Closing the Side Door – lost patients and recalls
Don’t let patients sneak out the side door of your practice. This help page explains the best way you can track patients with lost patients and recalls at the same time.
You will need to be familiar with the Performance Spotlight and the Patient Safety Net (recalls). Review these help pages as needed first.
Goals
At the end of each day you should aim for these goals.
- Lost Patients “0”
- Recalls all actioned
Types of Patients
These are the main different types of patients you will have in your practice
- Patients on a care program or with future appointments booked.
- Patients who come regularly, don’t usually have a future appointment.
- Patients who have only been 1-3 times and you want to contact them again on a specific day.
- Patients who you haven’t seen in a year (or preferred time frame).
How to track each type
1. Patients on a care program
Should not show in Lost Patients list. These patients will always have a future appointment booked so should not show up in your lost patient list.
Use the patient safety net. You still want to make sure you are tracking these patients with the patient safety net (recalls). To ensure your recall time frames are correct make sure to edit these settings within your care programs. Go to: Settings… Clinical… Care Programs. Edit the Followup wait before ReCall due time frames.
2a. Patients who come regularly, don’t usually have a future appointment and LIKE to be followed up.
Set their recall time frame. For patients who like to be contacted you will want to set their recall time frame to something specific for them, i.e. 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 2 months etc.
However this patient will still appear in your lost patients list.
Add a admin only appointment for 1 year away. To remove them from the lost patient list create a “admin only” type appointment and book the patient in for a years time. This will also allow you to better track you recalls, save on SMS cost and ensures you do not get a black listed SMS number.
2b. Patients who come regularly, don’t usually have a future appointment and DON’T want to be followed up.
Tick “Allow no future appointments”. For patients who don’t like to be contacted you can use the setting “Allow no future appointments” in patient preferences. If checked, the patient will be excluded from lists of lost patients and will not be included on your recall list. Use with care, you can end up with lots of inactive patients appearing to be active.
3. Patients who have only been 1-3 times and you want to contact them again on a specific day.
Book admin only appointment for specific time frame. Although you can use recalls for this, you are limited to the type of SMS and emails you can send. You will also find these patients in your lost patient list. Instead you can create a “admin only” appointment type. Then you can send specific SMS and emails for certain scenarios. When they turn up on your recall list you can either “reset” the time frame or make them inactive if you haven’t heard back.
You can also set a reminder call, however the patient will still appear as a lost patient. Watch the last video for End of Shift CA on reminder calls.
4. Patients who you haven’t seen in a year (or preferred time frame).
Make inactive. If you go through your lost patient list you can filter by last seen date. If it has been a while since you have seen the patient it is recommended to make them inactive. If they create an appointment they will automatically become active again and you can go through the process again.
The more strict you are with your criteria the easier it is to make sure your patients can’t sneak out the side door of your practice.
