Wiki Behavioral Health Appointment Availability

[chrissyfegan]

Hi, I am looking for some insight into appointment availability for a behavioral health office. Per some of our insurance contracts, we need to have urgent appointments available within 24 hours. We are an outpatient office only and we refer any clients in imminent harm to the nearby emergency room.

All other clients get assigned a time slot, and that is their weekly appointment time. Within this system there is not room for clients to come randomly, and once our time slots fill up we struggle to accommodate "urgent" appointment requests.

In what ways do other providers out there accommodate this policy?

Thanks for your help,

Chrissy Fegan

 

[Leenahz]

I believe one of our offices in our agency has two to three open time slots for walk-in and last-minute appointments needed. We have them set up as "dummy appointments." We also have a very strict five minute no show policy, which frees up time throughout the day when a patient is late.

Lena