Many of us know these frustrations: you rearrange your schedule for a doctor's appointment. You make sure you're on time. But your doctor isn't. You're stuck waiting and waiting. Or you need to see a doctor quickly, but you have to wait weeks to get in.
At UVA Health, we get it. We don't like that this happens to our patients. So we're taking steps to make it better. And we need your help.
You can make a difference by coming to appointments on time and giving us notice when you can't make it. When a few patients are late and we work them in, we may go over their scheduled appointment times. It puts us behind. That makes it harder for us to start our appointments later in the day on time.
And when we know you can't come to an appointment, we have time to give that appointment slot to someone else who needs it.
That's the reason behind our new late, no-show, and late cancellation policy. It applies to all of our clinics across Virginia. It's part of our larger effort to make sure everyone can get an appointment when they need it, and not have to wait because of backups from late arrivals.
Here's what you need to know about our new policy.
Late for an Appointment?
If you're late for an appointment, we'll do our best to fit you in. But if we can't, we'll reschedule your appointment.
Can't Make Your Appointment?
We totally understand things come up. Just let us know at least 24 hours ahead of time.
Under our policy, if you don't come to your appointment and don't let us know, we consider it a no-show.
Need to Reschedule an Appointment?
Let your clinic know at least 24 hours in advance.
New patient? After 2 no-shows for a first appointment, we won't reschedule you.
Already a patient? If you have 3 no-shows within 1 year, we may dismiss you from the clinic.
A late cancellation is when you cancel with less than 24 hours' notice. We count 2 late cancellations the same as 1 no-show.
We know things happen. That's why we never count late cancellations or no-shows for reasons beyond your control.
We'll Help You Find a More Convenient Clinic
Maybe there's another UVA Health location that works better for you? If so, we'll work with you to transfer your care there. And you'll always be welcome at UVA Health when you need urgent or emergency care.
Does UVA understand that it’s already difficult to get through on phones? Of course they do. This policy is going to ring the phones off of the hook even more, creating increasing stress for already stressed out employees. Also, why assume everybody has a computer, has computer skills, and / or knows how to use My Chart? This new policy is simply to push people out so they can get more medical money. However, the policy is going to create more anxiety, more staff shortages, more anger, more depression, more poverty, more homelessness, and on and on. Oh, that’s right……… UVA cares more about medical money than mental health. Sad.
So if you are one minute late, they can cancel your appointment and make you reschedule? I don’t think this policy is reasonable or fair to patients. UVA Crossroads used to have a policy that if you were more than 10 minutes late, they reserved the right to reschedule you. That was much more reasonable.
For one thing, it’s almost unheard of for any UVA office to call you back right at your scheduled time, so if someone is less than 5 minutes late that would rarely impact the physician’s schedule. I think the plan is to overbook and then if needed to use arriving one or two minutes late as an excuse to bump people.