They claim that there is little communication with general practices in some areas and that the system for calling patients is sometimes inadequate.

If we did not hear from them first, we called patients one week, one and three months after their initial appointment.

They then call patients, if they deem the news urgent.

When her clients (she does not call them patients) visited her, she read the bones.

Calling patients by name, telling them how good they looked.

Mark knows he's supposed to call them clients, but somehow he keeps calling them patients.

'Yes, they're called patients,' I said, and it was the first time we had laughed in days.

What is more, only about half regularly called patients who missed appointments, or reminded them to show up.

They are not called patients because they are not being treated but do the hard work themselves.

Caplan declares, "Calling patients in a physician's care to support a doctor's political or philanthropic cause is out of bounds."