Getting recommended for surgery is stressful. In fact, up to 92% of patients experience anxiety before surgery—and understandably, some hesitate to schedule a date right away.
In some cases, patients don’t intend to delay surgery indefinitely. Many simply want a second opinion, or they have questions about how to prepare or what they’ll owe. Others may feel afraid of anesthesia or recovery, or they may be waiting on an important approval, like an insurance authorization or pre-op clearance.
But the longer a patient waits to schedule surgery, the less likely they are to schedule it at all. And even if they do, delaying surgery too long can pose serious consequences, such as increased risk of complications, lengthy recovery times and poorer health outcomes.
Unscheduled surgeries hurt your practice, too. Open blocks derail your surgical calendar, interfere with pre-op planning and make it hard to predict staffing and allocate resources. That means greater volatility in your OR, which typically accounts for 40% of practice revenue.
Here’s the good news: In spite of these challenges, there are proven ways to help patients overcome their hesitation to scheduling surgery. With the right tools and workflows in place, your team can ensure every patient gets the support they need—and that no recommended surgery falls through the cracks.
Follow these four steps to keep your surgery-eligible patients on track:
1. Flag unscheduled patients
Without a dedicated system in place, it’s easy to lose track of patients who’ve been recommended for surgery but haven’t set a date. A scheduler might assume someone else is following up, or they may simply forget as new patients come in. Over time, these cases quietly disappear—and so does the revenue tied to them.
That’s why it’s crucial to implement a repeatable process for flagging patients who delay surgery to see who still needs follow-up. You can use your EHR or a shared spreadsheet if you need a “quick-fix” solution, or implement a surgical scheduling platform that you can customize for your unique workflows. Be sure to color-code or tag unscheduled cases by status, too: It creates greater visibility across the team, and it helps you prevent patients from slipping through the cracks.
2. Capture the reason for delay
When you don’t specify why a patient has delayed surgery, follow-up becomes inconsistent—and sometimes tone-deaf. One patient may be waiting on insurance authorization, while another is still processing a new diagnosis. But without that context, it’s hard to follow up at the right time and in the right way.
By recording a reason for delay, you’ll make your team’s follow-up calls more informed, patient-centered and meaningful. Simply including a note like “awaiting second opinion” or “checking facility availability” gives surgical coordinators the insight they need to make their follow-ups personalized, timely and effective. It also helps surface trends that may point to broader workflow issues, like bottlenecks in insurance approvals or a lack of clarity around patient financial responsibility.
3. Set a follow-up date (and assign ownership)
When nobody owns the follow-up and no date is set, it rarely gets done. Staff may assume the patient will call when they’re ready, but research shows that’s rarely the case. In fact, delays in follow-up after initial consultation are one of the largest contributors to missed surgical opportunities.
By assigning a clear follow-up date and designating who’s responsible, you make follow-up part of the standard workflow, rather than a side task. Bonus points if you implement a system that lets you automate reminders, create follow-up tasks or alert staff when patients are overdue.
4. Run regular reports to close the loop
Even with tags and notes, patients who delay surgery can still get overlooked if you aren’t reviewing the data. Practices without reporting mechanisms may have dozens of unscheduled cases sitting idle—especially during periods of staff turnover, coverage gaps or high patient volume.
Running weekly or monthly reports helps your team stay accountable and in control. You can filter patients by delay reason, surgeon or time since last contact—whatever matters most to your process. That means no more forgotten cases, higher surgical volume and better support for patients who need care.
The bottom line
Supporting patients when they delay surgery doesn’t mean rushing their decision. It simply means making sure they aren’t forgotten. By revisiting your workflow and making just a few simple changes, you’ll help your team stay organized, increase surgical volume and get patients the care they need.
Learn how Surgimate can help you track unscheduled cases, automate reminders and keep your schedule on track.
