Like the germ theory, names that appear on your appointment book seem to correlate with the patients that show up. After awhile it's tempting to equate their name in the book with compliance. It's an illusion, of course. But a massive amount of energy is being consumed in an attempt to control the practice. Like an air traffic controller keeping a safe distance between approaching aircraft, the staff tries to direct patients to less busy times of the day.
Patient relationships suffer.
The fact is, there's about a 2-hour window at the end of each day that patients want to come in. Swim upstream if you wish. But the real opportunity for practice growth is how you streamline your protocol to maximize those two hours. That's what the airlines do.