Life Is About Showing Up...
Please Don't Be a No-Show

As with almost everything in life, one must participate in order to enjoy the benefit. This certainly applies to keeping your doctor’s appointments in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Maintaining your scheduled clinic appointment will help to safeguard your health.

During Fiscal Year 2005, more than 575,000 clinic appointments were scheduled for veterans throughout the VA Maryland Health Care System. Of that number, more than 48,000 clinic appointments resulted in “no-shows.” A no-show happens when a veteran fails to keep a scheduled appointment and does not notify their VA facility ahead of time.

No-shows are missed opportunities because everyone loses. The veteran misses the chance to safeguard his or her health and we, as a health care organization, lose the opportunity to provide quality health care to the veteran.

Additionally, when an appointment is not cancelled, it is too late to reschedule another patient for the vacant slot. Unfortunately, this can result in a longer wait for a fellow veteran wanting to make an appointment.

The VA Maryland Health Care System is developing new methods to make it easier for you to keep your appointment and reduce our “no-show” rate. Instead of automated reminder calls, the clinic scheduling clerk will now call you to remind you of an appointment and also provide you an opportunity to reschedule, if needed.

We are also working on reducing our waiting times for an appointment by implementing a new program called Advanced Clinic Access (ACA). This new process allows for quicker access in scheduling your appointment with your health care provider. It also allows us to offer you alternative types of care, including group visits for health issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Advanced Clinic Access is also working on methods that will eventually allow you to cancel and reschedule your appointments through a centralized call center.

WHAT IS YOUR ROLE?

We are always looking for ways to enhance the health care services we provide to our veterans. But we need your help! Here are a few ways that you can help us to better serve you:

• Inform us of changes in your address or telephone number;
  
• Arrive fifteen minutes before your scheduled appointment time;
  
• When you arrive for your appointment, take an opportunity to update your personal data. This will allow us to reach you with information about appointments and other health related information; and
  
• Always call to cancel or reschedule your appointment if you are not going to be able to keep your appointment. This will allow us to offer that appointment to another veteran.

Telephone numbers for specific clinics are included under Important VA Phone Numbers on the back page of this newsletter. If you have questions about Advanced Clinic Access, please feel free to discuss it with your
health care provider.

Please remember to let us know if you are going to
be a no-show!

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