Cancellations in primary care in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System

Unused medical appointments affect both patient care and clinic operations, and the frequency of cancellations due to clinic reasons is underreported. The prevalence of these unused appointments in primary care in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System (VA) is unknown. This study examined the prevalence of unused primary care appointments and compared the relative frequency of cancellations and no-shows for patient and clinic reasons.

In this retrospective, observational study, we collected all in-person and virtual VA primary care appointments from October 1, 2018, to April 1, 2024.

We examined the proportion of appointments canceled on the same day as the appointment and classified these into canceled by patient, canceled by clinic, and no-show.

Of more than 90 million in-person and nearly 24 million virtual primary care appointments, 11.9 million (10.87%) were canceled on the day of the appointment. For in-person care cancellations, the most common reasons were canceled by the patient (3.92%; n = 3,531,016), no-show (3.87%; n = 3,487,944), and clinic cancellation (3.08%; n = 2,780,259).

Although this study shows that same-day cancellations of primary care appointments in the VA are common, comparisons with other providers and health care systems indicate similar or lower levels of unused appointments in the VA.