Getting started with Recall & Reminders

This article introduces Recall & Reminders — the part of ELVA that brings patients back automatically. It explains what a recall is, the goals a recall can have, how a recall runs from start to finish, and the first steps to launch your own.

What Recall & Reminders is

Recall & Reminders keeps your schedule full and your patients cared for without anyone on your team dialing patient after patient. It quietly works through your patient list and reaches out at the right moment — by email, text, AI voice call, or a call from your own team — to:

• Bring overdue patients back for their hygiene visit
• Confirm upcoming appointments so fewer people no-show
• Follow up after surgery and complex treatment
• Chase accepted treatment plans that never got booked
• Remind patients about an unpaid balance
• Reactivate patients who haven’t been in for a year or more

You set each of these up once as a recall. After that, it runs on its own, message after message, and you watch the results.

What a recall is

A recall is one complete, automated outreach program. It has three parts:

• A goal — what you want it to achieve (book a visit, confirm an appointment, collect a payment, and so on).
• An audience — which patients it reaches, split into segments (for example “Overdue by 6 months” vs. “Implant patients”).
• A sequence — the timed journey of messages each patient receives until the goal is met.

Once a recall is active, it enrolls matching patients automatically and works through the sequence for each one — moving on the moment a patient does what you hoped (books, confirms, pays), and escalating when they don’t.

The goal types

Every recall has one goal, and the goal shapes everything else — which results it tracks, what its funnel looks like, and the buttons your team sees when they call a patient. There are eight:

• Book appointment — get the patient to schedule a visit (e.g. Hygiene recall).
• Confirm appointment — confirm an already-booked visit so it doesn’t no-show.
• Collect payment — settle an outstanding balance.
• Schedule treatment — get an accepted treatment plan onto the calendar.
• Reactivate patient — win back a lapsed patient.
• Clinical safety — check on a patient after surgery or a complex procedure.
• Collect information — gather forms, history, or onboarding details.
• Engagement — a goodwill touch like a birthday message or a referral ask.

The channels a recall uses

A recall reaches patients across up to four channels, in the order you design:

• Email — a full message with subject and body.
• SMS — a short text, often with a booking link.
• AI voice — an automated phone call handled by Elva.
• Human call — a call your own team makes, with a ready-made script. This is the escalation when the automated steps don’t land.

How a recall fires: scheduled, event, or hybrid

Each recall has a trigger mode that decides when it starts for a patient:

• Scheduled — fires on a schedule against your patient data (for example, every 6 months since the last hygiene visit).
• Event-triggered — fires the moment something happens (an appointment is booked, a balance appears, a patient no-shows).
• Hybrid — the event creates the enrollment, then scheduled steps run from there (for example, booking an appointment kicks off pre-visit reminders that fire a set number of days before).

How a recall runs, end to end

1. You pick or build a recall. Start from the Recall library (a ready-made recall like Hygiene recall) or build a custom one from scratch.
2. You define the audience. In the Audience builder, you describe which patients to reach and Elva turns that into segments, each with a live patient count.
3. You design the sequence. In the Sequence builder, you lay out the journey of messages — which channel, what content, and how long to wait between steps.
4. You review and activate. On the Activate screen you see a one-page summary and any issues to fix, then switch the recall on.
5. It runs. Matching patients are enrolled automatically. Each patient moves through the sequence until they reach the goal or the sequence ends.
6. You watch results. The Recall report shows how this recall is doing; the Dashboard shows the whole picture; Message logs shows every individual message and reply.

A tour of the pages

Here’s where to find things and what each page is for:

• Dashboard — your at-a-glance performance view across every recall: revenue, messages sent, patients reached, top recalls, and recent activity. See Recalls list & Dashboard.
• Recalls — the list of recalls running at your practice, where you switch them on or off and open any one. See Recalls list & Dashboard.
• Library — the catalog of ready-made recalls to start from, plus the option to build a custom one. See Recall library.
• Templates — the reusable message templates (email, SMS, voice, human call) your recalls send. See Template library.
• Message logs — every message and call across channels, with full detail and transcripts. See Message logs.
• Audience builder and Sequence builder — where you define who a recall reaches and what it sends. See Audience builder and Sequence builder.
• Recall report — per-recall results. See Recall report.
• Human call queue — the patients waiting for a personal call from your team. See Human call queue.

Your first steps

You’ll have your first recall live in a few minutes:

1. Open the Library and pick a recall to start — Hygiene recall or Appointment confirmation are the easiest first wins. Click Configure.
2. In the Audience builder, review the suggested segments and adjust who you reach by chatting with Elva. When it looks right, click Confirm audience & next.
3. In the Sequence builder, review the message journey, pick a template for each step, then choose Save & continue.
4. On the Activate screen, read the summary, clear any errors shown, and click Activate.
5. Open the Dashboard and the recall’s Recall report to watch it work.