About Seahorse

Seahorse is a free library of patient follow-up playbooks for independent private practices, written by Casey DeGroot.

Patients get lost between visits

In our experience, most practices are good at the visit itself. Where they lose patients is everything around it. A consult ends without a booked next step. A recall card never gets answered. A missed appointment gets one text and then nothing.

None of these feel urgent on a busy afternoon, and that is the problem. Each one is small, quiet, and easy to put off until tomorrow. Over a year, they add up to empty chairs and patients who drifted to another practice without ever deciding to leave.

Why we wrote these

The fix is rarely a new system. It is a clear schedule for who gets contacted, when, through which channel, and with what words. We write each playbook so an office manager can read it in ten minutes and use the templates the same day.

Every playbook follows the same rules:

• A direct answer up top, then a follow-up timeline you can adopt as written.
• Templates free of protected health information: no diagnoses, procedures, or results in texts and emails.
• Numbers only with a named, linked source, or clearly labeled as an example.
• Compliance basics explained plainly, with a reminder to confirm details with counsel.

Casey DeGroot

Casey spent 10 years at Audigy, working with independent audiology and ENT practices on how they grow: how they bring in new patients, keep the ones they have, and follow up on the ones who drift away.

Casey also served as a regional CIO for GN Group, the hearing aid manufacturer, and has spent 15 years in healthcare technology leadership. That combination shapes these playbooks: they have to work for a busy front desk, and they have to work with the scheduling, texting, and email tools a practice already owns.

Today Casey leads Epicasta Technology Consulting, which provides fractional CIO services and technology strategy to growing companies. You can also find Casey on LinkedIn.

Where the name comes from

Seahorse began as a lead follow-up app for small businesses, built by Casey and the team at Formada Social. The app is retired. These playbooks carry the same idea forward for private healthcare practices, and they are free.

Start with the playbooks, or see what missed visits cost your practice with the no-show cost calculator.