Promotion of patient appointment compliance in indigent pediatric medical care by use of a microcomputer.

A computerized system for appointment scheduling, medical record keeping, medical billing, patient tracking, and epidemiologic data generation was developed and applied in an indigent pediatric otologic clinic. Functions used to augment appointment compliance are 1) notifying the referring physicians, agencies, and health department coordinators of failed appointments and sending medical information on the attended appointments, 2) listing patients who failed appointments, 3) production of mailings for failed appointments, 4) automatic rescheduling of failed appointments, and 5) automatic calculation of patient attendance ratios. The attendance ratio can be used to help identify patients for referral to social service workers and to implement rewards designed to promote medical compliance. The automatic rescheduling of failed appointments resulted in 21% of new patients and 30% of return patients above controls returning for a medical visit. The recalled had much lower economic status than our average clinic patient, ie, the system was effective in reaching the target population.