In recent years, patient unpunctuality has become a common problem for mental clinics. The unpunctuality rate has a substantial impact on several quality metrics, including the usage of resources and patient waiting times. Thus, the primary aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of new scheduling rules in minimizing physician idle time and overtime, patient waiting time, number of unscheduled patients, and the total cost in a psychiatric clinic. This study also conducts a sensitivity analysis to investigate the impact of different unpunctuality rates on the developed scheduling systems. The results show that the VBVI rules (e.g., HSBGDM-1, HSBGDM-2, and HSBGDM-3) are more effective at minimizing idle time and overtime as well as the patient waiting time and total cost compared to other scheduling rules. In addition, the VBFI rules (e.g., REPDOME-3 and REPDOME-4) have the lowest number of unscheduled patients among all scheduling rules. Additionally, the results show that VBVI rules are more robust in maintaining their performance across different conditions. Furthermore, this study investigates the impact of different unpunctuality rates on scheduling systems. According to the results, lower levels of punctuality lead to negative impacts on physician productivity. The changes in physician idle time and overtime for IBVI and VBVI rules are greater than those rules with fixed intervals (i.e., IBFI and VBFI), indicating these rules are more sensitive to changes in patient unpunctuality rate. Also, as the rate of unpunctuality increases, the average patient waiting time increases for the IBVI and VBVI rules, while the average number of unscheduled patients decreases. Overall, this study suggests that VBVI rules are the most effective in minimizing idle time, overtime, patient waiting time, and total cost in a psychiatric clinic. This information can be valuable for improving the scheduling systems in mental health clinics, leading to improved patient outcomes and reduced costs
