Your overdue recall list, mailed in three waves with a front-desk call in between, so the card that got ignored last time has a person behind it.
Start FreeA recall run is only as good as what you leave off it. Most of the work happens in the export, before anything mails.
3 waves over 7 weeks, then a 90-day rest before the cycle repeats. Below is exactly what mails when, and why.
Headline: "We Miss Your Smile" · Offer: Free exam & cleaning for returning patients · QR to online booking.
Wave 1 is the warm one, written in the practice's voice. The default supporting bullets are evening and weekend hours, most insurance accepted and judgment-free care, so edit them to match your office. The call script opens by saying it has been a while since the last visit and the office wanted to reach out personally, offers a time this week if the patient is interested, and says there is no pressure if they hesitate.
Headline: "Time Is Running Out" · Offer: Free exam + x-rays, extended to family members · deadline-driven CTA.
Mailed 28 days after Wave 1 to everyone still in the sequence, with a new design and a deadline so it doesn't look like a repeat. The default offer extends the free exam and x-rays to one family member. The second call is shorter ("I wanted to follow up because your special returning-patient offer is expiring soon"), and its answer to a hesitant patient is that most dental benefits reset at the end of the year and don't roll over.
Headline: "Keep Your Smile Healthy" · Offer: Free exam or cleaning, final reminder · "before your file goes inactive" framing.
21 days after Wave 2. Postcard only, no call, and the wording softens to "we'd love to keep your records active" with a final date. The default copy says records may be archived after that date, so change that line if your office doesn't actually archive files. After Wave 3 the contact rests for 90 days before it can be mailed again.
PostKnock doesn't connect to practice software, so the list is always an export that you import. These are the routes our step-by-step guides cover, each checked against the vendor's own help pages.
Reports, then Standard, then Patients - Raw. Filter on Last Visit Date before your cutoff and a PatStatus of Patient, then export .csv. Cross-check against the Recall List's Reactivations tab, which already leaves out anyone with a future appointment or marked Do Not Contact.
Letters & Custom Lists, Inactive Patient category, with a Last Visit Date Range that ends 12 or more months back. Open List Manager, then Open in Excel. Last Visit Date follows the last posted procedure, so a non-visit code can make a lapsed patient look recent.
Reports, Patients, Patient Master. Set Marked As to Patient, Status to Active and a Last Visit Date range ending 12 or more months back, then right-click the preview and Save Data As Excel or CSV. The report doesn't filter out booked patients, so remove them yourself.
The Recare Due Date Report lists patients due or overdue for recare and exports to CSV, which suits a recall card. For patients who have truly lapsed, the guide uses Insights to find those with no next appointment.
Anything else works the same way: run a report of name, address and phone for patients past a last-visit date, save it as Excel or CSV and import it. The review screen counts mailable rows, missing addresses and duplicates before anything is saved. Calls and waves 2 and 3 need Pro.
Most general dental practices have 400–700 patients inactive 12+ months. Here's the math on a 500-patient run through this exact playbook:
22:1 ROI on the first cycle, and the rest period means most reactivated patients re-enter the cycle if they lapse again.
Run your own numbers in the ROI calculator.
Free to explore. You only pay when you're ready to send. 30-day money-back guarantee on your first annual plan.
Single-wave postcard campaigns · Unlimited contacts · From $1.04/piece
Everything in Free + calls, sequencing · From $0.91/piece
Per-piece pricing includes printing + USPS First-Class postage. No hidden fees.
Four starting styles, all themed for a dental practice. The offer and the call follow-up stay the same, so pick the look that fits your brand, or browse the full dental design gallery.
Bold
Photo
Minimal
Gradient
Front Detail
Back (Address Side)
PostKnock recall campaigns also work for
The dental library also has a new patient acquisition playbook and a cosmetic whitening and new-year-smile playbook. See the full lineup on the dental hub.
See all dental campaigns →The playbook is sized for 200 to 800 patients, and daily call volume follows your calling settings. If your overdue list is bigger, split it into two groups and start the second a few weeks after the first, so your front desk isn't buried when wave 1 starts producing calls.
The default for wave 1 is a free exam and cleaning for returning patients. A free first step takes the cost question off the table. Wave 2 adds a deadline and extends the offer to a family member, and wave 3 is a final reminder. Change the offer to whatever your office will honor, and check your state dental board's advertising rules.
The first call is scheduled about 5 business days after the wave 1 card is delivered, and the wave 2 call the same way after that card. That is the default, and you can set it from 1 to 10 business days per campaign. Wave 3 has no call. Each script has four parts: an opening, an if-interested path that offers a time this week, an if-hesitant path with no pressure, and a short close. A call needs a phone number on the contact, and the Call Queue and waves 2 and 3 are Pro features.
The patient's name and address in the address block, your offer, hours, phone number and a QR code to online booking. Leave appointment dates, procedures, balances and anything about their health off the card, because a postcard is readable by anyone who handles it. "It's been a while since your last visit" is about as far as it should go.
Each system has a different route, and four are written up step by step: Open Dental, Dentrix, Eaglesoft and Curve Dental. In every case you save the report as Excel or CSV and import the file, and the wizard auto-maps name, address and phone. PostKnock does not connect to your software.
No. PostKnock doesn't connect to your practice software and doesn't send reminder texts or email. It mails the overdue list you export, so the card is for patients who haven't responded to whatever your office already sends. Export again whenever you want a fresh run; a patient only enters a new cycle when you import them again.
Yes. PostKnock prints and mails dental recall cards in 4×6, 6×9 and 6×11 sizes, with printing and USPS First-Class postage included in the per-card price (from $1.04). The difference from a plain recall card is the built-in 3-wave sequence and the front-desk call that turns a mailed card into a booked appointment.
Stop sending one-off recall cards and hoping. Start running the 3-wave sequence that actually fills your hygiene chair.
Start Free1 ANA (Association of National Advertisers), Response Rate Report 2023, published February 2024.
2 IBISWorld, “Dentists in the US: Number of Businesses,” 2024.