How to turn empty appointment slots into predictable revenue
Every marketing leader in healthcare knows this story: your campaigns are driving record patient interest, your cost-per-acquisition looks solid, and yet your provider network isn’t running at full capacity. Somewhere between intent and appointment, millions in booked revenue quietly disappear.
Each missed moment might seem small, but across hundreds of providers, they compound into millions in lost revenue and untapped growth. Every empty appointment slot isn’t just lost revenue—it’s an efficiency breakdown that undermines marketing ROI, patient satisfaction, and provider utilization.
It’s a frustrating reality that the average patient waits 31 days for a new appointment (Source: AMN Healthcare). Meanwhile, up to 30% of provider capacity is empty (McKinsey & Co). It’s not because there aren’t enough potential patients seeking care, or expert providers, or even marketing dollars spent to reach those patients.
It’s something far simpler and far more fixable. We call this disconnect the booking gap, and it’s one of the most costly inefficiencies in healthcare today. In fact, missed and unfilled appointments cost the U.S. healthcare system $150 billion annually (Source: Forbes). The good news is that this expensive problem has a simple, scalable solution.
The problem isn’t finding patients. It’s getting them scheduled.
You’ve done the hard work of finding patients — investing thousands in digital ads, SEO, reputation management, and brand campaigns to build awareness and trust. Patients know your practice. They want to book with you. But when it’s time to schedule, things break down. They call during lunch and hit voicemail. They try to book online and see outdated availability — or none at all.
And when patients hit friction, they move on. Studies show that 58% of millennials would switch providers if they can’t book online (Source: KPMG’s Healthcare 2023 forecast), and 60% drop off after a minute on hold (Source: Valero 2024).
Every time this happens, you lose twice: first the appointment revenue, then the marketing dollars that got that patient to the door.
And for many multi-location groups, integrating scheduling systems across EHRs, call centers, and local practices feels impossible—but that’s exactly where the revenue hides.
Quick math on what this actually costs
If a provider sees an average of 20 patients a day and 30% of that capacity goes unfilled, that’s six missed appointments per day. At an average value of $350 per visit, that’s more than $2,000 in lost daily revenue per provider.
Now multiply that across an entire network. If you have 100 providers, you’re looking at $200,000 in unrealized revenue every single business day. That’s $52 million a year left on the table.
The math is hard to ignore. It also doesn’t account for subtler impacts: patients who go elsewhere and never come back, staff time spent on scheduling rework, or the opportunity cost of providers sitting idle when they could be delivering care.
Why does this keep happening?
Because healthcare scheduling hasn’t caught up with how people actually seek care today.
Think about the last time you booked a restaurant reservation or scheduled a haircut. You probably did it on your phone, in under a minute, at whatever time was convenient for you. Now think about the last time you tried to book a doctor’s appointment. Different experience, right?
Most large healthcare organizations still rely on fragmented, antiquated systems. Scheduling happens through multiple phone lines, disconnected portals, and manual processes that can’t keep up with real-time demand.
Each of these moments creates leakage. And when thousands of dollars are being spent on patient acquisition, every leaked opportunity is wasted spend.
So how do we close the booking gap?
Thankfully, the answer isn’t to spend more on marketing. It’s all in the conversion. Below, we lay out a few simple ways to harness and convert the demand that’s already being generated.
1. Centralize and connect your scheduling systems
Bring phone, online, and referral scheduling into one system that syncs in real time with the EHR of choice. When appointment availability updates instantly across every channel, patients always see accurate open slots and can book them immediately.
Not only does a connected scheduling system eliminate friction for patients tempted to abandon the process, it creates a single source of truth that your entire organization can trust.
2. Offer 24/7 booking
Think of the haircut example. When scheduling is available around the clock, practices capture patient demand at the moment of intent, not just during business hours.
Patients don’t stop needing care at 5 PM—in fact, 49% of Zocdoc appointments are booked outside of office hours. That’s why Zocdoc offers multiple ways for patients to book on their terms.
Digital booking options like online scheduling from your practice website and Book from Google let patients schedule directly from search results—meeting them wherever they’re researching care, whether that’s at midnight or during their commute.
Digital booking is mission-critical, but phone calls still remain a primary driver of new patient acquisition and retention. The problem? When patients can’t reach your office by phone, 34% give up altogether (Source: 2025 Zocdoc commissioned census: Online survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers aged 18+.)
That’s where AI makes an impact. Zocdoc’s AI Phone Assistant, Zo, answers every call, 24/7, handling everything from routine scheduling to complex inquiries with warmth, efficiency, and full context.
The goal: enable patients to book how and when they prefer. Improved access equals empowered patients, and empowered patients mean filled appointment slots.
3. Use data to measure and optimize access performance
You can’t fix what you can’t measure. Most practice groups know how many appointments get booked, but not how many people tried and abandoned the effort. They see the revenue that comes in, but not the revenue that made it to the front door and turned around.
Unified reporting on scheduling performance is one of the most effective ways of closing the access gap. When scheduling is viewed as a measurable growth strategy—not a black box—it becomes a well of actionable insights. Which channel is converting at the highest rate? Where should you double down, and where should you cut losses? The data tells you.
Turn smarter scheduling into predictable growth
Filling your providers’ schedules isn’t an ops task; it’s a marketing imperative. Every open appointment slot is a missed conversion your team already paid for. And unlike many challenges in healthcare, the booking gap problem has a straightforward solution: meet patients where they are, make booking frictionless, and leverage data to keep improving.
Zocdoc helps practice groups centralize every access point — from phone calls and practice websites to search engines and insurance directories — and turn existing patient demand into booked care. Because all bookings, cancellations, and no-shows flow through one connected platform, practice leaders gain clear visibility into what’s driving results.
Ready to stop leaving revenue on the table?
Sources:
AMN Healthcare, “The Growing Challenges with Physician Appointment Wait Times.” 2025.
McKinsey & Co, “Revisiting the access imperative.” 2018.
Forbes, “Missed Appointments, Missed Opportunities: Tackling The Patient No-Show Problem.” 2019.
Valero, “How To Improve Customer Service Responsiveness.” 2025.