Monday, July 14, 2014

Good or bad, I'm not sure

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. There is a new program available called Smart Scheduling for doctor's offices. What it does is:

"Smart Scheduling mines patient scheduling histories to determine who is more likely to cancel or miss an appointment. It then sends alerts to the scheduling programs that doctor offices use to book appointments."

So it digs into your history and looks at your background to see if you are likely to show up for an appointment or not.

"If a patient is in a high-risk category, for instance, it prompts office schedulers to call with a reminder. If the patient cannot be reached, there is a good chance he will not show up at all. So, the doctors could then book another patient for that time slot, keeping the patient flow consistent throughout the day."

Younger patients, new patients, and those without phones are least likely to show up. Established patients, older patients, married patients, and for some reason 10am appointments are most likely to show up.

I'm not sure what happens if an expected no show, shows up. But I'm not sure if I like this kind of intrusion into my file. I mean it makes me want to be a no show a few times just to break the mold.

My thought is people should stick to appointments - it doesn't matter if its a doctor appointment, a business meeting, or meeting a friend for coffee - just show up. Or And call if you are running late. Its called politeness in case you have forgotten.

But I really don't want a computer looking into my background to decide if I am going to be a no-show.

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