointment Status