You know the drill. The patient comes in with a nasty cough. You prescribe treatment. You tell them to come back in a week if it's not better. Fast forward seven days. No follow-up appointment scheduled. You have no idea if they're better, worse, or just forgot about you entirely. Or maybe they did schedule that follow-up. Now they're taking time off work, driving to your office, sitting in your waiting room, all so you can spend two minutes confirming that yes, the cough is gone.
There has to be a better way!
Stealing Ideas From Social Media (In a Good Way)
Remember Twitter Fleets? Those 24-hour disappearing posts that showed up at the top of your feed? Or Instagram and Facebook Stories that let people share quick updates without cluttering their main profile?
The genius of these features wasn't just that they were fun. It was that they made it ridiculously easy to share quick updates and ridiculously easy for people to see them. No scrolling through endless feeds. Just tap, watch, done. Now imagine applying that same concept to patient follow-ups.
Introducing Follow-Up Fleet Videos
Here's the concept: instead of scheduling a formal follow-up appointment, your patients record a quick video update showing you how they're doing. These video "fleets" pop up at the top of your EHR dashboard, just like stories appear at the top of Instagram or Facebook. You click, watch a 30-second clip of the mom showing her baby's improved congestion, and you're done. Or you see that the ankle sprain isn't healing right and you message them to come in.
Quick. Convenient. Actually useful.
How It Works
After a patient visit, you turn on the fleet follow-up feature and set up prompts for what you want to see. The patient gets a notification asking them to record a quick video update. The prompts are key here. Instead of getting a rambling five-minute video about their entire day, you're asking specific questions:
"Show me the stitches and describe any pain or redness."
"Let me hear your child's cough."
"Show me how much swelling is left in your knee."
The patient records a short clip answering your prompts. It automatically uploads to their chart and appears as a fleet at the top of your EHR dashboard. You and your clinical team see these fleets immediately when you log in. No digging through messages. No hunting for follow-up notes. Right there at the top where you can't miss them.
Video Follow-Up Design Example
Who This Actually Helps
For Patients:
Let's be honest. Nobody wants to take time off work and drive 30 minutes each way for a two-minute check-in. With fleet follow-ups, a mom can record her baby's cough during naptime. A construction worker can show his healing stitches on his lunch break. Done in 60 seconds from their phone.
For Your Practice:
No scheduling coordination. No front desk calls. No fighting with your calendar to squeeze in quick follow-ups. Your staff isn't spending 15 minutes on the phone trying to find a time that works.
And here's the thing: these video fleets become part of the official medical record. It's documented proof that you checked in, the patient responded, and you reviewed their progress. That's good for everyone's liability.
For You:
You get actual visual confirmation of how your patients are doing. Not a vague "yeah, I think it's better" over the phone. You see the wound. You hear the cough. You watch them demonstrate their range of motion.
And you can review these on your own time. Between patients. During administrative time. Whenever it works for you.
The Revenue Question
"Great, but now I'm providing follow-up care for free."
Fair point. Here's one approach: charge a small monthly convenience fee. Maybe $10 to $25 per month for patients who want access to fleet follow-ups and quick responses from your nursing staff. For many patients, that's way cheaper than taking time off work for an in-person visit. And for you, it's recurring revenue that doesn't require filling appointment slots.
You could also tier it. Basic fleet access for simple follow-ups. Premium tier includes same-day nursing review and direct messaging.
Real Examples Where This Makes Sense
Think about the follow-ups that probably don't need a full appointment: A kid with an upper respiratory infection. Mom records a quick video of the cough. You can hear if it's improving or if they need to come in.
That ankle sprain you saw last week. The patient shows you they can walk normally now. Follow-up complete.
Conjunctivitis treatment. Quick 15-second video shows the redness is gone. No appointment needed.
Post-procedure stitches. Patient shows the incision site. Looks clean, no redness. You confirm removal timeline.
Knee swelling after an injury. Video shows the range of motion and current swelling. You decide if PT is working or if imaging is needed.
These are perfect fleet candidates. Quick visual confirmation that things are progressing as expected.
Why the "Story" Format Actually Matters
Design example of a patient video follow-up
Social media figured out something important: when you put content at the very top of someone's screen, they actually look at it. In your EHR, patient messages get buried. Portal notifications get ignored. Phone messages stack up. But fleets at the top of your dashboard? You see them immediately when you log in. Your MA sees them. Your nurses see them. They're impossible to miss. That placement isn't just convenient. It's strategic. It means follow-ups actually happen instead of falling through the cracks.
Building This Yourself
Here's what makes this possible now: platforms like Cline let you build custom features directly into your EHR without needing to hire a development team or wait for your EHR vendor to maybe add this feature in five years. You understand your workflow. You know what information you need for different types of follow-ups. You can build exactly what makes sense for your practice. Want different prompt templates for pediatric vs. adult patients? Build it. Need your MAs to review fleets first and flag urgent ones? Set that up. Want to integrate this with your existing patient portal? Done
The entire concept of fleet follow-up videos is about making patients feel seen and heard while making your life easier. Quick updates. Better documentation. Less administrative burden. Maintained quality of care. And nobody has to schedule a follow-up appointment just to confirm that yes, the antibiotics worked.
Ready to Try It?
Fleet follow-ups are just one example of what you can build when you have the right tools. If this sounds like something your practice needs. Cline's EHR-native vibe coding platform lets you create custom features like this without writing code. Because the best person to design your follow-up workflow isn't a software company in Silicon Valley. It's you!