Preappointment surveys and reminder calls to improve show rate

To assess the impact of preappointment surveys and reminder phone calls on show rate and time spent in new patient appointments at a multidisciplinary pediatric chronic pain clinic.

We examined show rates and appointment length during the 1-year period before and 1-year period after a preappointment survey and phone reminders were implemented. Fisher exact test was used for categorical variables and Student's t test with equal variances was used for continuous variables.

The setting was a multidisciplinary pediatric chronic pain management clinic in Florida. Participants were 362 patients scheduled for an initial pain clinic evaluation 1 year prior to and after the implementation of a preappointment survey on August 19, 2019. Our main outcome measures were show rate and appointment length.

Patients who completed a preappointment survey were significantly more likely to attend their clinic appointment than noncompleters (97.2% vs 36.2%) and spent significantly less time in their appointment.

With new patients, preappointment surveys can improve clinic show rate and decrease time spent in initial appointments. Clinics may consider policies targeting completion of preappointment surveys to assist with show rate, but they must consider their patients' barriers to completing surveys so access to care is not limited.