A USDOT University Transportation Center

Number of Missed Appointments

Access to public transportation influences the number of missed appointments to healthcare facilities. Many low-income people in urban and suburban areas struggle to find reliable transportation. Therefore, these patients without transportation may wait for a medical emergency to reach health care centers and see a doctor. The result is missed appointments and poor illness management, even when care is readily available. Additionally, when these patients are scheduled for appointments with the doctor, a lack of access to public transportation might result in a greater number of missed appointments. Hence, the number of missed appointments is a measurable indicator of the strategy’s effectiveness.1

This indicator helps determine the effectiveness of the following objectives

  • Less Contamination
  • Less Emissions
  • Less Traffic Noise
  • Connectivity and Inclusion
  • Healthy Destinations
  • Less Traffic Violence
  • Active Transportation
  • Green Space

Data Collection

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses a variety of methods to collect data on missed appointments. The CDC also uses data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) to examine this. The NAMCS is a national probability sample survey of visits to non-federally employed, office-based physicians that collects data on physician characteristics, patient characteristics, and visit characteristics. Data on missed appointments are collected as part of the NAMCS through questions asked of both the physician and the patients.2

Examples

Reduction of missed appointments at an urban primary care clinic: a randomized controlled study

Junod et al. (2020) conducted a study to determine the rate of number of missed appointments; the methodology used in this study enabled grouping all the patients scheduled to have appointments between April and June 2008. The patients were grouped into two groups, namely the Intervention Group and the Control Group. In the Intervention Group, the patients were constantly reminded through SMS, phone calls, and postal reminders to ensure they don’t miss their appointments. However, in the Control Group, the patients did not receive any reminders about their upcoming appointment. The findings of the study revealed that out of the 1,052 patients included in the Intervention Group, the intervention significantly reduced the rate of missed appointments from 11.4% to 7.8%.

https://bmcprimcare.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2296-11-79

1. Cronk, I. Lack of access to transportation keeps people from getting health care. Atlantic monthly (Boston, Mass: 1993) [Internet]. 2015 Aug 9 [cited 2022 Jul 22]; Available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/08/the-transportation-barrier/399728/
2. Ambulatory health care data [Internet]. Cdc.gov. 2022 [cited 2022 Aug 1]. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ahcd/index.htm