Contents
Introduction
The Basic Recall System
Basic Recall Workflow
Advanced Recall Workflow
The Patient Recall Screen
The Recall List Screen
The Recall Automation Wizard
Recall Status Codes
Recall Forms
Basic SMS and Email forms
HTML Email Forms
EasyPost Forms
Re-activating Recalls
Recall Analysis Report

Introduction

The Oasis Practice Management System has had a recall component since the very first version. Although fairly basic and dependant on user intervention, it allowed practices to associate a date and status code to each patient for the purposes of recalling them to the practice at the date nominated. Initially by letter or phone call, as communication methods changed, the system also provided for email and SMS messages.
The earlier systems were very much hands-on. When a patient visited the practice, usually after invoicing the patient, the system would prompt the user to recall the patient. They could do so by selecting the default recall time and status for the recall type, or for the individual patient. Oasis would then create a recall record for the patient in the file PRRCLMAS (Recall Master File).
The practice could then load a Recall List screen and it would display all patients that were due for a recall between nominated dates. From the list, the practice could produce a letter/email/SMS for each of the patients and send them. They then could either update the recall list or leave it as is. The update process would then "move" the patients forward by a number of months and change their status code to indicate they had been recalled initially. Many practices would send follow-up recalls using different wording for subsequent recalls.
If the practice updated their recalls, they would only need to list recalls at the beginning of the month and they would see all initial recall patients in the list, together with follow-up recall patients, separated by their status codes.
If the practice elected not to update their recalls, they would then have to go back to previous months to see any recall patients that had not returned to the practice.
If the practice follows procedure, they would update the patients recall records as they re-attend at the time of their subsequent attendance.
As this system was largely manual and dependent on staff creating recall records, modifications were made to Oasis allow item codes billed through the invoicing system to trigger a recall automatically. For example, when you invoiced item 012 (Periodic Oral Examination), it would trigger a six-month recall for the patient without staff having to worry about recalling the patient themselves.
Later developments in Oasis have now automated the recall process, making use of email, SMS and EasyPost.

The Basic Recall System

Recall Types
Oasis supports nine recall types stored in a Recall Names table.
In a typical Dental practice, recall type 1 would be a Dentist Recall and recall type 2 would be a Hygienist Recall. There are an additional seven types of recall that could be configured (e.g. tooth whitening, Extraction review etc.).
Recall Status Codes
Recall status codes associate a patient's recall to a type of contact. For example, "T" for Telephone, "L" for Letter, "S" for SMS and "E" for email.
Recall Dates
Each patient can have one recall date for each recall type. They could therefore have up to nine different recall dates.
Recall Forms
Recall forms can be either an Oasis form used to generate the text of the recall message, whether by SMS, Email or EasyPost letter or a word processing document used to manually process recalls.
Family Structures
Where you configure Oasis as a family practice, you can direct recalls to an individual patient or to a family head where the patient is a minor. Combined recalls allow for one communication where all family members are due on the same date. In specialist practices, you can send the recall to the person responsible for the payment of accounts in place of the actual patient, or to the patient themselves.
Patient Recall Screen
You use the patient recall screen to update recall records for patients. You can configure it to display when you invoice a patient, or you can select it from the Icon Toolbar at any time.
Recall List
You use the Recall List screen to list all patients that are due for a recall between two dates (usually todays date and 30 days hence). You can change these dates to reflect any future or past period. The listing screen allows the user to filter based on Usual Doctor, Recall Type, Status Code, and can suppress the display of patients with future appointments, Inactive Patients or patients with incomplete Treatment Plans.
Exit Workflow
You can collect patient recall data using the Patient Exit Workflow feature in Oasis. Patient Exit Workflow identifies where patients are missing certain pieces of information - incomplete invoices/payments, no future appointments, no recall, no email or mobile phone numbers etc.

Basic Recall Workflow

In a practice using the manual recall system, the workflow is as follows:

1. Patient makes an appointment in the Appointment Scheduler.
2. Patient attends practice for treatment.
3. Following treatment, an invoice is raised for the patient
4. On raising and posting the invoice, the system prompts the reception staff to create a recall for the patient. (Optionally, the system creates the recall when you invoice a specific item code).
5. Patient leaves the practice.
6. Six months later, practice staff access the Recall List screen and process recalls for the current month.
7. A recall is generated for the patient (either letter, SMS message or email).
8. Practice updates recall records (or leaves them as they were).
9. Patient responds to recall by booking an appointment in the appointment scheduler.
10. Back to item 2 above and the cycle repeats itself.

That is the basic recall workflow.

Advanced Recall Workflow

Where a practice requires full recall automation, they normally adopt the SOE recommended recall model. This model uses seven different contact points for recalling patients and is known to improve recall effectiveness

Given the Best Practice Recall Schedule, Oasis developed an automated recall process that follows the best practice schedule above.
This new way of handling recalls has necessitated the development of three new features in Oasis.
Recall Wizard
We created a Recall Wizard to make the setup of the automated process as easy as possible. Following the best practice has made the Oasis Recall system rather complicated and the wizard ensures users are able to automate their recalls with the minimum of effort.
Re-Activate Recalls
In addition to the recall wizard, we developed a new utility program to allow practices to "re-activate" recalls when they were not actively using the recall system.
Intelligent Recalls
We changed the program code to allow patient contact methods to change if any contact detail is missing. For example, if they are due for an email recall but do not have an email address, the system will switch them to the next contact method automatically.
In a practice using the automated recall system, the workflow is rather different:

1. Patient makes an appointment in the Appointment Scheduler.
2. Patient attends practice for treatment.
3. Following treatment, an invoice is raised for the patient.
4. On posting the invoice, the system updates the patient's recall to the first contact status as per the best practice recall schedule.
5. Patient leaves the practice.
6. Six months later, Oasis generates an SMS recall for the patient and updates their recall to an email recall in a month's time. (If the patient does not have a mobile phone number, they immediately update to an email message – if no email address, they will have a letter generated).
7. A month after the initial recall, if the patient has not make an appointment, an email is sent to the patient. (If they still have no email address, they are changed to SMS – if no SMS, they will be updated to letter).
8. A month after the second recall attempt, if the patient has still not made an appointment, a letter is sent.
9. Six months after the third attempt, another attempt is made as per the best practice schedule.
10. 12 months after the fourth attempt, 12 months after the fifth attempt and 12 months after the sixth attempt, the system will continue to send recall reminders as per the best practice schedule.
11. If at any time in this process, the patient makes an appointment, the system will re-set them back to point 1 above and the process will start over.

This represents a somewhat more complex scenario.
The benefit of this this method is that it is hands-free for the practice. Oasis takes care of all the communication between the practice and the patient about recalls. It even links to the Oasis On-Line Booking system so that patients can make their recall appointments on-line.

The Patient Recall Screen

To manage the recall system manually, you use the Patient Recall Screen to assign a date and status to each recall type for the patient. In a family practice, the whole family displays on the recall screen.

The columns at the right represent each of the recall types. The example above shows Doctor and Hygienist recalls. To recall the patient using their default recall type, click the Patient Recall option at the top of the screen. To recall the whole family, use the Family Recall option.
You can click on the row and column for the patient / recall type and select the Edit Recall option. This will allow you to assign a recall that may be different to the patient's default recall.

The Recall List Screen

The Recall List screen displays a list of patients due for a recall between two defined dates. You also use this screen to manually process recalls.

The illustration above shows some recalled patients and some yet to receive a recall. The ones shown in magenta were processed and the ones in black/grey are yet to be processed.

At the top left of the form is the area for setting filters for the Recall List screen. Starting with the date range at the left, then recall type, status code, and doctor. Using these filters, you could select all patients due for a Doctor Recall by letter for Doctor 0001 between 01-01-2017 and 31-01-2017. You can then use the Letter/Email/SMS/Label options to process the appropriate recall method.
Once processed, you would then use the Update option to update the recall record to the next status code and date. (Some practices do not use the update option and leave the recalls as is). The update option reads the update code for the patient's current recall status code and applies it.

The Recall Automation Wizard

From the System Manager icon, select the Wizards option and then the Recall Automation option.

The introductory screen of the automation wizard displays. It outlines the pre-requisites to running the wizard. They are:

1. Communications Server (CX) registration in Oasis.
2. SMS message carrier (Message Media preferred) account and credits.
3. Administrative rights on the computer that will be processing the recalls, as the processing makes use of the Windows Scheduler and appropriate rights to run scheduled tasks must be in place.
4. Optionally, an EasyPost account for EasyPost communication.

Once you meet all the pre-requisites, click the Start button to begin the 9-step setup process.
Step 1

On the first wizard panel, you will be able to select which recall type you want to set up. Oasis supports nine different recall types and you will have to repeat the wizard for each of the types. In the example above, there are two recall types – Doctor and Hygienist.
At this point, select the recall type from the list.
There is an optional tick box to signify the use of EasyPost. If ticked, the wizard will assume EasyPost is in use and create EasyPost template forms for use with the Letter status codes.
Click Next to continue.










Step 2

The next panel is for entering your Communications Server details.
The left side of the screen is for email settings and the right side is for SMS settings. If you already use email and SMS, your details display on this panel. If not, you will need to complete the information before proceeding. Once you enter all the information (asterisk indicates compulsory fields), click Next to continue.












Step 3

This panel allows you to manipulate the "Best Practice Recall Schedule" if required. The schedule shown is compliant with the SOE Best Practice Schedule, but you may want to vary the schedule. You can remove contacts if you do not want to have seven attempts. Remember to make sure you do not use the same communication preference under the same contact. If you are happy with the configuration, click Next to proceed.











Step 4

This panel allows the user to define and assign forms and templates to the various contact attempts. You may not want to send the same message each time you contact the patient.

If you click the radio button beside one of the SMS/Email forms, this window displays, allowing you to enter text and embedded database fields.

If you click a radio button beside a "Letter" form, this window displays, allowing you to select a design button to design a postcard or letter, based on your selection at the right.

Clicking the Design button will display the EasyPost designer where you can create a new postcard.
Oasis paragraph forms are stored as .rtf files in the Oasis\template folder. They have text and any embedded database field information in them, used to construct emails and SMS messages. The EasyPost forms are stored as .vpd files. You can create these forms through the wizard, or create/edit using the Oasis Preferences menus. HTML email forms are also stored in the oasis\template folder.
Once the appropriate forms have been assigned to the contacts/preferences, click Next to continue.
Step 5

You use this panel to configure the Windows Scheduler. Recall automation relies on a batch file that executes processes within Oasis and it runs at an appropriate time during the day. Windows credentials should allow the task to be scheduled and to have the task run indefinitely. In some situations, user's passwords expire and this stops the scheduler from executing the processes that drives recall automation.
We recommend running the process using the Weekly setting as you can then define specific days within the week rather than Daily where the process must run each day (including weekends). We also recommend running it within business hours as sending SMS messages outside business hours may be inappropriate.
You can elect not to use the wizard to set up the scheduler. If you choose this option, you must have the practice's network administrator schedule the task "recallautomation_A.bat" found in the oasis folder after the wizard completes.






Step 6

You use this panel to determine what will happen to any existing or old recalls in the database. If a practice has been using the old basic method, and not chasing up recall patients, there may well be a significant number of patients with old or forgotten recall dates and status codes.
Note: If you have already run the wizard at the practice, the old recalls will have cleared, and the option of setting a clearance date is suppressed.










Step 7

You can use this panel to change existing status codes to the new automation format. Click the down-arrow corresponding to the old code and select the new code from the drop-down list.
Click Next to continue.











Step 8

This panel allows the selection of exclusions. You can exclude patients with future appointments. You can exclude patients with incomplete treatment. The recall system excludes inactive patients by default.
Click Next to continue.










Step 9

This panel displays the planned changes to the recall status codes. It also signals the end of the wizard as the next panel shows a review of what is going to occur.

Click Setup Now to complete the wizard.

On completion of the wizard, Oasis displays a message reiterating the fact that the automated process is dependent on the automation batch file running on a regular basis.
You should ensure that there is a USER 9000 defined for both SMS and Email workstation settings, as the automation process runs under user 9000. You will see updates in the database that refer to AUTLOGIN (User 9000).

Recall Status Codes

The recall wizard relies on a number of recall status codes to be effective. In the past, it was sufficient to have single character codes for recalls – S (for SMS), E (for email), L (for letter) and T (for telephone). If you wanted to have follow-up recalls then you could have S1, S2, S3, and so on for each of the codes.
With the introduction of the recall wizard, and the fact that you can have up to nine different recalls with up to seven contact attempts, the status codes have had to change to allow for all the available options. The new recall system makes use of alphanumeric codes to allow for all possibilities. S1A now represents "S" for SMS, "1" for the first contact attempt and "A" for the first recall type. You can now have S1A, S1B, S1C, S1D, S1E, S1F, S1G, S1H, S1I. Most practices will only use A and B as their recall types.
You can also assign each recall status code an update code and switching codes that allow the system to switch the code if the patient is missing a mobile phone number or email address.
The wizard takes care of setting up all of the codes when it runs.
However, users can review the codes by selecting Preferences, My Money, Recall Status Codes.

In this example, S1A has an update code of S2A (at 365 days) and switching codes of E1A/L1A if no mobile/email address available.

Recall Forms

The Oasis Recall system makes use of various forms for generating recall communications. The forms can be internal Oasis forms used for SMS and Email communications, or Word Processing letter templates used to generate letters, or they can be in the form of EasyPost letters and postcards. The wizard allows the user to create or edit some of these forms, but it is useful to know where you can modify these forms within the application if required.

Basic SMS and Email forms

To modify forms used for SMS and Email communications, select Preferences, My Money, Recalls Merge Forms.

Click the form you wish to modify, and select the ""Edit Document"" option. This will load a paragraph editor screen where you can modify an existing form.
To create a new form, select the New option and enter the details for the form – starting with a unique number between 1 and 99. When you click OK to save the new form, the paragraph editor screen will open by default and allow entry of the text for the new form.

Note: At the right of the form is a list of available merge fields. Scroll down to find the Recall fields.
When creating or editing merge forms, it is important to be aware that SMS messages typically are restricted to 160 characters (per SMS credit). If you practice is restricted to a single SMS credit per SMS message then you must make sure the message text does not exceed the 160 characters (and this includes the practice name in the message). Email messages are not subject to restriction, but are text-only when using the paragraph editor.

HTML Email Forms

Oasis does allow the use of HTML forms for emailing recalls. These forms are slightly more complicated to set up, but they can look professional with logos, pictures and links incorporated into them.
As this document is not a detailed HTML instruction manual, it only shows the standard HTML forms supplied with a generic Oasis database. To modify one of the HTML forms used with Oasis, select Preferences, My Money, Recalls Merge Forms and select the form 11.

In the Link Template Name field, you should see RCALL1. This builds the link between a normal merge form and a HTML template form accessed through the Correspondence options.
Now select Preferences, My Money, Correspondence, Document Templates. Select RCALL1 and then select Edit Document.

This will open the Oasis HTML Editor where you can make changes to the HTML form.

EasyPost Forms

In addition to standard paragraph and HTML forms, Oasis also offers EasyPost as an option. EasyPost forms are usually either a letter or a postcard. Again, you can create basic EasyPost forms using the wizard, but you can also modify them using the Oasis application if required.
You can create EasyPost documents using the Oasis Forms Editor program. They are of type ".VPD" and have a link to an EasyPost template name.

In this example, you link the form OARCL01.VPD to EasyPost template EPTEMPLHE01. To modify this form, click the form name and select the Edit Document option. This will open the Oasis Forms Editor (EasyPost Designer).

You will notice there are blocked out areas on the form. These are for window-faced envelopes for the addressee and the return address. Graphics and text boxes can be added to the form where required. They cannot overlap the block-out areas.

Text boxes can have embedded field data from the list at the right of the editor form.
Postcards have different restrictions and are two-sided. You edit them in the same way.

Re-activating Recalls

Where a practice has decided to implement the automated recall process, it may be necessary to reactivate recalls not processed for some time. To facilitate this, there is a Reactivate Recall process included in the Oasis Utility program. To make use of this feature, open the Utility program and select Other, Reactivate Recalls. This will present you with the following screen:

This screen will list patients that currently have no recall on the system and have a "last Visit" date after the date field at the top of the form. At the bottom left, you will see a count of the patients that have no recall. If you adjust the date, click the Refresh button to re-list the patients from the new date. The screen allows you to nominate a status code for the recalls, or you can allow the system to allocate the code based on whether the patient has a mobile phone number, email address or postal address. You can elect to "stagger" the recalls so they do not all fall due on the one date by using the "Spread Over" and "Random" option. You can also nominate any "No Recall" status codes for exclusion from the reactivation process. You can also exclude patients with future appointments.

In the above screen, the recall type has been chosen, the Ctrl A key has been held down to select all patients in the list and the Create key has become highlighted as you can now reactivate the recalls for the 98 patients selected. You could select individual patients by using the Ctrl key and mouse to select them. The selected count at the bottom left would indicate the number of patients selected.
Clicking Create will assign all the patients in the list with a recall spread over future dates in the next six months and using the most appropriate recall status for each.

Recall Analysis Report

The Recall Analysis Report shows recall effectiveness following recall automation.
The report can show individual patient recall history, or overall recall effectiveness.

The report parameter window allows you to select a doctor or contiguous range of doctors, start date / end date, recall type/s and status code/s.
You can optionally have the report as detailed across many patients or run specifically for the currently selected patient. You can select the recall method / sort order for the report.

The sample above shows only two recalls in the nominated period, with an effectiveness of 50% as only one of the recalled patients made an appointment.
NOTE: The Recall Analysis Report will only show results for data post 11.8 upgrade. It is not retrospective on pre-11.8 data as it makes use of the new database table PRRCLLOG.