Recare (recall)

Recare, also called recall, is both the interval at which a patient is due for their next preventive visit and the practice's system for tracking and actually acting on that due date: the reminder calls, texts and letters that turn "due in six months" into a booked appointment rather than a fact sitting quietly in the software. A recare system that only exists on paper, with nobody actually working the list, is functionally no recare system at all.

The traditional default interval is six months, though the actual right interval for a specific patient depends on their individual periodontal and caries risk: a low-risk adult may do fine at twelve months, while a higher-risk patient may need more frequent monitoring than the standard default provides. The research behind the six-month convention is worth understanding on its own terms rather than treated as a fixed rule that applies identically to every patient.

A strong reappointment rate at checkout is what keeps the recare list from growing faster than the team can work it; a weak one turns recare into a permanent, expensive cleanup project chasing patients who should never have needed a special reactivation call in the first place.