Discussing Scheduling Techniques Guided by Care Coordination & SDOH Sustained Decrease No-show Appt

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With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UF Mobile Outreach Clinic, which up until that point had primarily been a walk-up-based clinic, had to adapt to become an appointment-based clinic. In adapting to this new system, a role for a dedicated person to schedule appointments was created to streamline the process of obtaining an appointment with the clinic. A prevalent obstacle to primary care clinics across the United States are sustained no-show rates, which encompass all missed and no-show appointments. The national average no-show rate is approximately 19-22% for primary care clinics. No-show appointments correlate to various factors including diminished access to care, poor continuity of care, and even adverse health outcomes, which is of concern for safety net clinics who aim to provide low-barrier access to care for underserved patient populations. Care Coordination is a component of MOC that strives to supplement the quality of care that patients receive by undertaking assessment and management of the patients’ social determinants of health (SDOH) through various educational and community resources. This retrospective study of MOC’s appointment rates from March 1, 2021, through April 30, 2022, aim to describe how appointment scheduling techniques supplemented by Care Coordination strategies attribute to the decline in appointment no- show rates from 31% in March 2021 to a sustained rate of below 20% through April 2022. Contextualization of SDOH-guided techniques that decrease overall no-show rates for primary care clinics can reduce health disparities in vulnerable communities by decreasing barriers to care and sustaining quality continuity of care.

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