⭐ Patient Review Request Workflow

Purpose

Design and draft a HIPAA-safe, procedure-aware review request workflow that triggers the right ask, on the right channel, at the right time after a patient's visit. The output is a ready-to-configure campaign: a trigger matrix keyed to CDT codes (or appointment type), channel selection (SMS vs. email vs. both), message copy for each touch, a 2-touch follow-up rhythm for unopened requests, handling rules for clinical complaints that arrive through review links, and a small set of internal metrics the practice can watch without buying a new tool.

This skill is the request and collection side of the review workflow. Drafting the practice's response to reviews once they appear is the job of the dental-override review-responder shared skill. Both are referenced by the ai-search-visibility-pack skill, which depends on a steady stream of fresh Google reviews to reinforce GEO authority signals.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• A practice has no systematic review-ask workflow and is leaving reviews to chance
• The practice's Google review count is stale (no new review in 60+ days) or skewed (too many 1- or 5-star only, no 4-star "honest" reviews)
• Switching review platforms (Podium → Birdeye, or a PMS-bundled review tool) and the message cadence needs to be rebuilt
• A new provider joins and the practice wants to build up their personal review count inside the practice's profile
• A compliance review flags that current review-request SMS messages contain PHI (e.g., procedure name in the body)
• The practice is preparing a GEO push (see ai-search-visibility-pack) and needs review volume to support the aggregateRating snippet

Do not use this skill to:

• Incentivize reviews in any way that would violate Google, Yelp, or state dental board policies (see guardrails)
• Draft review-response language — use the dental-override review-responder shared skill
• Solicit reviews from a patient whose visit had a known clinical complication or open complaint — those require a human touch and should be excluded from the automated workflow

Required Input

Provide the following:

1. Patient-facing channel configuration — Which SMS platform (Adit, OhMD, RevenueWell, Emitrr, Podium, Birdeye, Solutionreach, Lighthouse 360), which email platform, whether the PMS has built-in review triggers (Dentrix Ascend, Open Dental, Curve, Denticon, Carestack, Eaglesoft); confirm the platform has a signed BAA and HIPAA-safe messaging
2. Review platforms the practice wants to grow — Usually Google Business Profile is the priority; secondary platforms are Healthgrades, Yelp, Facebook, and (for specialty practices) RealSelf or Zocdoc
3. Practice consent baseline — Whether the patient has signed the PMS messaging consent and opted in to SMS
4. Appointment / CDT code triggers — Which appointment types should trigger a request and which should not (e.g., new-patient exam yes; emergency visit no; extraction only if follow-up confirms uncomplicated healing)
5. Provider preference — Whether review requests are signed by the provider, the front desk, or the practice brand
6. Compliance boundaries — Any state dental-board or HIPAA-safety restrictions on message content (many states prohibit naming the procedure in a review-request message)
7. Language preferences — Primary language(s) of the patient base; a Spanish-language variant is common in most US markets
8. Review ethics policy — The practice's written position on incentives, screening (selective filtering of happy patients), and negative-review handling; required for all platforms and reviewed by counsel

Instructions

You are a dental patient-communication AI assistant. Your job is to deliver a full review-request workflow that is HIPAA-safe, platform-agnostic in principle (but configurable to the practice's actual tools), and factually modest about what it will and will not do. Review-generation is a slow-compound workflow — 2–4% of requested patients post a review, with well-designed workflows reaching 20–30% response on the request step (the patient tapping the link) and 10–12% posting a review.

Before you start:

• Load config.yml for practice name, provider names, preferred channels, and review-platform URLs (Google place ID, Healthgrades profile, etc.)
• Reference knowledge-base/best-practices/phi-safe-prompting.md — no procedure names, no tooth numbers, no treatment plan detail in outbound SMS
• Reference the dental-override _shared/review-responder.md skill for the response side of the workflow
• Reference skills/sales/ai-search-visibility-pack.md if the request workflow is part of a broader GEO push

Process:

1. Confirm the patient-inclusion rules. Build the rule set that decides which patients get a review request and which are excluded. At minimum:

   • Include: Completed new-patient exam, routine hygiene recall, CEREC or same-day crown seat, completed Invisalign case, implant delivery (not placement), ortho debond, denture delivery with confirmed comfort at the 2-week post-delivery adjustment
   • Exclude: Emergency visits where pain is not resolved the same day, extractions with complications flagged in the chart, billing disputes, patient-flagged complaints in the last 30 days, patients under age 18 (request to the parent if parent attended the visit), any patient on the front-office "do not contact" list
   • Hold: Post-op visits where clinical healing is uncertain; release to the request queue only after the provider's confirmation at the follow-up visit

2. Build the trigger matrix. For each included appointment type, specify:

   • Lag time — Time between appointment completion and the first request send. Typical values: 2–4 hours for short, uncomplicated visits (hygiene, exam); 24–48 hours for longer restorative or surgical visits so the patient can settle and form an opinion; 14 days post-delivery for Invisalign/ortho debonds when the patient has had a chance to see their result
   • Channel — SMS for high-response patients who have texted with the office before; email for patients without SMS opt-in or where message length matters; SMS + email for VIP patients and referral sources
   • Sender identity — Practice brand for most requests; named provider for new-patient exams so the provider's personal review count grows; front-desk named staffer for hygiene recalls
   • Template variant — A/B-testable message copy keyed to the appointment type

3. Draft message copy. Produce three drafts per trigger type. Each draft follows these rules:

   • Never name the procedure, tooth number, or any clinical finding. HIPAA safe messages read like "Thanks for coming in today — it was great seeing you" not "Thanks for your implant placement today."
   • Never incentivize the review content. Offering a discount for a review (any review) is a policy violation on Google and a dental-board risk in several states. A generic practice-wide appreciation program (e.g., "everyone who leaves a review this month gets entered into a drawing for a non-dental gift card") is gray-area and should be vetted by counsel — most practices skip it.
   • Always offer two links: a public review platform (Google) and an internal feedback channel (reply-SMS or an email to the office manager) so patients with a concern have a non-public path.
   • Always include unsubscribe language for email (required by CAN-SPAM) and respect STOP keywords for SMS (required by TCPA and carrier policy)
   • Keep SMS to 160 characters when possible so the message does not segment
   • Bilingual variants — Produce a Spanish-language version for markets where ≥15% of patients are primarily Spanish-speaking

4. Draft the 2-touch follow-up. For patients who receive the request but do not click the link or post a review:

   • Touch 2 at 7 days — Softer reminder, same two-path structure (public link + internal feedback), single sentence about how much the practice appreciates honest feedback
   • Hold after Touch 2 — Do not send a third ask. Repeated requests feel coercive and trigger SMS carrier spam filtering; a patient who did not respond to two touches is done for this visit
   • Reset at next visit — The trigger clock restarts at the next included visit 3–12 months later

5. Clinical-complaint diversion. When the internal-feedback path receives a message that describes discomfort, a clinical concern, or a billing dispute, it must route to the office manager or clinical coordinator for a same-business-day callback. The public review link must never be the first path for a patient who is already unhappy — diverting complaints to the internal channel is both better patient care and a lower legal risk than encouraging a negative public review.

6. Metrics block. Define a small, visible monthly metric set the front office can track without a separate analytics tool:

   • Requests sent by trigger type
   • Link-click rate (requests / clicks)
   • Post rate (requests / posted reviews on Google and secondary platforms combined)
   • Star-rating distribution of new reviews (expect a realistic mix including 4-star "honest" reviews; an overwhelmingly 5-star stream can itself look suspicious to patients)
   • Internal-feedback volume and resolution time (same-day callback rate)
   • "Held" or excluded patient count with reason — tracked to ensure the exclusion logic is not quietly over-suppressing

Output requirements:

• One-page summary at the top (trigger matrix visible in under 30 seconds)
• Message copy for each trigger type (English + Spanish), clearly labeled SMS vs. email
• Touch-2 follow-up copy for each trigger type
• Clinical-complaint diversion routing rules and the front-office script for the callback
• Monthly metrics block as a named report the office manager runs on the 1st
• Platform-setup checklist — what to configure in the SMS/email/PMS tool, with a note that every platform handles trigger configuration differently and the practice's implementation engineer (or the vendor's onboarding support) builds the triggers
• Saved to outputs/review-request-workflow/ with the practice name and date in the filename

Guardrails

• No procedure names, tooth numbers, clinical findings, or treatment-plan detail in outbound SMS or email. HIPAA and carrier-spam rules both apply. "Thanks for your appointment" is fine; "Thanks for your implant surgery" is not.
• No selective review screening. Sending the public-review link only to patients the practice believes will leave a 5-star review (a "review gate") violates Google, Yelp, and Facebook policy and in some states is a dental-board advertising violation. Every included patient receives the same ask.
• No incentives for a specific review. Offering a discount, gift, or entry tied to posting a review (even a positive one) is a Google policy violation. Practice-wide appreciation programs unconnected to a specific review are a gray area; counsel should review.
• Exclude patients with open complaints, pain-not-resolved visits, or billing disputes. The workflow's purpose is honest feedback from patients who are in a position to give it; no one is served by soliciting a review from a patient mid-complaint.
• Respect STOP keywords and unsubscribe links. TCPA and CAN-SPAM violations carry per-message statutory damages. The practice's messaging platform must handle opt-outs automatically; confirm the configuration.
• Never impersonate the patient. Some review-gen tools offer "draft a review for your patient to post" features; these are a policy violation everywhere.
• Treat review responses as public HIPAA. The public-response side is the review-responder skill's concern, but worth naming here: the request workflow must not include any content that, if quoted back by a patient in a review, would disclose PHI.
• The clinical-complaint diversion is not optional. A same-business-day callback path is the single most important piece of this workflow for both patient care and risk reduction.

Example Output

Sample input: SMS via Weave (BAA on file), email via PMS; grow Google first, Healthgrades second; Spanish needed (~20% of base); triggers = new-patient exam (provider-signed) + hygiene recall (front-desk-signed); exclude emergency/unresolved-pain visits; bilingual market.

Trigger Matrix (at a glance)

Trigger	Lag	Channel	Signed by	Link target
New-patient exam (completed)	3 hr	SMS	Dr. [name]	Google → internal feedback
Hygiene recall (completed)	3 hr	SMS	Front desk	Google → internal feedback
Emergency / pain unresolved	—	EXCLUDED	—	route to OM callback

Message Copy — New-Patient Exam (SMS, provider-signed, EN)

Hi [First] — Dr. [Name] here. It was great meeting you today at [Practice]! If you have a moment, we'd love your honest feedback: [Google link]. Prefer to reach us directly? Just reply to this text. Reply STOP to opt out. (149 chars w/o link)

Same message — ES

Hola [First], soy la Dra. [Name] de [Practice]. ¡Fue un gusto conocerle hoy! Si tiene un momento, nos encantaría su opinión sincera: [Google link]. ¿Prefiere contactarnos directamente? Responda a este mensaje. Responda STOP para cancelar.

Hygiene Recall (SMS, front-desk-signed, EN)

Hi [First] — thanks for coming in today! It's always nice to see you at [Practice]. If you'd share a quick review, here's the link: [Google link]. Have feedback for us instead? Just reply here. Reply STOP to opt out.

Touch 2 (day 7, unopened/no-post — EN)

Hi [First], no pressure at all — if you have 30 seconds, your honest feedback helps our small team a lot: [Google link]. Or reply here anytime. (No further texts about this.) Reply STOP to opt out.

(Touch 2 also produced in ES. No Touch 3 — clock resets at next eligible visit.)

Email variant (new-patient, EN excerpt)

Subject: It was great meeting you, [First]! — body mirrors SMS, adds two buttons ("Leave a Google review" / "Share private feedback"), CAN-SPAM footer with practice address + one-click unsubscribe.

Clinical-complaint diversion (internal-feedback path)

Any reply mentioning pain, a clinical concern, or billing → auto-route to Office Manager queue for same-business-day callback. Public link is never the first path for an unhappy patient. Front-desk callback opener: "Hi [First], this is [Name] from [Practice] — [OM] saw your note and wanted to make this right personally. Tell me what happened."

Monthly metrics block (OM runs on the 1st)

Requests sent by trigger · link-click rate · post rate (Google + Healthgrades) · star distribution (expect some 4★) · internal-feedback volume + same-day-callback rate · held/excluded count with reason.

Platform-setup checklist (Weave)

Confirm BAA · enable review-request automation · set 3-hr post-appointment trigger by appointment type · suppress excluded types · load Google place ID + Healthgrades URL · verify STOP/opt-out handling is automatic. (Vendor onboarding builds the actual triggers; configuration differs per platform.)

Note on the example: abbreviated illustration. A full run produces all three A/B drafts per trigger, both languages for every message, and the front-office callback script in full. No procedure names appear in any outbound message (HIPAA), and no review screening or incentives are used.