Two months before the schedule gets soft. 56% of dental patients are overdue for hygiene, and that list does not convert on a first call. Practices that work recare in July and August fill a September schedule. Practices that start in September are already looking at the hole.
Why recare carries a two month lag
An overdue patient does not book on the first contact. They are overdue for a reason, which is usually that life got in the way, and the call lands while they are at work or picking up a child. The booking comes on the second or third touch, and each touch needs a few days between it and the last one.
Then the appointment itself has to land somewhere. A patient who agrees on a Tuesday is often booking three or four weeks out, because the hygiene schedule has its own lead time. Add the contact cycle to the booking lead time and you get roughly eight weeks between the first call and the patient sitting in the chair.
That arithmetic is the whole reason timing matters more than effort here. The same list worked with the same energy produces a full schedule in one case and an apology in the other, and the only difference is when the calls started.
The 56%, and what sits inside the list
56% of dental patients are overdue for their hygiene appointment. That is not one group. It is three, and they need different calls:
- Recently overdue, inside six months. These are still active patients with a scheduling problem. The highest conversion in the list and the easiest call to make.
- Lapsed, six to eighteen months. They have drifted and may assume the practice has forgotten them. A warm, specific call works here, with the last visit date mentioned by name.
- Long dormant, past eighteen months. Lowest conversion per call and still worth working, because some have simply moved on from a practice they liked and nobody ever rang.
Working the list in that order is what makes the hours productive. Most offices work it alphabetically, which mixes a 60% conversion group with a 10% group and buries the easy wins.
Building the list, and how far back to pull
Pull by last visit date, not by recall date, because recall dates get edited and last visit dates do not. Two years back is a reasonable boundary for a first pass. Clean the contact data before calling rather than during, since a session that stops every third call to fix a phone number loses most of its momentum.
A cadence that converts without annoying anyone
Three attempts across two weeks, varying the channel and the time of day, then stop and return to that patient in the next quarter. Calling the same person at 10am on three consecutive Tuesdays is one attempt repeated.
Leave a voicemail only on the last attempt, and make it specific. A message naming the last visit and offering two concrete times outperforms a general request to call back.
Pair recare with unscheduled treatment
The same session should carry the treatment list. The average practice has about $2.4M in unscheduled treatment sitting in its own records, diagnosed and never booked. A patient who agrees to a hygiene appointment is already in a scheduling conversation, which is the cheapest moment in the year to bring up the crown that was presented in March.
Who makes the calls
Not the front desk during business hours. Recare is the only task in the practice with no deadline attached to it, which means it is the first thing to disappear when the phone rings. It needs protected, uninterrupted time, and it needs to happen in the months where the counter is at its busiest.
Reach places trained remote team members inside US dental practices. A Front Desk Representative brings overdue hygiene patients back in and puts open treatment plans on the schedule, alongside confirmations and post-op check-ins. Dawson Modern Dentistry reclaimed about 40 hours a week across the team with dedicated remote support. A full-time remote team member starts at about $11 an hour, based on $1,995 a month across 174 working hours, month to month with no long-term contract.
Frequently asked questions
How many attempts should a practice make per patient?
Three across two weeks, varying channel and time of day, then park the patient until the next quarter. Three calls at the same hour on the same weekday count as one attempt.
Call, text or email first?
Vary it. Lead with a call for recently overdue patients, since conversion is highest there, and use text or email as the second and third touch.
How far back should the overdue list go?
Two years by last visit date on a first pass. Pull by last visit rather than recall date, because recall dates get edited and last visit dates do not.
See how your overdue list would be worked. Book a 20 minute call with our team.