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Which feature do I need? Recalls, Reminders Plus, Communicate, Outreach or Forms

Several Healthengine features do similar-sounding things, and the right one depends on what you are trying to achieve and whether your practice is medical or dental. Here is how to tell them apart.

Recalls — for GP, medical and allied health practices. Recalls works from the clinical recalls already recorded in your practice management system and contacts those patients for you. Because it reads recalls from your practice management system, there is no CSV or patient-list upload in Recalls.

Reminders Plus — SMS reminders for an appointment that is already booked. This is different from a clinical reminder inside Recalls: Reminders Plus is about an upcoming booking, while a Recalls reminder is about a patient who is overdue or due for follow-up. If you are asking about the message a patient gets before their appointment, you want Reminders Plus.

Communicate — general SMS to a list of patients you upload yourself. Use Communicate when the group you want to contact is not a clinical recall cohort from your practice management system — for example a practice closure, a flu clinic, or a change to your opening hours.

Dental Outreach — for dental practices. You export a patient list as a CSV from your practice management system and upload it, and Outreach contacts those patients by SMS. This is the dental equivalent of a recall campaign, and it is the feature dental practices usually mean when they say "recalls".

Forms — three different features share this word:

  • New Patient Forms — intake details collected from a patient who is new to your practice.
  • Pre-Screening Forms — questions asked during online booking, before the appointment is confirmed.
  • Custom Forms — forms you build yourself, in Practice Admin under Forms > Custom Forms.

Common mix-ups

  • "I want to recall a list of patients I've exported." For a medical practice, that is Communicate rather than Recalls — Recalls works from the recalls in your practice management system, not from an uploaded list. For a dental practice, that is Dental Outreach.
  • "Can I turn off reminders?" Check which one: appointment reminders are Reminders Plus, and follow-up messages to overdue patients are part of Recalls.
  • "I want to set up outreach." For a medical practice this is usually Communicate or Recalls; for a dental practice it is Dental Outreach.
  • "How do I add a question to my form?" The answer depends on which form — new-patient intake, booking pre-screening, or a custom form you have built.

Not sure which one you need?

Tell us which practice management system you use and what you are trying to achieve, and we will point you to the right feature. Availability differs between practice management systems, so it is worth confirming before you set something up.