We charge a fee of £30 at the time of booking a new patient or returning patient appointment.
This fee is to act as a deposit on the appointment slot.
We have found in the past that some patients book a new appointment then don’t turn up. This costs the practice money in appointment time lost and administration time and could lead to fees having to be increased in the future.
If we have taken a deposit, we find that people are more liable to keep the appointment and if they don’t, at least we have a small deposit to compensate for the wasted time.
We also charge this fee to returning patients in order not to increase fees to regular patients. Regular patients who come for dental examinations and try to care for their oral health, help to keep a regular income to the practice. Those who attend on a less frequent basis are not contributing in this way. As a result we ask these patients to pay an extra fee when rejoining the practice. This way we do not penalise our regular patients by increasing our fees.