Impact of open-access scheduling on realized access.

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Primary Care Medicine
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• Open-access scheduling aims to improve patient access in primary care by reducing wait times.
• Previous evaluations have not assessed the impact of scheduling systems on actual patient visit utilization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare primary care visit utilization between patients using open-access scheduling and those in traditional scheduling systems.
• To test the hypothesis that open-access scheduling increases the likelihood of multiple primary care visits for continuing patients.

Main Methods:

• Comparative study analyzing patient visit data from open-access and traditional primary care clinics.
• Adjustment for patient case mix to isolate the effect of scheduling systems on visit utilization.

Main Results:

• Mixed support for the hypothesis: stable chronic patients in open-access clinics showed increased odds of receiving two or more preventive visits.
• The positive effect of open-access scheduling on visit frequency was not consistent across all clinics.
• Other clinic-specific characteristics may mitigate or enhance the impact of open-access scheduling.

Conclusions:

• Open-access scheduling shows potential for increasing preventive care visits among certain patient groups in primary care.
• The success of open-access scheduling is influenced by factors beyond the scheduling system itself.
• Further research is needed to identify clinic characteristics that optimize the benefits of open-access scheduling.