To think I shouldn't have to pay for the missed hygienist appointment

[quittinaeete]

My dentist sent me an appointment reminder by email with the wrong date and I added it to my phone calendar.

They sent out a correction just via email an hour after this and I didn't read it. They have my address and phone number but didn't get in touch.

So now I've missed an appointment and they've charged me £120 for this, I did have an appointment a few days later and paid £120 for this. But they've sent an invoice by post.

Aibu to think they made a mistake and should have made more of an effort to inform me?

A similar situation- I was in a NHS 'overflow' clinic the other day (by which I mean some appointments including mine had been outsourced to a partner organisation, so not the clinic I usually attend). As it was at a different organisiation, the address was highlighted and an extra yellow slip of paper attached to my letter to explain. So I was perfectly aware of the clinic being at a different place.

While waiting I overheard that someone had gone to the wrong hospital because they had been sent a text message reminder naming their usual clinic, so attended there at the allotted time instead, obviously missing their appointment at the overflow clinic.

Despite the stark messages that missed appointments would result in you being knocked off the list back to GP care, the receptionist was sympathetic and did make them a new appointment. Presumably because the patient was very apologetic rather than being angry and blaming the reminder message 100%- after all they should have checked when they got the message like the OP should have known the original appointment and queried the reminder message.

They corrected their mistake, you didn't read your email - that was your choice and now you have to pay the price for your choice.

A dental practice is a business, they have to pay their staff. Why should they be out of pocket because you chose not to read their email to you?

I'd feel pissed off too, but I'd also accept that it was my mistake and cough up.

YABU

If it was a confirmation and not a reminder email, then you'd have a point.

If the correction was days after the reminder, you'd have a genuine shout.

If the email came the day before the original visit, you could argue.

If you read the first one and were misinformed, there's no tangible reason why in 7 days you couldn't have become correctly informed by reading the correct appointment details.

I absolutely agree that if they made the mistake about the date, it is up to them to make sure they inform you of the error. That means making sure that you have received the new information

One email is not enough, they should also either make a call or text the correction

In this instance I would refuse to pay the cancellation fee, or at least negotiate on what I was prepared to pay (ie NOT £120

. They bear some of the responsibility.I would argue they bear all of it but even if you disagree with that, they are definitely partly responsible for the miscommunication.

I'm confused. So if you booked appointment for X day and time, they send a reminder stating y day and time, then sent a correction with X day and time, is that right? Why didn't you notice the difference between X and y? If they can rely upon you to read your email in the first place I can't see why they can't rely on you to read the updated one?

Sorry, walk me through this:

1. You made an appointment, let’s say for 14 February. (Did you out that in your diary? If not, why not?)

1. You received an email on 6th Feb saying “just a reminder about your appointment on 15 Feb”. You put your appointment in your diary for 15 Feb.

1. A few hours later, also on 6 Feb, dentist emailed to say “Oops, please ignore that reminder saying your appt was on 15 Feb. It’s on the 14th. Sorry about that!”. You overlooked that email as the header dodn’t Say “correction” and gmail does that annoying thing where sometimes it’s not obvious a new email has been added to the thread.

1. You arrived for your appointment on 15 Feb to be told it was the day before and you’d missed it?

1. You made a new appointment for a few days later, went to it and paid the £120.

1. You then received an invoice for £120 for the missed appointment on 14th Feb?

Is that right? If so, I’d say that YW a bit careless not to diarise the original appt (in which case you’d have noticed the reminder was wrong) but they should have done more to bring the mistake in the reminder to your attention and that any sensible business would waive the missed appointment fee as soon as it became obvious that they had made a mistake along the way, even if they thought they had corrected it.

If you had previously booked the appointment presumably you knew what time it was supposed to be at?

A reminder is a courtesy, it's up to you to remember when your appointment is really. You should have already known when the appointment was, by your own account you didn't read their emails. It's not really their fault that a)you didn't put the appointment in your calender originally and b) you didn't read subsequent emails. If an email was sufficient for the first reminder then it's sufficient for the correction.

Have you spoken to them about it? Did you apologise when you realised you missed an appointment?

I tend to find if there's been a genuine mistake people will phone me and apologise straight away, once they realise. The problem is if we don't charge for missed appointments we would end up losing lots of money, and that's not fair on the practice and it's not fair on the hygeinist or dentist.

Did you phone them, OP?

The thing is is it's not an email informing you of your appointment, it is simply a reminder.

You should already know the appointment.

If it was an email informing you of the appointment then I agree they should chase it up, if it's the first time you've heard of the time but a reminder I think a follow up email is sufficient.

BlueCornishPixie if you are going to have a system of charging for missed appointments (which is fine in principle) you have to be prepared to waive the charge when you cause the patient to get confused about what the appointment time is. If the dentist or hygienist kicks off about losing the fee then they need to take that up with the receptionist who made the mistake. And no, it doesn’t matter if he/she says she sent a correction email- the minute the wrong info went out that made this a case that was different from a normal missed appointment and not one where the policy should be blindly enforced.

And “you should already know the appointment”- there would be no need to send reminders then!

Reminders are just a courtesy, they reduce our rates of people who don't turn up however you shouldn't need a reminder to turn up. It's not really up to us to remind you. It's up to patients to remember really. Of course you should already know your appointment! You made it.

If the OP rang and apologised, and spoke to us to explain we probably would waive the fee in this case. It depends though, OP doesnt say if shes actually spoken to them.

I personally think it's not the surgeries fault that OP didn't remember he appointment time in the first place and didn't read communication from the dentist.

The OP says that she has been to the surgery since the date of the missed appointment. I imagine the whole issue of the missed appointment was discussed then, in person?

I see you’ve totally ignored the points made in my first post BlueCornishPixie.

Jessie have I? I said we might waive the fee? But it is case dependent? Of course there are situations where we would waive the fee

What point have you made? I'm not seeing anything I've missed. I didn't realise I had to reply to you point by point I haven't ignored your post but I think it's fairly obvious from my first post that I disagree with you that the correction email is irrelevant, there's no point rehashing it over and over.

Blaming your customers for your mistakes is no way to run a business.

i think they should waiver it
or to be honest, did you not book the appointment in the first place? they simply sent out a reminder?

£120.00 is standard hygiene fees for 1hr appointments, or so I thought.

I would explain the circumstances and see if they still say you should pay. They may waive all or part.

It is likely that the computer generated this invoice automatically.

I recently joined a new dentist. When I attended my initial appointment there was no dentist to see me (a new one hadnt started yet) but no one let me know. A new app was made. A week or so later I received a letter saying I had missed an appointment and if I did it again I would be taken off the books. I was fuming and they were apologetic but it had been generated automatically as no one amended the system and it just looked like so hadn’t turned up!

No harm in asking.

My dentist uses text and expects me to reply to the text to confirm the appointment. Just sending an email to correct a previous mistake without asking for an acknowledgement makes thus the dentist’s mistake, not the patient’s mistake.

Just sending an email to correct a previous mistake without asking for an acknowledgement makes thus the dentist’s mistake, not the patient’s mistake.

I disagree - the OP had the correct information in the beginning, and in the correction. She was given the wrong information once and the correct information twice. Why is it the dentist's fault that of the 3 communications of the appointment time/date the only one she paid attention to is the wrong one?

But surely OP you had the original appointment in your diary? Why didn't you notice that it had accidentally been changed and check?

If you book an an appointment, surely it's your responsibility to turn up on the right day at the right time? The reminder message is just an additional aide memoire. Yes there was an error (which they rapidly corrected), but the responsibility is yours to turn up to the appointment you made.

So many people looking at this in a black and white way.

The fact is that the dental surgery made a mistake. They sent out an incorrect email which caused confusion. Whether or not it was reasonable for the OP to have got confused is neither here nor there. Whether or not she should have diarised the original appointment or should have read the correction is neither here nor there.

The existence of the mistake in the reminder makes this situation different to a normal missed appointment. A sensible business does not split hairs trying to blame the customer for not protecting herself from the consequences of its mistake. It just sucks up the lost fee and moves on, keeping the client happy and ensuring repeat business and goodwill.

Turns out it was all a mistake and they apologised profusely and said it was down to a new member of staff.