Dr. Hollander’s practice used the DMAIC process to analyze a low appointment fill rate, which was at 80% in 2022. Their goal was to get it to 90%. Practice leaders discussed possible reasons for the low fill rate, including improving the workflow for schedulers or having a provider who is new and may not have a large patient base.
One physician said that a high no-show rate may be the issue—at 9%, that was indeed part of the problem. They changed the no-show policy and improved appointment confirmations, which slightly helped the fill rate.
On further analysis, practice leaders saw that a number of patients would cancel two days ahead of time, and schedulers had trouble getting people from the waitlist to take appointments. At that point, they began to call people already on the schedule for a couple of weeks later to see if they wanted to come in earlier. This also improved the fill rate.
One other move that helped was realizing that many patients would call on Friday to cancel Monday appointments. Practice leaders hired a virtual assistant to call on Sunday to fill some of those Monday slots.
“Now, our fill rate is 92%. With 18 providers, that’s a huge difference,” she said. The process of reaching these improvements takes time, however, she added.
Other dig-deeper metrics that practices can examine include Work Relative Value Unit (wRVU) production, claim denial rates (aim for less than 5%), accounts receivable aging (target less than 15% that are more than 90 days) and drug margins (which should be greater than zero).
Vanessa Caceres is a medical writer in Bradenton, Fla.
