AI Lost to Follow Up

Thousands of patients are overdue for care, and no one has the capacity to bring them back.

Every system carries these lists: the repeat CT for a lung nodule, the colonoscopy after a positive stool test, the cardiac stress test, the behavioral health referral. Completion rates vary by test, but many sit well below half. Closing the loop on an ordered test is a recognized patient-safety obligation, and it is one many organizations are quietly failing.

These patients are easy to identify and hard to reach. Bringing one back takes repeated attempts over months and a conversation that finds the actual barrier and removes it. Staffed with people, that has never been affordable at the size of the list. So the lists sit.

Both sides lose. The patient waits months or years for a diagnosis from a study that was already ordered — among the leading causes of preventable harm and malpractice exposure. The system forgoes revenue on care it already ordered and interpreted.

Capacity was the only thing in the way. In one lung screening program, 5,000 overdue patients were called, 49% accepted a live transfer to scheduling, and roughly 50 cancers were found.