Solution · Patient Follow-Up
Most patients do not quit their care plan. They just never book the next visit.
Attendance does not fall off a cliff. It erodes appointment by appointment, and the visit nobody booked on the way out is where the plan of care quietly ends.
No call. No credit card. Plug-and-play setup in 5 minutes.
The problem, in dollars
The drop-off happens mid-course, not at the end.
A patient finishes a visit, agrees the plan needs four more, and walks out without the next one on the calendar. Nothing looks wrong that day. The gap only becomes visible weeks later, when the chart shows an episode of care that simply stopped.
By the time that patient reads as dormant, months have passed and the clinical thread is cold. The moment worth catching is the one right after a visit, while the plan is still live and the patient still intends to finish it.
34% to 64%
nonattendance rises from the first appointment to later ones in outpatient mental health
6.6 of 8.9
physical therapy visits completed against visits scheduled, in one chronic-pain cohort
How it works
How the Follow-Up Agent works
It works the gap between one visit and the next, while the plan of care is still open.
- 01
Watches for the missing next visit
After a completed visit, it checks whether the next one in the plan is on the calendar. An open plan with no next appointment is the trigger.
- 02
Calls inside the clinical window
It reaches the patient while the last visit is still recent, so the conversation is a continuation rather than a cold re-approach.
- 03
Books the next visit in the series
It offers real openings that fit the cadence the plan calls for, and books the visit back into your system.
- 04
Hands off when the plan is finished
A patient who has completed their course is not chased. The agent stops, and the record shows why.
Why Recupra
Why this is not reactivation
Reactivation reaches patients who already lapsed. Follow-up keeps them from lapsing in the first place, and the two run on different clocks.
- Triggers on an open plan of care, not on a dormancy threshold
- Calls days after a visit, while the clinical thread is still warm
- Offers the cadence the plan calls for, not a generic next opening
- Stops on its own when the course of care is complete
- Every booked follow-up is attributed to the visit that preceded it
- Pay only when the next visit is actually on the schedule
In depth
Where a course of care actually breaks
Two published cohorts describe the same shape from different specialties: attendance decays across a series, and the patients who stop attending are the ones who stop completing visits.
Attendance gets worse with every appointment in the series
A systematic review and meta-analysis in Psychiatric Services, pooling 35 studies across 40 datasets, found nonattendance of 0.34 at the first appointment, 0.42 at the second, and 0.64 at subsequent appointments in nonspecialist outpatient mental health clinics.
Read that ordering carefully, because it inverts the usual assumption. The hard appointment to get a patient to is not the first one. It is the fourth. A clinic that measures only its new-patient no-show rate is watching the healthiest number it has.
The authors' own conclusion is that nonattendance rises with successive appointments, and that the answer is to strengthen engagement during treatment rather than only at intake. That is the job this agent does.
Patients leave a plan of care before it is finished
In a chronic-pain cohort of 200 outpatients published in JOSPT Open, patients completed a mean of 6.6 visits against a mean of 8.9 scheduled, and 55% self-discharged rather than finishing the plan of care.
The same analysis found that each completed visit lowered the odds of self-discharge by 9%. Attendance is not only a symptom of engagement. Getting the next visit onto the calendar is itself part of what keeps a patient in care.
That study ran in one urban academic outpatient clinic, and its authors caution against generalising the rates to other settings. The direction of the finding is what carries: the visit that never got booked is the one that ends the episode.
What this looks like in your schedule
Pull every patient whose plan of care is open and whose next visit is not booked. In most clinics that list is longer than the dormant list, and every name on it saw a provider recently enough to remember the conversation.
That list is also the cheapest outreach you own. These patients are not lapsed, so nothing has to be re-sold. Compare it with patient reactivation, which reaches people who already drifted and has to rebuild the relationship first.
What the call sounds like
The agent takes its register from your clinic's configuration. This is the shape of the conversation, not a script it reads.
- Agent
- Hi, this is a call from your clinic about the plan your provider set up at your last visit. You were due to come back in about two weeks, and I do not have the next appointment on the calendar yet.
- Patient
- Right, I meant to book it and then it slipped.
- Agent
- That happens a lot. I have Tuesday the ninth at ten past three, or Thursday the eleventh at nine forty. Would either of those work?
- Patient
- Thursday is better.
- Agent
- Booked for Thursday the eleventh at nine forty. You will get a confirmation shortly, and a reminder the day before.
Sources
- Psychiatric Services, 'Factors Associated With Nonattendance at Nonspecialist Outpatient Mental Health Clinics': 35 studies, 40 datasets, pooled nonattendance of 0.34, 0.42 and 0.64 across first, second and subsequent appointments
- JOSPT Open, 'Factors Associated With Physical Therapy Attendance Rate and Self-Discharge in People With Chronic Pain': 200 patients, 6.6 of 8.9 visits completed, 55% self-discharge, 9% lower self-discharge odds per completed visit
Pricing
Outcome-based pricing
No platform fee, no setup fee. You pay only when a patient is booked into their next care visit, nothing when the call does not produce an appointment.
Works with your EHR
Connects to the system you already use
Connects to your EHR
+ moreNative integrations with Healthie, DrChrono, Cliniko, Mindbody, Canvas Medical, Medplum, and Akute Health, plus 34 more systems with an assisted setup. See all integrations.
Proof
What clinics recover
Run the demo to see how many of your open plans of care have no next visit booked, on your real data.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the Reactivation Agent?
Follow-up runs while the plan of care is still open, days after a visit. Reactivation runs after a patient has already lapsed past their expected return. Different trigger, different conversation.
When does the agent call?
After a completed visit, once the plan calls for another one and no next appointment is on the calendar. It works inside the calling window you configure.
Does it chase patients who have finished their care?
No. A completed course of care is a stop condition, and the record shows why the agent stopped.
What does it cost?
$20 per patient booked into their next care visit. Nothing when the call does not produce an appointment.
See how many open plans have no next visit.
Connect your EHR and Recupra shows you every patient mid-plan with nothing booked, on your real data. No call, no credit card.