Wait Time Study

INITIAL PRENATAL CARE APPOINTMENT

WAIT TIME STUDY’S PURPOSE

The Council on Healthy Mothers and Babies (COHMAB) conducts Wait Time Studies on a regular basis and has been publishing the wait time results from  since 1995.  The Wait Time Study’s purpose is to assure appointment capacity for prenatal care by determining the average wait time a pregnant woman, usually uninsured, would have to wait for her initial prenatal care appointment.  The COHMAB and Pregnancy Care Connection’s (PCC) goal is to assure the average wait time for the first OB appointment in Franklin County’s public OB clinics is no more than 7 days.   The Ohio Administrative Code’s goal for the first prenatal appointment is to be within 5 working days.

Each Wait Time Study has a specific caller scenario of a pregnant woman, usually uninsured, so many weeks pregnant and at times, is experiencing complications with the pregnancy.  The study is conducted by calling each public OB clinic in Franklin County that serves uninsured and/or underinsured (Medicaid) pregnant women and requesting the next available prenatal care appointment.  The caller does not schedule an appointment with the clinics, but instead states that she will call back if an earlier appointment or transportation is found, therefore, no "real" appointment is ever wasted with this study. 

To view 2005 and 2006 Wait Time Study Executive Summaries, please choose the report below.  For comparison purposes, Pregnancy Care Connection conducts its own Wait Time Study for the same time period and its results are posted next to each public OB clinic's wait time.  A special Wait Time Study was conducted in November 2005 that compared the wait time for an initial prenatal care appointment for an English-speaking woman compared to a Spanish-speaking woman.

§      March 2006 Wait Time Study Executive Summary (PDF)

§      January 2006 Wait Time Study Executive Summary (PDF)

§      November 2005 Spanish Speaking Wait Time Study Executive Summary (PDF)

§      November 2005 English Speaking Wait Time Study Executive Summary (PDF)

§      October 2005 Wait Time Study Executive Summary (PDF)

§      June 2005 Wait Time Study Executive Summary (PDF)

Summary of the latest wait time study: March 2006

The caller scenario for the March 2006 Wait Time Study was an uninsured, thirty-six year old woman that was fifteen weeks pregnant.

The results of the Wait Time Study revealed that the average wait time was 11 days for an uninsured woman, which is one of the lowest wait times Franklin County has experienced since the study began in 1994.   Although the COHMAB cannot positively state that PCC had a direct impact on this decrease, we do believe it has had some impact with lowering the overall county average.  In fact, three hospital OB clinics refer patients directly to PCC when they are full or for all appointments.

The average wait time for hospital outpatient OB clinics for the study was 16 days, with a range from 8 – 28 days.  Out of the 8 available hospital outpatient OB providers, all but one were able to schedule an appointment for the caller.

The average wait time for neighborhood health clinics was 6 days, with the range from 1-14 days.  One clinic would not schedule the appointment without conducting its own pregnancy test.  The average wait time for the Columbus Health Department was 1 day, however, two of the Columbus Health Department clinics refers all new OB patients to PCC for appointments.

The average wait time for Pregnancy Care Connection in March 2006 was 13 days. 

The COHMAB will continue to conduct wait time studies with the hope that with all the hard work from the OB clinic providers and PCC. we will meet the ultimate goal of 7 days.