Whether or not you should close your practice when winter weather gets extreme is one of those questions that every practice must figure out on their own.

I’ve heard close/not close policy explanations from practice clients of all stripes that range from “when the roads are bad we’ll always err on the side of safety, not just for our employees but our patients, too” to “if McDonald’s is open and serving people coffee, why can’t we be there to help our patients?”

Guiding principles are useful, but there likely are considerations beyond the philosophical when it comes to closing up shop for a snow day.

Local attitudes toward snowy conditions may matter. In New England, where I’m from, it takes a lot of snow and ice to keep people off the roads. But in southern states, the prevailing attitude is probably more cautious. If you’re in a place where people are less comfortable driving in snow and ice, should you keep the office open? (Is it worth it to go the extra mile and keep your doors open for patients when you’re not sure your patients will even show up?)

Your specialty likely matters a lot, too. A patient with asthma and the flu (or the parent of said patient) may be desperate to keep their pediatric appointment, even if it means driving behind the snowplow. On the other hand, patients booked for a monthly mid-pregnancy check or regular visit with their endocrinologist might be happy to reschedule to avoid messy roads.

The bottom line is you’ll need to consider a lot of factors when deciding whether or not to close your doors. There’s no automatic right or wrong answer. Do keep in mind, though, that the decision may be bigger than it seems.

Above all, closing up shop for weather is something you should plan ahead for, so that if the need to close arises, the process will be efficient and you’ll minimize the impact on the business and your patients.

Know your potential revenue loss–and how you’ll offset it

A costly mistake practices sometimes make is underestimating the lost revenue from weather-related closures. If you close just two days in a particularly stormy winter month, that could cost you as much as 10% of your revenue for that month. (Rough calculation: most months have 20-22 business days. Closing for two days means losing two of about 20 business days, or 10% possible production.) For many practices, this is enough of decrease to push the business into the red for a month.

One way to contain the loss is by rebooking your patients promptly. However, this is less likely to be fully effective if you are a primary care practice, allergy practice, or other type of clinic that routinely sees sick patients. Sick patients may feel compelled to go to urgent care or even the ER, meaning you’ll lose that visit. (Sometimes, when patients go to an urgent care center, they may even decide they’ve now found a new physician — in which case that snow day cost you a lot more than the revenue from that single missed visit.)

A possible solution to this problem could be switching some of the day’s visits to telemedicine. Have a plan for switching suitable patients to televisits, setting rules in advance for how you’ll decide which physicians or NPPs will see the patients and which staff will support them. (For example, you may want rotate the coverage so that not all providers will make themselves available when the office is closed. Providing this option for staff to work might be welcomed if the alternative is taking a PTO day to get paid for the day.)

It’s also useful to think ahead about the possibility of scheduling a few evening hours or a Saturday clinic for a few days after the inclement weather has passed. And if some physicians or staff live very close to the clinic, they may be willing to act as the skeleton crew (e.g., to avoid giving up PTO or to earn extra compensation).

Consider the impact on patients

Keep in mind that possibly scheduling a few extra evening or weekend hours after the stormy weather subsides or operating a skeleton crew on snow days is as much about patients as it is revenue. Patients may be upset or inconvenienced by missing out on long-booked appointments. It may be difficult for them to re-book time off from work, so the option of an evening or Saturday visit as a replacement (or seeing a different clinician) may be very happily received.

This little bit of flexibility will be highly valuable to those patients who need it. It’s the kind of considerate accommodation that can create great word-of-mouth for your practice.

Don’t assume your staff’s preferences without asking

I often find that practice owners and managers assume that extra evening or weekend hours will be roundly refused by staff and clinicians alike, and so they don’t think it’s worth proposing. But it often turns out that some staff are happy to work a few extra hours if they can stay ahead of lost pay for snow days (or earn a little OT). Clinicians also may be quite concerned about maintaining production and, of course, providing access to their patients, and therefore perfectly willing to adjust a bit on occasion.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming everyone’s against the idea before you ask. The key is usually making it voluntary, so that people who live far away or have children at home and can’t easily flex in this way aren’t expected to, but the opportunity is there for those who can.

How will you get the word out?

You should also plan ahead for how you”ll get the word out to patients and rebook their appointments.

It’s 2025, so it’s important (if you haven’t done so already) to update your systems to make notifying patients relatively easy.

For example, between your EMR/PM, phone, and add-ons to those systems you should be able to broadcast messages to scheduled patients via email, text, and voice. (Note that by voice, I don’t mean calling the patients. I mean an automated message sent to their phones.) Social media and your website are also easy tools for mass communication.

It’s also useful if you can update your phone greeting with a temporary on-hold message, so that people who are calling in to find out if you’re open can get their answer without waiting for someone to answer their call. (As an aside: this is a useful thing to ask about when shopping for a new system. Fancy voices sound nice… but their benefits are likely outweighed by the ability to create your own greetings as needed.)

Online scheduling, just like online payments and other forms of self-service, can also make things easier for both your practice and your patients when major rescheduling is required.

It’s amazing how much of a win-win self-service really is. People vastly prefer to help themselves. Enabling them to do so makes them feel more in control and speeds up the process for them, all while reducing your labor costs and hassles. If you haven’t yet started offering patients channels to manage their own administrative interactions (like scheduling and rescheduling), the time is now.

Many of the major EMR/PM platforms offer third-party add-ons that can even send the patient a list of appointment options within the notification about the need to reschedule, allowing them to reschedule themselves quickly and easily.

Keep in mind, too, that when patients can schedule (or reschedule) themselves quickly and easily, no-shows are less likely. That’s money in the bank, too.

These ducks want to close for a snow day. How ’bout you?