It’s a Tuesday in July. Half the schedule is on vacation. The front desk is quiet. Everybody nods. And that’s the whole plan.
So let me ask you straight. Who actually went quiet this spring?
The maintenance patient who was biweekly in March and hasn’t been in since tax day.
The mom who finished feeling better in April and never booked the next one.
The guy who missed one visit in May, felt weird about it, and never called back.
You’re not thinking about them yet. I get it.
But those patients aren’t gone. They’re at 50 to 80 days, the easiest they will ever be to bring back, and that clock runs on their calendar, not yours.
Why is a patient gone 75 days the easiest one to get back?
A patient gone 75 days isn’t lost. They’re in the easiest window you’ll get all year. They meant to call. Life got busy, the visit slipped, and now it feels like a thing. It isn’t. Not yet.
Sixty to 90 days inactive is the reactivation sweet spot. These are the most doable names on your entire list, because they still think of themselves as your patients. Nothing about the relationship has ended. It’s just gone quiet.
Try this: Pull everyone last seen in April or May into one list this week. Names on paper. That’s the whole job.
If the list itself is a mess, start with last week’s post on cleaning up your chiropractic mailing list.
Why does patient reactivation get harder every week you wait?
Every week you wait, coming back gets harder. Not for you. For them.
Your calendar says handle it in the fall. Their clock is running now. “I should reschedule” turns into “it’s been too long” turns into “I’d have to start over.” Same patient, three different phone calls, and only the first one is easy.
Try this: Have your front desk work that list this week. No guilt. “No worries, life happens. I’ve got Tuesday at 3 or Thursday at 10, which works better?”
When should you send a “we miss you” message to lapsed patients?
Now, while the spring names are still inside the window. The same “we miss you” message costs nothing today and works twice as hard.
At day 70 it reads like a friend checking in. At day 160 the same words read like a business that noticed a hole in the schedule. Nothing about the message changed. The patient did.
Try this: Send one warm reconnect to the April and May names before month end. Not a promo. A check-in.
If you want the actual words, we broke down how to write chiropractic reactivation emails that feel human, and why reactivation postcards usually miss the same patients email brings back.
What this means for you
- ✅The patients who slipped this spring still think of themselves as your patients
- ✅Every quiet week makes that call back feel heavier on their end, not yours
- ✅A list of April and May names and one warm touch is the whole play
- ✅September isn't a plan, it's a delay with a price on it
Pro Tip: Have your front desk start with the newest names on the list, the day 60 crowd, and work backward. Those are the easiest yeses, and two quick yeses in a row is what gets the whole list actually called.
Chiro Connect builds the list, writes the words, and sends them for your clinic. Every month a real person hands you the names of patients ready to come back. Not a dashboard. 50 to 70% of the patients on our client lists open an email from their chiropractor every month, so the reconnect actually gets seen.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should a chiropractor wait before reaching out to a patient who stopped coming in?
Don’t wait for a milestone. Sixty to 90 days after their last visit is the reactivation sweet spot. Inside that window the patient still thinks of themselves as yours, and one warm message is usually all it takes.
What should a patient reactivation message say?
Keep it warm, keep it guilt free, and offer two specific times. “No worries, life happens. I’ve got Tuesday at 3 or Thursday at 10, which works better?” The specific times do the heavy lifting because they turn a vague someday into a small decision.
Is a patient who’s been gone six months still worth contacting?
Yes, and you should. Just know the same message lands differently at day 160 than it does at day 70, so responses drop. Reach the spring names now, while a check-in still reads like a check-in.
Why do chiropractic patients stop coming in?
Usually it’s operational, not philosophical. A missed visit that never got rescheduled, a “feeling better” phase with no next step on the calendar, a quiet stretch nobody worked. Patients don’t leave because they stopped believing in care. They drift because nothing pulled them back.
Inside CC with Nerissa: I Wore Mammaw’s Sweatpants to the 250th. They’ve Earned It.
Dusk on the Fourth of July. America’s 250th birthday. I’m in the backyard waiting on fireworks, laptop open in my lap.
I’ve worked my ass off to get here, and working even harder is what’s building Chiro Connect. So yeah, the laptop came too. 💻
Greg looks over and says, “You bringing Mammaw’s sweatpants out tonight?” Claude too, I told him.
If you’ve been here a while, you already know about Mammaw’s sweatpants. They’ve been around since before I was born. They were around for America’s 200th.
They’re still the best lounge pants I own. I’m not being cute. I own newer ones. Nicer ones, technically. I reach for these.
And they’ve made their way down the family line. I think every member of my family has worn these pants at least once. Even Greg.
So that was the scene. A pair of sweatpants older than me, an AI on my lap, and fireworks about to go up over the same country that watched both of those things get invented fifty years apart. 🇺🇸
We actually took a couple days off this week. First real break in months. And I mean months.
The 7am to 10pm, seven days a week kind of months. Our bodies very much appreciated the treat. Turns out when you stop, everything hurts a little, and that’s how you find out you needed to stop.
But here’s the part I have to confess. The laptop still came outside with me.
Not because anything was on fire. Not because a client needed something. Fable was back, and it was too fun not to build something. I sat in the backyard on a holiday, voluntarily, building software for the fun of it. I was the loudest objector on all of this. Now I’m the one who can’t put it down. The week itself was honestly a blur. We finished a pile of stuff. Started building the masterclass. Used Fable to build our team a custom business management software. Not bought. Built. For us, by us, shaped around how we actually work.
Then we sat down and watched the sky.
We took it easy and still got a ton done. I keep turning that one over. For most of my working life those two things could not exist in the same week. Taking it easy meant falling behind. Getting a ton done meant burning. Something about what we’ve built finally lets both be true at once, and I don’t fully trust it yet.
Greg spent part of the break perfecting his Old Fashioned. And I mean perfecting. The smoker, the cherry wood chips, the big ice ball, the cork, the whole ceremony laid out on the counter like a surgical tray. 🥃 He’s been practicing for a while now and he’s got the recipe and the technique down. It’s pretty damn good. I’m sure it will only keep getting better, because that’s how he is with everything. He doesn’t dabble. He drills.
But the sweatpants are the part that stuck with me.
Those sweatpants have been quietly showing up for fifty years, on every person in my family who needed them. Nobody ever looked up at them. Nobody applauded. They just kept being there, and that’s the entire reason they matter.
That’s the whole thing, isn’t it. The loud stuff gets the attention. The steady stuff is what’s still here. Your patients aren’t waiting on fireworks from you. They’re waiting on you to keep showing up.
If Mammaw’s sweatpants make it to the 300th, I hope somebody’s wearing them in a backyard with whatever the laptop is by then. 🇺🇸
Your Week of Wellness
We include this wellness calendar in every Chiro Connect newsletter. It gives patients something to check and use through the week, and a reason to open the email. Want it going out for your clinic? See real chiropractic patient newsletter examples we send for client practices.
This post started life as a Chiro Courier issue. If you’d rather get next week’s in your inbox, that’s the Chiro Courier.
