2624 Private vs Public: How Insurance Type Impacts Patient's ‘No-Show’ Appointment Rates and Time to Surgery

Study Objective To evaluate how insurance type (public vs private) impacts the frequency of missed appointments and the time lapse from first office visit to date of gynecologic surgery. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting Academic hospital. Patients or Participants Women who underwent laparoscopic hysterectomy, robotic-assisted hysterectomy, or myomectomy procedures between 2012 and 2018. Interventions N/A. Measurements and Main Results 939 patients were identified; 267 (28.4%) were laparoscopic hysterectomies, 368 (39.2%) were robotic-assisted hysterectomies, and 304 (32.4%) were myomectomies. In the sample, 340 (36.2%) patients had public insurance and 599 (63.8%) had private insurance. Public insurance was significantly associated with older age, a smaller proportion of White/Caucasian race, higher BMI, higher gravidity, higher parity, a smaller proportion of married patients, more chronic medical conditions, and lower employment rates (all p Conclusion Patients with public insurance were more likely to missed scheduled appointment than those with private insurance. There was no difference between groups temporally from initial consult to surgery. Further research needs to be conducted to understand what socioeconomic factors impact publicly insured patients' access to appointments and how to remove those barriers.