Socioeconomic factors that impact patient no-shows in the ambulatory urology clinic

Failure to Attend Urology Appointments: A Retrospective Analysis of a Single Urban Academic Practice

“…Patient insurance coverage has been identified as driver of nonattended appointments 7,10,13,14 Again our findings were quite different than Han et al, 4 although, using Medicaid as a surrogate for socioeconomics, our findings were similar to what was observed by Nguyen et al 9 They noted that nonattended appointments were highly associated with those patients who live in areas in which the household income was reported to be <30% below the poverty line. 9 This may reflect a larger issue, for example, transportation difficulties and health literacy differences. Perhaps telemedicine may help for transportation difficulties, although some lower socioeconomic populations may not have acceptable access to technology.…”

“…4 Caputo et al found 14.3% and Nguyen et al found 13.8%. 8,9 Other studies have reported no-show rates between 18.8% and 35% across all adult specialties. 2,3,8,10 It is unclear if our lower nonattendance rate is based on the patient population we serve, our practice model or the fact that our practice is highly subspecialized.…”

“…Several recent studies reviewed nonattendance at academic urology practices with a focus on type of provider, lead time and socioeconomic factors. 4,7–9 We had the impression that our practice had lower rates of missed appointments, and we had the ability to study several additional factors, eg previous history of missed appointments, office procedures and telemedicine. We hypothesized that our nonattendance rate would be significantly lower than what has been published.…”

Association of Unmet Social Needs With Missed In-Person Urology Clinic Appointments

“…Similarly, multiple studies have also identified uninsured patients as having a greater risk for no-shows, presenting an opportunity for previsit outreach to mitigate potential no-show risk. 6,10-12…”

“…Similarly, multiple studies have also identified uninsured patients as having a greater risk for no-shows, presenting an opportunity for previsit outreach to mitigate potential no-show risk. 6,[10][11][12] While prior literature has shown an association between race/ethnicity and missed clinic appointments, it is important to note that there is discussion regarding the limitations of these findings due to confounding variables. 4,[13][14][15] Consistent with the findings in our study, Shimotsu et al analyzed appointment trends of 161,350 patients in a safety net health system and found that the odds of missing a clinic appointment were approximately 1.8 to 2.0 times greater for non-White patients.…”