What methods do patients use to schedule medical appointments?

Every year, more than 1 billion physician outpatient office visits occur in the United States.¹ The vast majority of these visits will require patients to set up an appointment. There is a substantial literature on the organizational and procedural challenges related to scheduling medical appointments as well as on how to minimize no-show behavior.^2,3 However, we know very little about what methods are utilized by patients to schedule medical appointments in the first place. For example, do patients primarily rely on phone calls, or do they utilize online scheduling tools which have grown more common today?

From a policy perspective, this dearth of knowledge is problematic because it precludes effectively targeting interventions to improve patient access and reduce disparities by public and private policymakers.

Data and methods

To learn more about which methods and tools Americans use to schedule medical appointments, we fielded a survey from October 16, 2024, to November 7, 2024 using Lucid, a survey platform that relies on quota sampling to provide samples that closely mirror national benchmarks on a variety of demographic factors, such as age, race, gender, education, and income.^4,5 The sample Lucid provides is of high quality and compares well to probability samples; it has found widespread use in survey research.^4,5 Responses were weighted on gender, race, income, and education based on the US Census Current Population Survey to further improve representativeness (Appendix S1). Of the 6199 individuals who initiated the survey, 5916 agreed to take the survey (95%) and 3661 completed the survey (62%). (That is, the completion rate for the survey is 62%. The completion rate is obtained by dividing the number of completed surveys [3661] by the number of survey respondents [6199]. Because the survey is based on an online survey panel, a response rate cannot be determined.) The major source of attrition was an attention check, a procedure highly recommended for online panels to ensure valid responses, and the reCAPTCHA bot detection tool.

Respondents were first asked about which methods they had used over the past year to schedule appointments with medical providers with choices of (1) scheduling in-person at the provider's office, (2) over the phone, (3) via an online patient portal provided by the provider like MyChart, (4) via a service like ZocDoc or WebMD, or (5) any other method. Respondents were able to provide multiple answers.

Subsequently, respondents were asked about their most common method for scheduling medical appointments. Respondents were again presented with the same 5 options. Detailed question wording can be found in Appendix S2.

Results

Overall, we found that Americans primarily relied on 1 of 3 methods to schedule at least 1 of their medical appointments (Figure 1). Phone calls, used by 72.1% of respondents (95% CI: 70.3% to 73.9%), were the most common tool, followed by appointments scheduled directly in the provider's office (40.6%; 95% CI: 38.7% to 42.7%) and online portals offered by providers (34.1%; 95% CI: 32.2% to 36.1%). Only 4.3% (95% CI: 3.5% to 5.2%) of respondents relied on third-party applications and 3.3% (95% CI: 2.7% to 4.1%) relied on other methods. We note again that answer choices were non-exclusive. Detailed predicted probabilities for various demographics of interest are presented in Appendixes S3 and S4.

Figure 1.

Methods used by patients to schedule medical appointments. Estimates based on the authors’ survey conducted from October 16, 2024, to November 7, 2024, among US adults. Confidence bounds are omitted. “Used” indicates the respondent used this type of method at least once during the past year. “Primary” indicates that this method was the most common method used by the respondent over the past year. See Appendix S2 for further details.

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Phone calls were also the primary method used to schedule appointments, as indicated by 56.4% (95% CI: 54.4% to 58.4%) of respondents. Portals offered by providers (19.7%; 95% CI: 18.1% to 21.3%) and in-office scheduling (19.1%; 95% CI: 17.5% to 20.7%) were the second and third most common methods. Last, 2.1% (95% CI: 1.6% to 2.8%) and 2.0% (95% CI: 1.5% to 2.7%) of respondents relied on third-party applications or other methods as their primary tool. Detailed predicted probabilities for various demographics of interest are again presented in Appendixes S5 and S6.

Discussion

Scheduling medical appointments is a crucial step in accessing medical care. However, as noted above, there is very little research on how patients schedule medical appointments. Our initial analyses on this topic presented here indicate that phone calls, in-office scheduling, and provider portals are by far the most commonly used methods used by patients, either as a method for scheduling appointments or as the primary method for scheduling appointments. Third-party applications or other methods were only used by a small minority of patients.

The important role that phone calls play in scheduling medical appointments highlights the need for targeted policy interventions. While extensively regulated,⁶ existing research has identified rampant inaccuracies related to contact information in provider directories.^7-10 Importantly, recent evidence indicates that a substantial number of patients rely on these inaccurate provider directories to identify providers, with substantial implications for their physical, mental, and financial well-being.⁷ New patients are likely particularly affected. In combination, these facts indicate that improvements in provider directory accuracy should be a high priority for policymakers.

At the same time, inaccuracies may be of less significance for the 40% of patients who primarily rely on in-office scheduling and provider portals because these patients may already have an established relationship with their providers. While being cognizant of their limitations, policymakers could further encourage the utilization of online portals to minimize exposure to inaccurate provider directories.

Last, only a small number of respondents relied on more nontraditional methods of scheduling, including third-party applications. However, we know very little about these methods and how beneficial they can be for patients.

Ultimately, future research should further disentangle the intricacies of appointment scheduling from the patient's perspective, including the potentially differential effects on new and established patients as well as potential improvements for patients that different methods may hold.

Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate the helpful feedback from the reviewer.

Supplementary material

Supplementary material is available at Health Affairs Scholar online.

Funding

This work was partially funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Data availability

Data available from the authors upon request.

Notes

Author notes