Reducing the Impact of Same-Day Missed Appointments.

Abstract

Radiologist reimbursement cuts over the last few years have driven outpatient imaging centers to find innovative ways to cut costs and improve efficiency while maintaining high image quality. A California-based outpatient imaging center has been tackling the problem of same-day missed appointments since 2014. The lack of meaningful change with each experiment in the last 4 years has led the organization to change direction and look for ways to actively maintain a desired utilization level. An interim solution to cut examination times in modalities with high cancellation rates allows schedulers to schedule more examinations every day. This article covers the history of continuous improvement around reducing same-day missed appointments and eventually realizing the need to open capacity, and it makes the argument for an integrated system that predicts the probability of patients cancelling their examination to facilitate proactive measures.