Open Access Practice

Massachusetts physician cuts waiting time by accepting same-day appointments, walk-ins.
The Boston Globe /Kaiser Health News (7/14, Arnst) reports that a Worcester, MA, family physician, Dennis Dimitri, runs an "unusual" practice: most of his "patients call in the morning and are assigned a time slot later that day" and he accepts few appointments in advance. Dimitri's "open access" system works because it "reduces the number of patients who don't show up for their appointments or who call in with an emergency and plead to be squeezed into an already full schedule," the story notes.