Recover unscheduled dental plans with recall follow-ups via Sheets, Calendar, Gmail, and DeepSeek

Every practice has a list of treatment plans a patient accepted and then never booked. This workflow takes those plans from a short form, blocks duplicates, writes a checked personal recall email, logs it, books a front desk call for high value plans, and keeps following up every week until the patient books or the office manager steps in.

Last updated: November 2026.

Quick Overview

The front desk logs an accepted but unbooked treatment plan on an n8n Form. Incomplete entries bounce back to the front desk, and a plan already open in the ledger for the same patient and treatment is not recalled twice. The plan is scored high, medium or low from value and age, a DeepSeek agent writes the recall, and a Code check confirms length, treatment name, that every dollar amount matches the plan, and that no named doctor signs it. Passing emails are sent and logged to the Google Sheets ledger with the Gmail message id. Weak drafts and failed sends are logged with their own status and emailed to the office manager. High priority plans book a 20 minute Google Calendar call. A weekday lane sends up to two follow-ups seven days apart, then hands the patient to the office manager.

How it works

1. The form collects patient name and email, treatment, value, insurance remaining, date presented and notes. Normalize Intake works out days open and whether the entry is complete.
2. Incomplete entries email the front desk with what is missing. Nothing goes to the patient.
3. Check Open Plan Duplicate reads the ledger. The same email and treatment with a status other than scheduled or declined is skipped, and the front desk is told which plan id already exists.
4. The plan is scored: high at 1000 USD or 45 days open, medium at 500 USD or 21 days, otherwise low. DeepSeek writes a 90 to 130 word recall.
5. Check Recall Quality holds drafts that are too short or long, skip the treatment, mention an amount not on the plan, use long dashes or name a doctor. Held drafts are logged and emailed to the office manager.
6. Passing recalls are sent with retries and appended with outreach_status recall email sent, recall_count 1 and the message id. A send failure is logged as send failed and the manager is alerted.
7. High priority plans email the office manager and book a call at 09:00 the next day.
8. Each weekday at 09:00 the follow-up lane picks plans still waiting after seven days. Recalls two and three go out as a short follow-up. After three, the manager gets a call request and the status becomes call needed. Every step updates the ledger by plan_id.
9. Each morning at 08:30 the backlog digest leaves out scheduled and declined plans and lists the rest with their status.

Setup

1. Connect Gmail, Google Sheets and Google Calendar.
2. Add recall_count and message_id columns to the Treatment Ledger tab next to the existing ones, and keep plan_id unique.
3. Add an OpenAI-compatible credential pointing at DeepSeek on both model nodes.
4. Replace [email protected] with the front desk and office manager addresses.
5. Ask the front desk to set outreach_status to scheduled or declined when a patient answers, so follow-ups stop.
6. Submit a test plan, then run the follow-up lane by hand once.

Quick Answers

How many emails does a patient get?
At most three: the first recall and two follow-ups, each at least seven days apart. After that the office manager is asked to call instead.

What stops a wrong price from reaching a patient?
The quality check compares every dollar amount in the email with the plan value, remaining benefit and patient share. Anything else holds the draft for the office manager.

What if the same plan is submitted twice?
The ledger is checked on patient email and treatment first. An open match is skipped and the front desk gets the existing plan id.

When does a plan count as high priority?
At 1000 USD or more, or when it has been open 45 days or more. High priority plans also get a booked call.

Additional info

Built with n8n. Need an assessment on your business? Feel free to reach out at https://khmuhtadin.com/consultation/