Most DPC clinics don't lose track of patient work because the team doesn't care.
They lose track because the work is scattered.
A lab result lives in the EHR. A refill request came through the inbox. A patient texted through Spruce. A billing note lives somewhere else. A sticky note is sitting on someone's desk.
None of those tools are "wrong."
The problem is that nobody can see the whole clinic workload in one place.
That's where a follow-up board helps. Not a giant project management system. Not another EHR. Just one simple shared view of what needs to happen next.
What should go on a DPC follow-up board?
Start with the work that most often falls between tools:
- Lab follow-ups
- Medication refills
- Imaging or referral follow-ups
- Patient messages that need clinical review
- Billing/admin follow-ups
- Forms, records, and paperwork
- "Waiting on patient" items
- "Waiting on outside office" items
The goal is not to document the entire patient chart. The goal is to make unfinished work impossible to miss.
Get the free DPC Follow-Up Board.
A simple board structure
Use five columns:
- New
- Needs review
- In progress
- Waiting
- Done
That's it.
If the board needs 14 statuses, it will die by Thursday.
Each task should answer four questions:
- Who is the patient?
- What needs to happen?
- Who owns it?
- When should it be checked again?
The rule that makes it work
Every patient follow-up needs one owner.
Not "the team." Not "front desk." Not "whoever sees it."
One owner.
DPC clinics move fast. Shared responsibility sounds nice, but it often becomes invisible responsibility.
Why this matters in DPC
In traditional care, bad coordination gets buried inside the machine.
In DPC, patients feel it immediately.
That's the beauty and the pressure of the model. Patients expect access, responsiveness, and continuity. A clean follow-up system protects that promise. (For a broader look at the systems behind these expectations, see our guide to clinical workflow task management.)
Steal the template
We made a simple DPC Follow-Up Board you can steal. Use it as-is, or adapt it to your clinic's stack.
Get the free DPC Follow-Up Board.
Turn this into a carousel
- Your clinic doesn't have a follow-up problem.
- It has a visibility problem.
- Labs live in one tab.
- Refills live in another.
- Messages live somewhere else.
- Sticky notes are not infrastructure.
- The fix: one shared follow-up board.
- Columns: New / Review / In Progress / Waiting / Done.
- Rule: every task has one owner.
- Steal the free DPC Follow-Up Board.