No shows are often highly correlated with access delays and lack of continuity in patients seeing their own providers. Reducing the time between the appointment request and the day of the appointment, and matching patients and specific providers, can help decrease the number of patients who do not show up for an appointment.

In addition, practices can learn how to further reduce no shows by analyzing patterns related to no-show appointments:

• Know your patients. Some practices find that the actual number of patients who regularly do not appear for appointments is a small percentage of their total patient population. If this is the case, practices can find out more about these particular patients, determining if there are transportation, child care or other factors contributing to their appointment lapses.
• Examine "bump" rates. Often no-show rates are highly correlated with the number of appointments that are canceled by the practice. If the practice sends the message that the patient appointment is valued by reducing the number of practice cancellations then this can have an impact on patient behavior in meeting appointments.
• Analyze the types of visits for which patients are not keeping their appointments. Some practices find that re-check visits have the highest rates of no shows. If patients don’t see the value in the follow-up visit, they are less likely to keep the appointment. Providers can re-examine their return visit patterns and either eliminate unnecessary appointments or find alternative ways to check in with patients, such as phone follow-ups, email care, or follow-up appointments by a nurse, nurse practitioner or physician assistant.