How Advanced Chiropractic, a two-site MSK practice in Essex, turned recall and reactivation into a lead channel that, in peak months, books more appointments than its new-patient intake.
A short walk-through from Dr Elliott on what changed.
The clinic's chiropractic assistants were responsible for recall, but in practice those calls were always deprioritised. Reaching out to patients across a busy reception isn't practical, so the list slipped to the end of the day, then the end of the week. Many patients were never contacted.
The practice had previously adopted a standalone reminder tool. It could send generic email reminders, but the team had no visibility into whether any of it was working. The messages were minimal — a basic email and an SMS line — with no personalisation and no structured follow-up.
The patients who had lapsed were the easiest to bring back. They already knew the clinic and already trusted it. They simply needed a genuine conversation.
Our existing patients know and trust us already. They're our perfect patient avatar. We just didn't have time to engage them.
Recall and reactivation are now run end to end as a managed service. The assistants no longer carry it. Calls, messages, and follow-ups all sit outside the clinic walls, delivered under Advanced Chiropractic's own voice and branding.
The shift was in how patients are spoken to. Generic templates gave way to personalised conversations that reference the patient's history, their last visit, and their reason for coming in. And the channels widened to meet patients on the channel they prefer — WhatsApp, SMS, email, and voice — selected per patient based on what they respond to.
There is a quieter benefit, too. Clinicians gain an air gap: they focus on care while a third party handles the conversation. Patients will often share feedback with that third party they wouldn't raise with the practitioner directly, which is exactly the insight the clinic wants to see.
From August 2025 to May 2026, the programme generated over 1,000 appointments for Advanced Chiropractic, across first, second, and third bookings. That last point matters: a reactivated patient doesn't return once. They return into a programme of care.
One month saw a 59% year-on-year increase in six-month reactivations. In most months, the effect compounds steadily. And in recent months, reactivation bookings have exceeded the clinic's new-patient bookings, by up to 2.6× in March 2026.
Advanced Chiropractic was running on four separate payment systems: GoCardless for direct debits, Stripe for online payments, WorldPay on the card terminal, and a fourth tool for in-clinic add-ons. Each one did its job. None of them spoke to each other.
The bigger problem sat above all that. Memberships, recurring direct debits, custom billing rules: Dr Elliott didn't want the front desk team to have access to those systems, so he set up every one himself. The back office was built on the kitchen table after the children went to bed.
The payment stack was consolidated. Card terminal payments, payment links, phone-based payments, one-off invoices, and recurring direct debits now run from a single payment hub under Advanced Chiropractic's account.
Two pieces matter most. First, the front desk can now safely set up membership and recurring plans themselves. The customisations that used to need the owner's hands now happen at the front desk, the moment the patient signs up. Second, payments are tagged by location. Chelmsford and Maldon settle to the same account but report separately, something the previous providers couldn't natively do.
Behind that sits service: a Coherent response on any payment issue inside five minutes during clinic hours.
The consequence is, you actually make it home for dinner. I'm not spending my evenings doing payment admin any more.
Six months in, the team size hasn't changed — but what the team can prioritise has. The assistants aren't carrying a recall worklist they were never set up to work. The front desk runs payments and patient flow without a four-tool juggling act. And the owner isn't doing membership admin at 10pm.
In its place sits a single system: one recall engine, one payment platform, one source of truth. And a clinic where the existing patient base, for the first time, is treated like the lead source it always was.
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