Third Next Available, abbreviated as TNA or 3NA, is a calculation commonly used in medical practices to measure patient accessibility, or provider availability. The idea is to determine, at a specific point in time, the third available appointment slot for a specific appointment type. This represents a realistic time patients will have to wait on average to get an appointment with that provider for that specific appointment type (New Patient, Follow-up, Annual Wellness Visits, etc.). The reason to use the third next available and not the first next available is that the first next may have become available a few moments ago due to a cancellation or reschedule, so third next give a reasonable margin of error in calculating provider availability. The concept is to reduce the 3NA value to as low as possible, depending on the specialty, in order to improve patient accessibility to an optimum level.
The concept of appointment availability introduces a possibility of schedulers to think that this is an effective tool to use for scheduling. However, one must not forget that as soon as the first appointment is booked, the 3NA number could change considerably depending upon the new third next available appointment. It is best to use the actual provider schedule within the practice management system for determining the next available appointment. 3NA is a tool to be used for trending by calculating this week after week on the same day/time, and helps only t determine how busy the provider schedule is on an average. Based on this trend, the practice administration can determine if the provider schedule needs to be tweaked, or more resources need to be made available, or add another provider is appropriate. Keep in mind that 3NA makes sense for each appointment type individually, and comparisons between providers of similar specialties provides a better criteria to work off of.
It can, thus, be concluded that 3NA is not an effective tool to be used for patient scheduling, rather it is a measure of provider capacity to see patients in a timely manner or, in other words, patient access to a provider.
