I was watching the hygiene scheduler video today and have a question. Regarding recall and past due recall, how would you handle a situation where some of these people that are past due and may have been erroneously placed on the “inactive” list but we’re not exactly sure what their status is, did they move, leave, or what?

ANSWER:  I would play dumb and call again, I hope you get my humor. I am sure that there are some on the list that actually wanted you to stop calling or have already informed the office that they are not coming back. Unless you know for sure, I would not want to assume that all of them that are inactive are that way for a reason, especially if you think some were put on there erroneously.[mepr-show if=”loggedout”][/mepr-show] [mepr-active memberships=”629,630,37388,37393,37672,37676,37670,37668,37674,44674,232156″ ifallowed=”show” unauth=”message” unauth_message=”Answer hidden, please login or purchase a membership to view.”]

I would suggest that you discuss this with your team and make a plan to try to contact these people to double check if it was a mistake and then you can get them back or will know if they really don’t want to come back. I would then make sure to have one place that you all agree to put the notes, keep clear notes as to what happened in the call and highlight if they said that they were not coming back again so you don’t have to go through this next time. I would then make any patients that schedule, or any that said they are still planning to come back but don’t schedule now, active again with notes as to what was discussed in the conversation.

I would discuss with your team that they might need to have thicker skin during this process because they may encounter the occasional person upset over getting another phone call after already possibly telling your office in the past that they did not want to come back. Suggest that your team apologize in the nicest way possible and then let them know that clear notes will be made and that they will not be called again. It is worth more to have one or two people upset that your team called, than to lose out on the many more reactivations that potentially could have missed had you not called through the list to double check.

I recently did a webinar with CallForce that might help with this too, so if you did not join us or need the link to watch it, let us know.[/mepr-active]