Abstract
Purpose
To understand why patients “no-show” for imaging appointments, and to provide new
insights for improving resource utilization.
Materials and Methods
We conducted a retrospective analysis of nearly 2.9 million outpatient examinations
in our radiology information system from 2000 to 2015 at our multihospital academic
institution. No-show visits were identified by the “reason code” entry “NOSHOW” in
our radiology information system. We restricted data to radiography, CT, mammography,
MRI, ultrasound, and nuclear medicine examinations that included all studied variables.
These variables included modality, patient age, appointment time, day of week, and
scheduling lead time. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify factors
associated with no-show visits.
Results
Out of 2,893,626 patient visits that met our inclusion criteria, there were 94,096
no-shows during the 16-year period. Rates of no-show visits varied from 3.36% in 2000
to 2.26% in 2015. The effect size for no-shows was strongest for modality and scheduling
lead time. Mammography had the highest modality no-show visit rate of 6.99% (odds
ratio [OR] 5.38, P < .001) compared with the lowest modality rate of 1.25% in radiography. Scheduling
lead time greater than 6 months was associated with more no-show visits than scheduling
within 1 week (OR 3.18, P < .001). Patients 60 years and older were less likely to miss imaging appointments
than patients under 40 (OR 0.70, P < .001). Mondays and Saturdays had significantly higher rates of no-show than Sundays
(OR 1.52 and 1.51, P < .001).
Conclusion
Modality type and scheduling lead time were the most predictive factors of no-show.
This may be used to guide new interventions such as targeted reminders and flexible
scheduling.
Key Words
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: May 10, 2018
Footnotes
Rebecca Mieloszyk and Christopher Hall are employees of Philips Healthcare. Daniel Hippe reports grants from GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Siemens Medical Solutions USA, and Toshiba America Medical Systems outside of the current work. Martin Gunn reports grants/research support from Philips Healthcare; Martin Gunn is also a consultant for Elsevier. Puneet Bhargava is editor-in-chief of Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology, Elsevier Inc. The other authors have no conflicts of interest related to the material discussed in this article.
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 American College of Radiology
