Effects of Rescheduling on Patient No-Show Behavior in Outpatient Clinics

Abstract

We study patients' no-show behavior in an outpatient appointment system for both new and follow-up patients, and explicitly consider rescheduling. Previous studies have either focused on appointments for new patients or treated rescheduled appointments as new ones. Findings from most of these studies reveal that no-show probability increases significantly with waiting time. We offer a more nuanced understanding of this costly phenomenon. Using clinical data, we demonstrate that the effect of waiting time on no-show behavior is largely weakened if the appointment was rescheduled. No-show behavior is also significantly affected by the rescheduling process, and patients of different types respond to rescheduling in notably different ways. For follow-up patients, no-show probability decreases when the appointment was rescheduled at the patient's request and increases when it was rescheduled by the clinic. New patients, in contrast, care more about whether the rescheduled appointment is sooner or later than the original appointment, rather than who initiated rescheduling. To the extent that rescheduling has a significant impact on no-show behavior, our findings offer managers a deeper understanding of patient no-show behavior and could be helpful in formulating effective policies to improve attendance rates.