Session Information
Session Type: ACR Poster Session C
Session Time: 9:00AM-11:00AM
Background/Purpose:
Appointment compliance is a nationwide problem with a higher prevalence in the underserved communities. For physicians it results in lost time, decreased efficiency, and for patients it results in dissatisfaction and reduced quality of care. The primary objective of this study was to identify major barriers to appointment compliance in an underserved lupus clinic. A secondary objective was to assess appointment compliance after an intervention involving reminder phone calls.
Methods:
We retrospectively assessed the clinic show rate at our lupus clinic serving a low income population with primarily Medicare/Medicaid or no insurance from November, 2013 to July, 2014. Appointment attendance was confirmed by using electronic medical records (EMR). A survey was designed based on the perceived barriers for appointment compliance from literature review, was piloted and then administered from July 1st,2014 to August 31st,2014. An intervention involving reminder telephone calls 1-3 days prior to the visit was implemented from September 1st,2014-April 30th,2015. IRB exemption was received for this study.
We collected survey results from 43 patients. The most common reason mentioned for missed appointments was forgetting the appointment date (46.5%). 13% responded that the appointment was cancelled by the clinic and 13% said they had family issues. 12% mentioned they did not have adequate child care and 11% said they did not receive an appointment before they left the clinic. Before the intervention, 352 lupus clinic appointments were analyzed with an average show rate of 58.8%. After the telephone reminder, we analyzed 378 patient visits with a show rate of 74.86%. Using Pearson’s chi square test, the improvement in clinic show rate was statistically significant (p=0.046).
|
Study Period |
Appointments Scheduled |
Clinic Show Rate |
|
Pre-Intervention |
352 |
207 (58.8%) |
|
Post-Intervention |
378 |
283 (74.86%) |
Conclusion:
Our study identifies barriers to care from the patient perspective in an underserved community. Limitations include the retrospective nature of the study and the pre and post intervention states were studied at different times of the year. Our data suggests that reminder phone calls significantly improves clinic show rates, which improves quality of care. In a multidisciplinary specialized lupus clinic serving a low income population we found that clinic show rate is related to lack of appointment reminders. Reminder phone calls are a low cost intervention with the potential for significant benefit and should be considered in similar low income lupus clinics.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Kumthekar A, Johnson B. Barriers to Appointment Compliance and the Effect of Reminder Phone Calls on Lupus Clinic Show Rate in an Underserved Community [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/barriers-to-appointment-compliance-and-the-effect-of-reminder-phone-calls-on-lupus-clinic-show-rate-in-an-underserved-community/. Accessed .« Back to 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting
ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/barriers-to-appointment-compliance-and-the-effect-of-reminder-phone-calls-on-lupus-clinic-show-rate-in-an-underserved-community/