Turns out the simple method didn't work in the report. All I was able to manage with that was concatenated decimals.

The original (long) way of doing it seems to be working so far, and with it I managed to just retain either the A or P of AM/PM with the time.

I often format my times in Excel as h:mmA/P which leaves me with 8:30A. I just assumed this was possible in Word as well, so that's what I was aiming for.

Thanks Paul!