Help Patients with New Year’s Resolutions!

How can healthcare practices bring patients back without relying on New Year’s resolutions?

Bring patients back by creating their follow-up appointments automatically - proactively -instead of waiting for motivation to turn into action. Automated appointment creation reduces scheduling gaps, limits front-desk follow-up and ensures that patients return for care even when resolutions fade.

Why don’t patient resolutions turn into doctors’ appointments?

Good intentions rarely survive busy lives. Every January, patients promise to lose weight, manage chronic conditions, quit smoking, or “finally schedule that visit.” In reality, work schedules, family obligations, financial concerns, and simple forgetfulness kick in.

From an operational standpoint, relying on patients to set up their own appointments creates unpredictable schedules and forces healthcare practice staff into reactive mode. Teams spend time tracking overdue patients, returning phone calls, and filling last-minute schedule gaps - often weeks or even months after care was due. The result is delayed care for patients, unnecessary administrative work for staff, and lost revenue for healthcare practices.

What does automatic appointment creation do for healthcare practices?

Automatic appointment creation shifts practices from reactive scheduling to proactive coordination based on care timelines, making it easier for patients to return. Just as importantly, proactive scheduling improves continuity of care as patients are seen at the clinically appropriate time, supporting better chronic condition management, preventive care adherence, and earlier intervention. Automatic appointment creation also removes friction from the patient experience as care feels organized, and seamless, reducing decision fatigue and reinforcing trust in the practice.

From a business perspective, automated follow-ups protect long-term practice revenue and patient lifetime value. Missed follow-up visits erode revenue over time, especially for practices relying on recurring or preventive care.

With automated workflows, practices can:

• Filter by appointment type or provider
• Reactivate patients not seen within a specific time period or for a specific reason
• Educate patients on the importance of timely appointments and/or care continuity
• Include links to online scheduling or appointment request systems. Make it easy for the patients to make an appointment!
• Generate reports showing patients who still haven’t created a new appointment

Real-world results

Gilbert Pediatrics -a busy pediatric practice in Arizona - started using AutoRemind to automatically create follow-up and well-child appointments. In less than seven months, they scheduled an incredible 936 new appointments.

In conclusion

Automated appointment creation workflows are trackable, embedded into daily operations, and initiated without creating workload for the front-desk teams. The result: full schedules, reduced front-desk interruptions, stronger continuity of care and patient outcomes.

AutoRemind is a leading Patient Engagement and Practice Automation Platform for medical and veterinary practices.