Industry
Handwritten mail for healthcare practices
Healthcare has the clearest use case for handwritten mail and the strictest limits on what it may say. The trick is that those two things are compatible: the most effective recall letter is also the one that discloses nothing.
Three lists worth writing to
Recalls and reviews
Patients due for a check, a screening or a review. SMS gets ignored, email gets filtered. A written note gets read, and it is easy to keep it clinically silent.
Dormant patients
People who have not been in for two years. Most have not switched practices — they have simply not got around to it. A written prompt is the cheapest reactivation available to a practice.
Referrers
GPs who send you work. A written note acknowledging a referral is rare enough to be remembered, and referral patterns are extremely sticky once established.
Write it so a stranger could read it
The design rule for every piece of patient mail is simple: assume the wrong person opens it. A partner, a flatmate, a parent, a child. If that person learns anything about the recipient’s health from the envelope or the letter, the piece is wrong — regardless of what the Privacy Act technically permits.
In practice that means:
- No clinic name that discloses a specialty on the outside of the envelope.
- No condition, medication, test or procedure named anywhere in the letter.
- “It is time to book an appointment” rather than any reason.
- No windows. A plain handwritten envelope is genuinely the safest format.
Australian Privacy Principle 7 also governs when health service providers may use patient information for direct marketing, and the rules are tighter than for other organisations. What the Australian rules actually say.
Typical practice volumes
A 70-word recall note in a handwritten envelope.
| Quantity | Per piece | Campaign total | Volume tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | $3.67 | $806 | 150+ pieces |
| 500 | $3.08 | $1,696 | 500+ pieces |
| 1,500 | $2.78 | $4,580 | 1,500+ pieces |
| 4,000 | $2.67 | $11,741 | 2,500+ pieces |
Indicative only, including GST, 70 words per piece, with a handwritten envelope, excluding postage. Full pricing and calculator.
Questions from practices
Can you handle patient data?
We can handle a name and address list for the purpose of writing and posting your mail. We would strongly advise against sending us clinical information, and there is no reason to: a recall letter does not need to name a condition, and one that does creates a privacy problem in the recipient’s letterbox as well as in our systems.
What should a recall letter actually say?
That it is time for an appointment, who it is from, and how to book. Nothing about why. Anyone who might see the envelope or the letter — a housemate, a family member, a carer — is entitled to learn nothing about the recipient’s health from it.
Is a handwritten envelope a privacy risk?
It is a privacy improvement. A window-faced envelope with a clinic logo on it announces where the patient has been before it is opened. A plain handwritten envelope announces nothing.
Do you write to referrers as well as patients?
Yes, and for specialist practices it is often the better list. Referrer relationships are worth a great deal and are maintained almost entirely by correspondence, most of which is automated discharge summaries nobody reads.
Keep reading
Handwritten letters
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Privacy
What we collect on this website, how a customer mailing list would be handled if you send us …
Pricing
Work out an indicative per-piece and total cost for a handwritten campaign. Change quantity, …
Australian rules
Privacy Act obligations, the Spam Act boundary, the ADMA code and the Do Not Mail service — w…
Professional services
Referral thank-yous, partner-level introductions and client onboarding notes, written by hand…
Start with the dormant list
Everyone who has not been in for two years. Tell us the volume and we will price a recall run — and help you word it so it discloses nothing.