Automated reminders get some patients back. A trained person calling the rest gets the chair filled. An EyeCareWorks recall assistant works your overdue list every morning, books directly into your schedule, and costs a flat $10 an hour.
The American Optometric Association's evidence based clinical guideline recommends annual comprehensive eye exams for adults 18 through 64 (AOA, 2023). Patients do not follow it. The federal Healthy People 2030 program reports that 52.5 percent of adults had a dilated eye exam within the past two years as of 2023, which means nearly half had not, even on a two year window (Healthy People 2030, National Health Interview Survey). The Vision Council's consumer survey, as reported by Healio, found 40 percent of respondents had an eye exam within the past year (Healio, 2023).
For a practice, that gap is the recall list: every patient in your database who is past due for the exam your own doctor recommended. It is the highest return administrative task in the building, because these are people who already chose you, and it is reliably the first task dropped when the front desk gets busy. A patient recall service exists to make sure it is never dropped again.
Automated texts work, up to a point. The Cochrane review of mobile phone reminders for healthcare appointments found attendance of 67.8 percent with no reminder and 78.6 percent with a text message reminder, a relative increase of 14 percent (Cochrane, CD007458). That leaves one patient in five who received the text and still did not come.
A live conversation moves the number much further. A 2017 study in Psychiatric Services at a Veterans Affairs facility compared reminder outcomes for the same clinic: a 3 percent no-show rate when a person reached the patient directly, 24 percent when the reminder went to voicemail, and 39 percent when nobody answered at all (Psychiatric Services, 2017). The setting was not eye care, but the mechanism is universal: a person on the line can answer the question, handle the objection, and book the appointment in the same call. A text cannot.
Recall is harder than a reminder, because the patient has no appointment yet. The job is to create one. That takes a call, sometimes two, and someone whose morning is not interrupted by the people standing at the desk.
| Factor | Recall software | Pay per booking call service | Recall virtual assistant (EyeCareWorks) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Monthly subscription per location; one optometry recall tool lists $300 a month per location (Jelo) | A fee per appointment booked; one optometry recall service advertises no upfront cost and payment only when an appointment is booked (Oclinicals) | Flat $10 an hour for tracked hours, billed weekly, no contracts |
| Who contacts the patient | Automated texts and emails | A call center agent, different each time | One trained person who works with your practice every day and learns your patients |
| What happens to the exceptions | Unanswered texts sit in the queue | Handled by the vendor's script | Called back, questions answered, benefits checked, booked in the same call |
| Beyond recall | Reminders and reviews | Recall only | Confirmations, phones, insurance verification and front desk backup in the hours that remain |
| Best for | High volume practices that want the first touch automated | Practices that want recall priced by result | Practices that want the whole list worked, daily, by a person on their team |
Most of our practices keep their recall software for the first text and use the assistant for everything the text did not close. The two are not competitors. The software is the net; the assistant is the person pulling it in.
A flat $10 an hour for tracked hours, billed weekly, with no setup fees, no contracts, and a free replacement if the fit is wrong. Many practices start with a part time seat of two or three hours a day, which is enough to work a typical overdue list, and expand the hours when they see the bookings. For comparison, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the May 2025 median receptionist wage at $18.27 an hour before payroll taxes and benefits (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook).
Every assistant holds a HIPAA Certificate of Completion, passes a background check, and signs a Business Associate Agreement directly with your practice before any system access. Work happens over an encrypted remote session into your own practice management system, with individual credentials, multi-factor authentication, and no patient data stored on the assistant's workstation. Calls are placed through your phone system, so your number shows on the patient's phone. The full arrangement is on our HIPAA compliant virtual assistant page.
No contracts. No setup fees. Cancel anytime.
A dedicated person who works your list of patients past due for an exam, by text and live call, and books them directly into your schedule. At EyeCareWorks the recall assistant works inside your own practice management system every day, logs every touch on the patient record, and reports what was booked each week.
Your software sends the first text or email automatically. The assistant handles everyone the text did not close: the live call, the questions, the benefit check, the reschedule, and the patient who never answers a text but always answers a call. Most practices keep the software running and add the person.
It depends on how far the list has fallen behind and how many patients need two calls. Most practices start with two or three hours a day, which works a typical overdue list at a steady pace, and scale the hours when they see the bookings. Hours are tracked and billed weekly, so the schedule can change any week.
Yes. Contact lens exam recalls and annual supply reminders are worked as their own list, and patients 18 to 36 months lapsed get a reactivation campaign with a different script.
They are flagged in your system and removed from every list. Contact is made only through the channels the patient has agreed to, and every touch is logged so you can see exactly who was contacted, when and how.
A flat $10 an hour for tracked hours, billed weekly, with no setup fees and no contracts. A part time schedule scales down in direct proportion. For comparison, one optometry recall tool lists $300 a month per location, and pay per booking services charge a fee for each appointment set.
Every assistant holds a HIPAA Certificate of Completion and signs a Business Associate Agreement directly with your practice. They work over an encrypted session into your own system with individual credentials and multi-factor authentication, and no patient data is stored on their workstation.
A short call to pull the number from your system, agree the script, and set the first week's hours.
