Late for a Most Important Date: Can We Predict Punctuality for Clinic Appointments?

Patients who are late to clinic may disrupt clinic flow and potentially increase cost and dissatisfaction when staff need to stay beyond scheduled hours. We undertook this study to identify factors associated with patient punctuality, hypothesizing that travel time and transportation insecurity would be associated with higher likelihood of lateness.

We retrospectively reviewed all urology outpatient clinic visits at our institution from January to May 2023. We collected patient demographics, travel time, diagnosis, and patient-reported social determinants of health. Punctual and late patients were compared.

Of 696 visits, 84 (12.1%) were late. Patients were a median of 5-min late (range: 1-309). Punctual and late patients had similar age (median 6.15 versus 4.91 y, P = 0.33), travel times (median 36.5 versus 45.0 min, P = 0.43) and proportion of experiencing food (8.6% versus 11.5%, odds ratio [OR] = 0.73, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.35-1.53), transportation (12.5% versus 10.9%, OR = 1.16, 95% CI: 0.33-4.01), or housing insecurity (9.6% versus 11.3%, OR = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.31-2.22). Referral diagnosis differed between late and punctual patients, with penile concerns comprising 29.8% of late patients and 9.5% of punctual patients (P < 0.0001). Patients living in more and less disadvantaged areas were equally likely to be late (12.7% versus 9.5%, OR = 1.38, 95% CI: 0.31-6.08).

We did not find that travel time, patient age, language of care, or selected social determinants of health were associated with patients being late to clinic appointments. In the absence of identifiable patient-level risk factors, lateness may reflect factors specific to an individual patient or situation.