Every EHR vendor has lived through this:
A qualified practice comes in through your funnel or a partner referral
The sales rep connects, has a productive first call, and the practice manager expresses real interest
Everyone agrees a demo or discovery meeting is the logical next step.
And then it collapses.
Emails sit unanswered. Calendar links are ignored. Follow-ups get polite deferrals until they fade into silence. The “yes” you had in hand turns into a frustrating no show.
This isn’t a lead quality problem. It’s a scheduling problem. And it’s costing vendors millions in pipeline.
The scheduling black hole
On the vendor side, it looks simple:
One lead
One prospect
One meeting to schedule.
But on the practice side, the story is very different.
A clinic evaluating new EHR software isn’t booking one meeting, they’re potentially booking five or six. Every vendor wants their own slot. Every vendor sends their own follow-ups. Every vendor thinks they’re the top priority.
What feels like a 30-minute commitment for you is a 3–4 hour coordination nightmare for them. Multiply that across multiple physicians, different locations, and unpredictable patient schedules, and you’ve got what psychologists call coordination overwhelm.
So while you’re thinking, “Why can’t they just pick a time?”, they’re thinking, “How am I supposed to fit six different vendors into already impossible calendars?”
Why clinics ghost vendors
This mismatch creates friction that kills deals before they begin:
Administrative burden: Vendor meetings feel like extra paperwork in a world drowning in paperwork.
Momentum decay: Interest cools every day the meeting isn’t booked, until other priorities take over.
Avoidance reflex: Silence becomes easier than juggling six competing calendar invites.
Overload effect: If even one physician can’t attend, the whole vendor evaluation slips.
The result is ghosting - not because the practice doesn’t want an EHR upgrade, but because the scheduling process itself overwhelms them.
The economics of lost meetings
Most vendors underestimate how brutal the math is. Here’s what it looks like:
Out of 100 qualified practices who agree to a meeting:
40-50% schedule quickly
20-25% drag their feet for weeks
25-30% never schedule at all
For a vendor generating 50 qualified leads per month, that could be 15 lost meetings every month, or 180 lost meetings a year.
At a $75,000 average deal size and a 20% close rate, that’s $2.7M in potential revenue gone. Not because the leads were bad. Not because competitors won. Just because calendars got in the way.
The asymmetry that decides winners and losers
Here’s the piece that stings: scheduling isn’t a level playing field.
Vendors only need to book one meeting each
Practices need to book five or six
That means the scheduling burden is 5–6x heavier on the buyer than on the seller.
And that burden has consequences:
Not every vendor makes it onto the evaluation calendar
Some get dropped simply because the practice can’t coordinate that many slots
Missing one meeting doesn’t just mean a delayed conversation - it means you’re cut from the shortlist entirely.
In other words: scheduling friction doesn’t just lower conversion. It decides who even gets considered.
Why “fixes” don’t fix
Most vendors respond with tactical tweaks:
Calendar links make availability visible, but don’t reduce the practice’s workload
CRM automation sends reminders faster, which often feels like pestering
Persistence training tells reps to push harder, which accelerates disengagement
These don’t solve the root problem: practice managers don’t want to manage six competing vendor calendars on top of running a clinic.
Two types of prospects
Here’s what EHR vendors often miss: not all practices handle scheduling the same way.
Type A: “We’ll Manage It” (about 70%)
Comfortable coordinating vendor meetings directly
Eventually get demos booked
Fine with traditional lead handoffs
Type B: “Please Handle It” (about 30%)
Want the evaluation but not the coordination hassle
Avoid scheduling complexity
Ghost vendors when the process feels like work
The irony? Type B often represents your highest-intent buyers. These are practices with budgets, consensus, and urgency - but no time to wrangle vendor calendars.
The strategic reality
The scheduling gap is one of the most expensive inefficiencies in EHR sales.
70% of practices are fine with traditional processes
30% need someone else to handle the coordination
Most vendors only serve the first group.
Which means the second group - your highest-value prospects - are slipping away.
So the question isn’t whether your leads are good. It’s whether you can get on the calendar. Because in EHR sales, access isn’t about product fit - it’s about who makes it easiest for the practice to engage.
