The Elephant in the (Waiting) Room: Addressing Late Patient Arrivals

Patients arriving late for their appointments leads to a cascade of scheduling problems and negatively impacts patient satisfaction.

Decreased patient wait times boost patient satisfaction, but how can providers make improvements when patients’ arrivals are often unpredictable?

It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room—specifically, the waiting room.

You’re probably all too familiar with the fact that—no matter how many times you send voicemail or text reminders—many patients show up outside of their appointment time window.

Of course, when one patient comes in late, the provider must adapt. This schedule shuffling has a cascading effect. More patients are forced to wait, effectively confirming their suspicion that their scheduled appointment time is unreliable and increasing the likelihood that they delay their arrival on the next occasion.

The end result: today, on average, 22% of a provider’s patients show up late for appointments, according to a DOCPACE analysis of over 56 million patient encounters nationwide. That’s a huge roadblock to running an efficient office.

It’s a vicious cycle—but you can stop it. How? By regaining patients’ trust.

Patients Arrive Late Due to Expectations of Being Seen Late

Frustration among providers, practice managers, and the office staff is understandable. Practice personnel suffers the fallout from long patient wait times, including complaints, disgruntled patients, and poor online reviews. They get the blame for appointment delays, even though DOCPACE analyses demonstrate that providers are rarely at the root of scheduling problems.

After all, how can you keep your day on schedule when your patients’ arrival times are almost entirely unpredictable?

But we in the healthcare industry can't point the finger at busy patients either, because many of them have good reason to believe they won’t be seen on time. How often have you heard someone say, "I waited at least an hour" or "My doctor's never on time”?

Doctors’ offices have been branded accordingly, and most patients arrive expecting to wait—and many will delay their arrival to cut down on that wait. 

Too often, patients' experiences match up with their expectations. Whether they arrive on time or not, scheduling issues frequently delay their appointment start. And each time these scheduling issues occur, they are less likely to trust their next appointment time.

Minimize Unpredictability by Valuing Your Patients’ Time

Certainly, time is money for your office, but consider that time is also valuable to your patients. Showing them that you respect their time is one way to improve your level of service and earn their trust.

On the day of a patient's appointment, give them an accurate, updated arrival time, based on what’s currently occurring in the office. The first appointment ran long? Notify the provider’s other morning patients that they can show up a little later than planned.

Providing a recommended arrival time can benefit both your patients and your office staff. Positive results include:

● Patients can make appropriate adjustments to their schedule, such as organizing child care or avoiding work conflicts.

●  You can set the stage for a more positive appointment experience and better reviews.

● Your schedule will become more predictable as late arrivals, no-shows, and walkouts are reduced.

●  You’ll earn a reputation as a practice that respects patients’ time—not one known for long waits.

Empowered Scheduling: Why Wait?

As everyone knows, schedules, medical or otherwise, don’t always go to plan. Doctors get held up in traffic, test results have to be tracked down—a hundred little things add up over the course of the day.

But what if, instead of making your patients wait when the schedule goes off course, you could proactively communicate changes to them so they can adjust their schedules, too? DOCPACE makes it easy to do just that.

DOCPACE’s smart notifications empower patients to time their arrival for a minimal wait. As patients’ faith in appointment timing increases, late arrivals and no-shows tend to decrease, improving schedule adherence and office efficiency.

One practice using DOCPACE saw a 50% jump in on-time arrivals! It’s clear DOCPACE is a win for patients and providers alike.

Curious about how DOCPACE can transform your patients’ waiting room experience and deliver additional benefits, like optimizing patient flow and increasing revenues? Visit our website at www.docpace.com to schedule a live demo to see how our data-driven tool works—because it’s finally time to get that elephant out of your waiting room.