What an overdue recall list costs a busy dental practice

A recall list that keeps growing says more about how busy the front desk is than how organized the practice is. Between check-ins, phones, payments and the patient at the counter, outbound recall calls are the first task to slip, and the list grows a little every week.

Most clinics treat that list as a to-do item. It's more useful to treat it as a number. This article walks through how to estimate what your overdue list represents, why it keeps growing even in well-run clinics, and what changes when recall gets dedicated time. For the mechanics of building a recall system, see our earlier piece on dental recall systems.

Put a number on the list

Start with the report your practice management software already has: patients overdue for hygiene, grouped by how long they've been overdue. Then do some rough arithmetic:

• How many patients are overdue by 3 to 12 months?
• What is an average hygiene visit worth in your clinic, including exams and radiographs when due?
• How often does a hygiene visit lead to restorative treatment?
• What does that add up to over a year?

As an illustration, 300 overdue patients at an average visit of $250 is $75,000 in hygiene production waiting to be booked, before any treatment those visits would uncover. Use your own figures. The point is that the list has a value, and most owners have never totalled it.

Why the list keeps growing in a busy clinic

Recall calls are outbound work, and outbound work loses every contest with the patient standing at the desk. The calls also happen at the wrong time: during clinic hours, when most patients are at work. Messages get left, callbacks arrive after the phones have gone to the answering service, and the patient slides further down the list.

None of that is a failure of effort. It's a capacity problem: more calls than hours.

What the list does to the practice over time

An overdue patient isn't a lost patient, at first. Most still think of you as their dentist. But the longer they go without hearing from the clinic, the more likely they are to book wherever is convenient when something hurts. The list shrinks the active patient base slowly, and the active patient base is one of the clearest measures of what a practice is worth.

What changes when recall gets dedicated time

• Calls happen when patients answer. Evenings and weekends reach people who are at work during the day.
• Every patient gets followed through. Not one voicemail and a forgotten note, but a clear outcome.
• The data gets cleaner. Working the list surfaces wrong numbers, duplicates and patients who moved away.
• The front desk gets its day back. Inbound calls and the patients at the counter get full attention.

FAQ: Overdue dental recall

How long can a patient be overdue before they're lost?

There's no fixed cut-off, but the longer a patient goes without contact, the harder they are to bring back. Working the list from the most recently overdue patients first recovers the most appointments for the effort.

Should the front desk make recall calls?

Whoever makes them needs protected time and the ability to call when patients are available. In a busy clinic, that rarely fits inside a front desk day, which is why many clinics separate outbound work from the front desk.

Do automated recall reminders replace phone calls?

They help with patients who are just coming due. Patients who are well overdue, or haven't responded to several messages, usually need a conversation.

Mint Ops Remote Administration makes the outbound calls a busy front desk can't get to, including hygiene recall, treatment follow-up and insurance verification. Every caller has at least 10 years of dental experience and is based in Canada. Calls go out under your clinic's own caller ID, evenings, weekends and holidays included, and hygiene recall carries a 10x return on investment guarantee. It starts with a Discovery Call.

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