A wireless body area network (WBAN) allows integration of low power, invasive or noninvasive miniaturized sensors around a human body. WBAN is expected to become a basic infrastructure element for human health monitoring. The Task Group 6 of IEEE 802.15 is formed to address specific needs of body area network. It defines a medium access control layer that supports various physical layers. In this work, we analyze the efficiency of simple slotted ALOHA scheme, and then propose a novel allocation scheme that controls the random access period and packet transmission probability to optimize channel efficiency. NS-2 simulations have been carried out to evaluate its performance. The simulation results demonstrate significant performance improvement in latency and throughput using the proposed MAC algorithm. A wireless body area network (WBAN) allows integration of low power, invasive or noninvasive miniaturized sensors around a human body. WBAN is expected to become a basic infrastructure element for human health monitoring. The Task Group 6 of IEEE 802.15 is formed to address specific needs of body area network. It defines a medium access control layer that supports various physical layers. In this work, we analyze the efficiency of simple slotted ALOHA scheme, and then propose a novel allocation scheme that controls the random access period and packet transmission probability to optimize channel efficiency. NS-2 simulations have been carried out to evaluate its performance. The simulation results demonstrate significant performance improvement in latency and throughput using the proposed MAC algorithm.