The Follow-Up/Recall Report allows you to track your recalls effectively. This Report also has multiple additional functions that relate specifically to Follow-Ups and Recalls.

After you have created your Recall types, entered this information into your fee schedule, and created Recalls for your patients, you are ready to run your postcards. You can send postcards to your patients to remind them of an upcoming Recall appointment or to inform them they need to set up an appointment. You can do this from your Schedule ability or you can run the Recall Report to find this information.

Follow-Ups and Recalls are a complex subject. For more information regarding Recalls and their proper usage, please refer to the How To Use Follow-Ups/Recalls guide.

The Recall Report can be found in the Report ability, under the Marketing node.

Filter Options

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• Filter Providers: Allows you to filter the report based on the provider selected in the Patient tab of the patient's record.

• Filter Offices: Allows you to filter the report based on the office selected in the Patient tab of the patient's record.

• Filter Recall Types: Allows you to filter the report to show only recalls of a given type.

• Next Visit Date: Allows you to choose whether your date range applies to the Next Visit Date, Recall Date, or Recall Appt. Date.

• Balance Column: Allows you to refine the way you would like the report to be displayed. You can choose to display the total account balance, the balance only for the specific patient, or the estimated balance of the patient's treatment plan. You can also choose to see the report results double-spaced, or add a Remaining Coverage column to the report.

• Start/End Date: Allows you to filter the report by a given date range.

• With/Without Recall: Allows you to filter the report to show patients with a recall, without a recall, or both.

• With/Without Recall Appointment: Allows you to filter the report to show patients with an appointment associated to the recall, without an appointment associated to a recall, or both. Even if you choose to view patients without recall appointments, you may still see patients with a next appointment appear on the report. This indicates that while they have a future appointment scheduled, it is not associated to the recall.

• The Lost Recall Button: The Lost Recall button automatically configures the report options and filters to show all recalls  that are not associated with a recall appointment with a recall date prior to yesterday's date.

Report Results

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• Patient # & Birthday/Patient Last, First & Phone: Shows the patient's MacPractice account number, birth date, name, and phone numbers, as entered in the Patient tab of the Patient ability.

• Type: Displays the name of this recall (for example: 1 year, 1 month, 3 months and so on).

• Last Visit (Frequency) & Recall Date: The Last Visit is when the patient was last seen in your office related to the Recall; The Frequency displays the length between the visits based on days as entered in References; The Recall Date is the day the patient is theoretically supposed to come into your office for their check up (calculated by taking the Last Visit and adding the Frequency).

• Appointment Date & Status: Displays information about the appointment that is linked to the Recall Date and the status of the appointment.

• Next Appointment Date: Shows information about the patient's next appointment in your schedule that may or may not have anything to do with your Recall Date. If the Next Appt. Date is linked (tied) to the Recall Date then the Next Appt. Date is when the patient is coming in for his Recall procedures. If the Next Appt. Date is not linked to the recall, it has nothing to do with the Recall Date. This is just the next time the patient is coming into your office. If this Appointment Date is when the patient is coming into your office for their recall procedures, you will need to link this appointment to the Recall so a postcard can be sent with the correct information.

• Recall Appt Date: The Recall Appointment Date column will display a date if the Recall in question has an Appointment Date tied to it on the Schedule. 

• Account Balance: Displays the balance of the account, depending on the criteria that was selected in the Balance Column setting (item #4).

• Provider/Office: Displays the ID of the Provider and Office associated to the recall appointment.

• Note: displays any additional information that was added to the appointment.

• Method: displays the method a recall notice is being sent out to the patient to remind them of the appointment.

• Send Recalls: If you click this button, MacPractice will generate postcards for all patients that are listed in the report.

• Make List: Will send a list of all patients on the report to the List Tab of the Drawer.

• Export: will export the generated patient list to a location on your computer in a .txt format; this will allow you to use a third party software to possibly open this information.

How to Run Recall Postcards

Before you can run postcards for your patients, you will need to confirm the postcard form is active. To do this, go to the References ability, then select the Forms node in your sidebar. Under the Forms node, select the Postcard form and check the box next to Form Active. The Postcard form is now ready to be used.

Next you will want to default the postcard form so it will automatically come up when you create a postcard. Go to Preferences and select the Forms panel. Select the enabled Postcard form under the Default Post Card Form menu and exit the Preferences to save the setting.

With the Postcard form enabled and defaulted you are ready to create your postcards for your patients. Postcards can be created in the Schedule Ability or with the Recall Report in the Marketing Reports node.

Running Recall Postcards from the Schedule

If you wish to run your Postcards for your patients from the Schedule ability you will need to first locate the patients you wish to create a postcard for. This can be done by selecting a date range or month in the small calendar.

With the date range or month range selected in your Schedule sidebar, you will see all the patients with a recall entered for this month under the Recall node. 

Go to the Forms node (located directly below the Recall node). Under the Forms node you will see the Postcard form. Select the Recall node, dragging this down to the Postcard form. When you drop the Recall node over the Postcard, the postcard format window will appear to the right. This is the area where you can modify, add comments, and change the date format of your Postcard before you print this information. After confirming all the details are correct, click the OK button. The print window will appear so you can select your desired printer, printer tray, etc. Click Print and your postcards will then be printed.

Running Recall Postcards from the Recall Report

If you wish to run your Postcards from your Recall Report, you will need to go to the Report ability >> Marketing >> Recall Report. Select your filters, date range, and search criteria then click the Apply button to get your list of patients.

After confirming the list of patients you are creating a Postcard for click the 'Print Postcard(s)' button. The postcard format window will appear. This is the area where you can modify, add comments, and change the date format of your postcard before you print this information. After confirming all is as you need click the OK button; your print window will appear so you can select your desired printer, printer tray and so on. Click Print to print off your new postcards.

Postcards will be printed four to a page on an 8.5x11 page of paper. Below is a screenshot sample of how the postcard will look with some relatively generic options set. We highly advise that your office do a test print on a blank piece of paper to get an idea of how postcards will be printed before purchasing any pre-designed postcards.

AutoRemind Recall Notifications

If you have AutoRemind active on your license and have the option enabled on AutoRemind's side, you can utilize The Follow Ups/Recalls report to send Recall or Follow-up reminders to patients.
To send AutoRemind Recall Notifications, use the following process:

1. Add a Follow-up or Recall: Before AutoRemind Recall Notifications can be sent, enter a Recall or Follow-up in the patient's record. The Recall / Follow-up topic demonstrates how recalls work within MacPractice.

2. Set the Preferred Recall Method: After the patient has a recall or follow-up listed, set the Communication Preference. You can set this for an Account by navigating to the Patients Ability > Patient Tab > Communication sub-tab. You'll want to ensure their AutoRemind Profile is properly set, and that the Communication Preference is set to the desired method of communication.

   Information on patient account setup for AutoRemind is available in Patient - Reminders.

   An important caveat for clients running MacPractice 11.17 and earlier:
   If you use a Communication Preference and a patient does not have the corresponding field set in the Patient Tab of the Patients Ability, it will cause an error to occur and interrupt sending a batch of Recall Reminders. The error will look like this:

   If you see this error, you can click the "Make List" button to generate a list into your Lists Window that will contain the patients who still need Recall Reminders sent to them. You can use that List to ensure each of your Patients has the desired Communication Method set in their Patient Tab. 
   Each Communication Preference corresponds accordingly:
   E-mail corresponds to the patient's Email Address field.
   Text / SMS Message will correspond with a Mobile Phone Number.
   Voice Message options will correspond to that type of Phone Number in the Patients Tab.

3. Send Recall Reminders: Use the Follow-up or Recall Report to send reminders to patients.
   Note: In order to Send Recalls, you must have a default postcard form set in Preferences > Forms.

   Run the report, then click the Send Recalls button. From the resulting window outlining the number of each recall type to be sent, enter a comment to be printed on the post cards if paper reminders are also sent. Click the OK button to generate the AutoRemind electronic messages and print any post cards. AutoRemind recommends running this report for a month date range at least twice per month. This will send an additional reminder to patients that have not yet scheduled an appointment.

   If you do not see the drop downs by "Emails", "SMS", "Voice" and "Postcards" at the top of this screenshot above, you may not have the AutoRemind Follow-Up/Recalls feature active. Please contact AutoRemind to discuss purchasing this option.

4. Schedule Recall appointments: When an appointment is scheduled, link the appointment to the Recall or Follow-up to ensure that the Recall or Follow-up Report will not generate duplicate reminders for patients that have scheduled an appointment.