Improving pediatric appointment keeping with reminders and reduced response requirement.

We evaluated the effectiveness of appointment reminders and a reduced response requirement for improving appointment keeping in a hospital ambulatory pediatric clinic. Participants received mailed and telephoned reminders along with a parking pass that reduced the time and effort required to attend the clinic. A multiple baseline analysis of 5,261 appointments over one fiscal year showed that the intervention increased the percentage of appointments kept and decreased the percentage of appointments broken in the continuity clinics of five pediatric health care providers. Social validation, consumer satisfaction, and cost-effectiveness measures, as well as an interrupted time-series analysis, all support the effectiveness of the intervention.