J A n U A R Y 2 0 1 8 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 8 9
they brought in to assist on a busy day because of patient cancella-
tions.
Our panel says patients usually give precious little notice when they
cancel a case — 15.6% call out on the day of surgery and 46.9% cancel
the day before surgery. A last-minute cancellation is a dagger to the
schedule, an almost certain guarantee that the OR will sit empty
because it doesn't give you enough time to ask another patient to
come in early or to offer the slot to another surgeon.
More than one-third of our panel (34.4%) say patients are courteous
enough to cancel a few days before surgery. "If we can get a cancella-
tion as far out as 3 days, then we can fill it with someone else that is
on a waiting list," says Polly Ladd, RN, CGRN, BSN, clinical nurse
manager at Crowne Point Endoscopy & Surgery Center in Flint, Mich.
Why patients cancel
From missing lab results and missing rides to inadequate preps and
inordinate copayments, patients cancel for many reasons. The most
popular, according to our survey, have nothing to do with medicine —
patients don't have a ride home (46.9%) or they can't afford their out-of-
pocket responsibility (43.8%).
Then there are clinical reasons patients cancel. The patient isn't suit-
able for same-day surgery (25%), the patient didn't complete pre-surgi-
cal testing (21.9%), the patient isn't NPO (18.8%) or the anesthesia risk
is too high (18.8%). Whatever the reason, it's never a good thing to
waste the OR minute — the most expensive in healthcare. Just ask
Joy Schwartz, RN, administrator at Atlantic Surgical Group in
Oakhurst, N.J. One of her ORs sat empty for 3 hours last month
because the results of a last-minute blood sugar test on a diabetic
patient were too high. Just like that, the case was cancelled and, with
no remaining patients to move up, the room sat empty for the rest of
