No Show Rates in a Urogynecology Clinic

Objectives: No-show appointments, or scheduled appointments that patients do not attend without giving notice of cancellation, are a prevalent problem in the outpatient setting. No-show appointments cause a delay in care for potential patients. Further, it leads to the underutilization of healthcare resources and loss of income for healthcare facilities. There is a paucity of data on no-show rates in urogynecology offices. The objective of this study is to compare the proportion of patients by decades of life who ‘no-show’ to their urogynecology appointments. We hypothesized that women in their 20s will have the highest rate of no-show. Secondary outcomes included descriptive data of patients who did not show to appointments.

Methods: This retrospective cohort included all women ages 20 and up who did not show to their urogynecologic clinical encounter at a large academic practice between 1/1/2022 and 12/31/2022. Women younger than 20 years of age were excluded from the cohort. Demographics and visit history were recorded. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients by decade of age who were a ‘no-show’ to their urogynecologic encounters. ‘No-show’ was defined as a patient not appearing for their scheduled appointment nor giving a notice of cancellation. All decades were compared to women in their 70s, the decade with the most patients seen. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square analyses were used.

Results: The cohort of 450 no-show encounters out of 6729 encounters demonstrated an overall no-show rate of 6.7%. Baseline demographics of patients with no-show encounters were 67.0% White and 27.6% Black, 37.6% married, 35.3% single, and 15.9% divorced. (Table 1) The majority of no-show encounters occurred for patients who lived within 10 miles (48.3%), in the winter (33.0%), and for return visits (49.1%). The most common reason for a scheduled visit was urinary incontinence (28.6%). Patients with more than a 28-day lead time for appointments had the highest no-show rate (68.0%). For our primary outcome, women in their 20s-50s are 2-3 times more likely to no-show to their appointments as compared to women in their 70s (p < .01). (Table 2) Of all the decades, the highest no-show rates occurred in 20s (12.6%) and 40s (11.8%), followed by 30s (11.0%) and 50s (8.6%).

Conclusions: No-show rates are overall low in our urogynecology clinic. Younger women are more likely to no-show, with women in their 20s having the highest rate of no-show, where more than an eighth do not show up for appointments. Knowledge of the higher rate of no-show can facilitate any potential double-booking necessary for add-on/urgent appointments and to maximize resource utilization in a urogynecologic clinic. Further research can be done to evaluate interventions that might help improve attendance of scheduled appointments.