The Impact of Patient Non-attendance on Efficiency and Prediction of Non-attendance for Physical Therapy

A significant challenge for clinical administrators at outpatient physical therapy clinics is patient non-attendance. In this paper, we report the results of an archival data study for 4478 physical therapy patients that include patient attendance history, age group, payment method, and proximity to clinic. Analysis of attendance history revealed that 9790 out of 54,678 scheduled appointments were missed and efficiency was negatively impacted. Preliminary statistical analysis revealed that certain combinations of the collected factors significantly impacted patient attendance and may be used to predict the likelihood that a patient will miss their next appointment. This study points out the importance of identifying patients at risk of missing an appointment and provides insights to identify those patients.