Patient outreach overview

Patient Outreach turns your Open Dental data into prioritized call and text lists, so the production and care that would otherwise slip through the cracks become a worklist someone can actually clear. Instead of digging through reports, you open a list, see exactly who needs a contact attempt today, and log what happened — and the next person picks up right where you left off.

There are four lists, each a button in the top navigation bar — every one is money or care waiting for a phone call or text:

• Overdue Recall — hygiene patients due back who haven’t booked
• Unscheduled Tx — diagnosed treatment never scheduled
• Aging — outstanding claims, pre-authorizations, and patient balances
• Broken Appointments — appointments that fell off the schedule

What you can do

• Work a list — filter to the patients worth calling today, then open each one to make and record a contact attempt.
• Log follow-ups — capture the call/text/email outcome and a one-line note in the follow-up panel; the next attempt date sets itself so nobody starts from zero.
• Save lists — on Overdue Recall and Unscheduled Tx, turn checked patients into a named, reusable saved list the team chips away at over days.
• Text patients — text one patient from their follow-up panel, or save several as a list and send to it as a campaign with delivery reporting and click tracking (see texting from a list).
• Set accountability and goals — assign who owns each list and the daily/weekly/monthly call goals in follow-up settings; progress shows on every list and on Today’s Dashboard.
• Check what got sent — the Recall Reminder Text Report shows every automated recall reminder your practice has sent, for any date range.

When to use which list

• Schedule looking light? Start with Overdue Recall (hygiene patients due back) and Unscheduled Tx (diagnosed work never booked) — that’s where new appointments come from.
• Collections behind? Work Aging — outstanding insurance claims, stalled pre-authorizations, and patient balances, each on its own tab.
• A cancellation or no-show just happened? Broken Appointments surfaces the breaks worth chasing while they’re still fresh and easy to rebook.

Prerequisites & permissions

Admins and Managers see all four list buttons. Employees see none of them by default — a list button appears for an Employee only if they’re named as a responsible person for that list type in Settings (or granted access through the My Account Feature Permissions matrix). Outsourced users (such as external billing teams) see only Aging. So a teammate may see fewer buttons than you do — that’s the permission gating at work, not a missing feature.

How the lists work

Every list follows the same pattern: filter to the patients worth working today, open each patient to log a call, text, or note, and record where things stand in the follow-up panel so the next person doesn’t start from zero. To text a patient you open their follow-up panel (SMS Followup) — there is no “Text” button on a list row. To reach several patients at once, check them, save them as a list, and send to that list as a campaign — see texting from a list.

Each list page also shows a Call Goals panel — daily, weekly, and monthly progress bars with a motivational badge — fed by the goals your office sets in follow-up settings. It’s the visible payoff that turns outreach from “when I have time” into a daily habit, and the same goals appear on Today’s Dashboard.

Saving and reusing lists

On Overdue Recall and Unscheduled Tx you can turn the patients you’ve checked into a named, reusable saved list so the team can chip away at the same group over days. (Aging and Broken Appointments don’t have checkboxes or saved lists.) Accountability, call goals, and follow-up cadence aren’t set per list — they’re configured office-wide per list type in follow-up settings.

Start here

1. Work a list with follow-ups — the rhythm that makes outreach stick
2. Save and reuse focused lists
3. Text patients from a list
4. The patient profile — everything about one patient in one place