What is patient recall?
Patient recall is the practice of contacting a patient when their next visit is clinically due, rather than waiting for the patient to realise it themselves. A six-month dental check, a quarterly diabetes review and a child's next vaccination are all recalls. The defining feature is that the due date is known to the clinic and unknown to the patient.
Recall, reminder and follow-up are three different things
A reminder goes out before an appointment that already exists. It reduces no-shows and changes nothing about whether the visit was going to happen.
A follow-up goes out shortly after a visit, to check the treatment worked and to catch problems early.
A recall goes out when the next visit becomes due, which may be weeks or years later, and nothing is booked at the time it is sent. Of the three, it is the only one that creates a visit that would not otherwise have existed, and it is the one almost no clinic runs.
Where the due date comes from
Sometimes it is fixed by a published schedule, as with childhood immunisation, where every future date is computable from a date of birth.
Sometimes it is set by the treatment, as with a crown due a few weeks after a root canal, or a stent removal due within a month of stone surgery.
Sometimes it is set by the condition, as with a chronic patient needing review every three or six months for life. In all three cases the clinic holds the information and the patient does not.
Why most clinics do not run one
Not because they disagree with it. Because recall requires somebody to maintain a list of dates and act on it every week, and in a single-doctor practice that person is also running the front desk.
The result is that recall exists as an intention in almost every clinic and as a working system in very few.
Questions doctors ask
- What is the difference between patient recall and a reminder?
- A reminder is sent before an appointment the patient has already booked. A recall is sent when the patient has nothing booked and their next visit has become due. Reminders reduce no-shows on existing appointments. Recalls create appointments that would not otherwise exist.
- How often should a clinic recall patients?
- On the interval the treatment or condition actually requires, not on a fixed marketing schedule. Dental checks are commonly six months, chronic disease reviews three to six, and immunisation follows a published schedule. Recalls sent on any other rhythm read as promotion and get ignored.
- Is patient recall the same as marketing?
- No, and conflating them is why recall often gets treated as optional. A recall is a clinically indicated contact about a specific patient's own due care. Marketing is a broadcast to people who may or may not need anything. The first is care, the second is promotion.