Telemedicine visits result in a significantly lower rate of cancellations compared to in-person visits for interventional oncology clinic patients.

Abstract

e13624 Background: Telemedicine allows increased access to specialists, less time in a waiting room and on-demand options with little to no transportation costs. These changes have been accelerated by the COIVD-19 pandemic. The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that a virtual telemedicine clinic would significantly decrease no-show rates and cancellations compared to in-person visits for interventional oncology (IO) clinic patients. Methods: Telemedicine visits were performed by a physician or advanced practice provider (PA or NP) at a single institution, academic medical center including 5 regional sites to patients at home in multiple states. Total patients encounters and data from January 2020 to December 2020 were analyzed. Visit types included new visits and follow up visits. Phone only visits were excluded. Primary outcome measures were an analysis of total cancelled visits (both same day and rescheduled visits), completed visits, and total scheduled visits with calculation of the telemedicine and in-person cancellation rates. Results: There was a total of 9,044 IR clinic visits in 2020 from 6,348 unique patients across the MSK Main Campus and Regional Network. Of these clinic visits, 5586 were telemedicine visits and 3458 were in-person visits. There was a significant decrease in no show and cancellation rates for telemedicine patients (6.3%) compared to in-person visits (8.1%) (p-value <0.00001). Conclusions: Telemedicine visits resulted in a significantly lower rate of visit cancellation compared to in-person visits. This reduction in no-show and cancellation rates may yield significant cost savings by eliminating gaps in the interventional oncology clinic schedule to allow for more efficient use of physician time and resources.