The recall system within Genie allows you to keep track of those patients requiring further follow up in future. By ensuring your practice has implemented an effective and manageable recall and reminder system you'll be one step closer to streamlining your patient care and ensuring that none of your patients fall through the cracks of a busy practice!
Before you begin
Before you implement a recall system at your practice it's worthwhile to take the time and establish a clear and concise list of reasons for your recalls. This will ensure that staff are using consistent terminology but also means that when the time comes to remind your patients of their recall the SMS reminders or letters that you send will basically write themselves!
You can add a recall to a patient's record via four different methods:
- From within a Clinical record by clicking on the
Recalls icon - From the Patient List by selecting Patients > Add a Recall
- From the Appointment Book by selecting Appts > Add a Recall
- From the Pathology Action List window when linking pathology results
Within the New Recall window you will need to specify the reason the patient has been added to the recall list as well as when they should be contacted by. If you have already established your list of recall reasons you should select the appropriate option from the drop down list rather than typing into the box directly. This will ensure that all staff are using consistent recalls and avoids your list becoming unruly with multiple variations of the same reason.
A recall is only effective if it is followed up appropriately. As such it's important to know how to effectively action recalls that you've created. You may adopt a modern approach and just choose to SMS a reminder to those patients on your recall list or perhaps you would prefer to send an email or a physical letter? Whatever approach your practice adopts is fine as long as everyone is aware of the process to follow.
You can view a list of recalls in your database by selecting the 
Recalls Due icon from the Appointment Book or by selecting Patients > Recalls Due from within the Open > Patients list.
From this window you can send out SMS reminders by right-clicking on a patient's recall and choosing the SMS option.
Alternatively you can send a reminder for any patient records highlighted in the list by choosing the SMS button at the top of the window.
Once you have sent your reminder you'll see the 'Last' and 'Action Detail' update to reflect that you have performed the next step in actioning your recalls.
Send an Email or Letter Reminder
From the Recalls Due window you also have the option to utilise Genie's Merged Letter functionality which will produce a letter that can be posted or emailed to your patient to let them know they need to arrange a new appointment. This letter/email can be produced by highlighting the recall/s and selecting the 
Merged Letter icon then selecting your desired template. From within the letter you can select either the 
Print icon or the 
Email icon depending on your preferred method of communication.
For further information about creating and customising your letter templates refer to the Customising Letter Templates article. For further information about sending email correspondence refer to the Emailing Correspondence article.
Once you have sent an SMS or printed/emailed a reminder you will be prompted to either mark the recall as completed (in instances when it's not a reoccurring recall or to assign the next due date to the recall in instances where it's a repeating one (e.g. the recall is set to occur every 6 months). Selecting OK will allow Genie to automatically perform this task. Cancelling the prompt will leave the recall remaining as pending.
To print the Recalls list, click on the Printer button. If you would like to only print a selection of records displayed in Recalls Due, highlight the required records, and go to Records > Use Selected from the menus above the Recalls window. This will remove from display any non highlighted records, allowing you to just print the selection.
Clicking the Printer button will open a pre-existing Quick Report template allowing you to print all the details contained in the Recalls Due (e.g. Due Date, Patient, Pt Phone, Reason, etc). If you do not want to make any edits, you can simply click on the Print button and the list will print.
If you do wish to add some extra fields, simply select the Columns tab and drag any references from Database Fields to Report Columns. When you're happy with the details included, select Print.
If you have accepted the prompt to reassign the recall then you will receive a further prompt asking if you wish to 'flag' the patient's record. By flagging a patient's record they will be added to a Flagged Patients list so you can ensure they have indeed booked their follow up appointment. It also means each time you open that patient's clinical record you will receive a prompt to let you know the patient has been recalled but is yet to be seen.
Comments
2 comments
The behaviour of your print merged letter template and send sms buttons on the recall page is inconsistent. Merged letters will be printed for the selected recalls, while the send sms will always try and send to everyone in the current list, whether selected or not.
To send SMS recalls to selected patients you have to go through the extra records/use selected menu option, but this seems totally unnecessary if the send sms button just worked the way it logically should and in a similar fashion to the print merged letter template button.
Hi Paul Aitkenhead, thanks for your comment. We are updating the Recalls list in the upcoming Genie release to be a 64-bit compatible list, which means the bulk SMS and merged letter functions will both work off only the records selected. This means it will no longer try to SMS everyone in the list and you won't need to use the Records > Use Selected feature either. You'll simply need to highlight the appropriate records!