Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J Talaga.
The goal of physician referral services is to schedule appointments, but if too many patients fail to show up, the value of the service will be compromised. The authors found that appointment breaking can be predicted by the number of days to the scheduled appointment, the doctor's specialty, and the patient's age and gender. They also offer specific suggestions for modifying the marketing mix to reduce the incidence of no-shows.
From a review of research on health care appointment breaking, the authors find that patient demographic characteristics, psychosocial problems, previous appointment keeping, health beliefs, and situational factors predict no-show behavior. Suggestions are offered for designing the marketing mix to increase patient appointment keeping. Methods for mitigating the negative effects of no-shows on health care providers are described.
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