The action of patients missing clinic appointments is identified as a no-show, which has become a major problem in the health sector. A myriad of investigations have been conducted to identify the consequences and results from the no show up in hospitals. The primary concern is the significant incidence of the problem as it affects a large population across the world. Clinics and other health institutions established appointments as a basic means of planning and scheduling the number of patients that can be attended to within a given time frame. However, it is unfortunate that this practice is simply not working and make the hospitals a worse place for all affected. In this case, a no-show is where a non-attending person does not use nor cancels a reservation for a medical check-up. At the face value, it may seem as an everyday mundane thing that just happens even if one may not like it when it affects them individually. However, its effect is quite large which could cause negative outcomes on the entire health industry. The following paper discusses the prevalence, predictors, and economic effects that are brought about by patient no-shows.
Prevalence
The no-show behavior has spread extensively across the global population. Researchers have sought to identify how the problem is occurring in the world. Recent reports show that as many as 42% of patients miss their medical appointments. An alternative study shows that the incidence rates range from 5 percent to 55 percent. A study conducted by Kheirkhah and cohort (2016) studied the prevalence rates in 10 regional hospitals across 12 years. It was noted that the no-show rate was 18.8% with the highest rate experienced in the subspecialist clinics. In the same report it was evident that women as opposed to men were more likely to skip their appointments. The failure to attend to a clinic appointment would subsequently affect delivery of care, care costs, and resource planning. From a clinic’s perspective, the rate of no-shows have negative impacts including revenue loss, increase in cost of care, decreased productivity, manpower in the health institution is wasted, patient care disruption, and a decline in patient-physician relationship.
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Indicators of No-Show Rates
Health records serve as an effective measure of identifying those who missed the appointments in various hospitals. One of the primary reasons for this action was the economic status of that patient which was quite low. Despite provision of health insurance benefits that individuals can earn through being part of a particular demography, it is evident that there are many who miss out on the opportunity as they are unable to qualify for options such as Medicare or Medicaid. There are others who do not understand the importance of a clinic appointment hence identify the practice as a mere opportunity to rip them off.
There are numerous patients who identify that they did not show up as they forgot their appointments. The reason behind failure to attend the reservations from most of them was the long period before the appointment dates, thus most of them end up forgetting altogether. In the same demographic, the low income earners are less likely to receive a lot of freedom from the workplace. As a result, tight schedules at work make them less capable of showing up. Cost and transportation, many of those who forget about the appointment, found them to be so costly which they cannot afford to make up for this appointment.
A high rate of no-show was seen in the patients who did not have insurance coverage. Very few cases were seen on the insured patient. This is because the insured patients have all the medical bills taken care by company insuring them and they can easily access to an appointment at any cost. While, on the other side the uninsured patients do not have medical coverage from any insurance company, thus doctor's appointment tends to be so expensive to them as they are footing the bills for themselves.
Economic Effects of No-Show Rates
Some of the appointment services are too expensive and most of the patients are not decided about them, making the rise of the no-show in the hospital to be high. For example, in the case of big surgical procedure which requires a decision that is a tough and large sum of money. Most of the patients cannot afford to meet these services like cardiology and orthopedic surgery. This has recorded a high no-show in various hospitals.
The study focused majorly on the reason that hinders the appointment by the doctor which have resulted in high rates of the no-show by the patients. The knowledge acquired on the study on the various reasons of patients' no-show will be useful in various ways: it provides information on the problem faced by the patients who are unable to attend their various appointment in a health facility. The study can be used to reduce and solve some of these problems, such that patients with the problems can be helped to meet their appointment day. In addition, various stakeholders can engage in the activity of helping the patients in the health sector through the study.
The study is useful when it comes to following up activity on the patient. through the study one can estimate on the no-show issue of the patient statistical from the data collected from the hospital and follow up can be done. The study entails taking statistical data from various hospital and this can be useful in tracing every single patient who misses their appointment in the hospital. This provides useful information about patient history on attending doctor's appointment. The study information can be used by a government body in reducing this crisis of the no-show in the hospital.
Knowledge from the study can be useful in the health sector, in that it can help in reducing the no-show cases. This can help in reducing the health cost and appointment time which can be flexible for the patients. Also, it can help identify the major holdbacks that can be managed at the national and hospital levels. Furthermore, the study provides useful information that can be used to recommend on various changes that can be incorporated into the health sector and also to the national manifesto, in the aim of reducing the rising cases of no-show for an appointment that cost the government a lot of money. In conclusion, the no-show issue is a crisis that needs to be looked into so as to ensure the health sector is improving and the patients are benefiting from the program regardless the economic status.
