Post-Surgery Follow-Up Call Script for Hospitals (India)

A patient goes home two days after a knee replacement, a gallbladder surgery or a C-section. The discharge summary explains the medicines, the dressing and the review date. Then the house fills with relatives, the patient is tired, and half of what was said at the counter is forgotten. A short phone call on Day 1 or Day 2 catches most of the problems early: a missed dose, a fever nobody mentioned, a review appointment the family thinks is "next month" when it is next Tuesday.

Most Indian hospitals and clinics know these calls matter, but nobody owns them. The front desk is busy with walk-ins, nurses are on the ward, and the calls happen only when someone remembers. This guide gives you a ready post-surgery follow-up call script (English, Hindi and Telugu openings), a simple calling schedule, the red-flag rules your team should set, and a way to run the calls even if you have no one free to make them.

Why post-operative follow-up calls are worth doing

• Problems surface early. Pain that is getting worse, a wound that is oozing, or a patient who stopped a medicine because of acidity can be sent back to the doctor before it becomes a readmission or an emergency visit.
• Review appointments actually happen. Suture removal, dressing changes and first reviews are the visits patients most often skip or forget.
• Families feel looked after. In India the caregiver (spouse, son, daughter-in-law) is often the one managing medicines. A call that checks on them builds the trust that brings the next referral.
• You get honest feedback. A call a week later is the best moment to ask about billing, nursing and discharge experience, while it is still fresh.

When to call: a simple schedule

Agree the schedule with your surgeons for each procedure type. A common pattern for routine surgeries looks like this:

When	Purpose of the call	Typical length
Day 1–2 after discharge	How is the patient feeling, pain, fever, wound, medicines started, any questions	3–5 minutes
Day before the review	Remind about the review or suture removal, what to bring, timings	1–2 minutes
Day 7–10	Recovery check, activity and diet questions for the doctor, feedback on the hospital stay	3–4 minutes
Missed review	Find out why and rebook the slot	2 minutes

Tell the patient at discharge that these calls will come, from which number, and why. Patients answer calls they are expecting.

The post-surgery follow-up call script

Keep the script about checking and routing, not treating. The caller (human or AI) asks fixed questions, records the answers and passes anything worrying to your nurse or doctor. It should never change medicines or give medical advice.

1. Opening and identity check

English: "Namaste, this is Priya calling from Sunrise Hospital. Am I speaking with Mr. Ramesh Kumar or a family member? Dr. Rao asked us to check on how he is doing after his surgery. Is this a good time for two or three minutes?"

Hindi: "Namaste, main Sunrise Hospital se Priya bol rahi hoon. Kya meri baat Ramesh Kumar ji ya unke parivaar se ho rahi hai? Dr. Rao ne operation ke baad unki tabiyat poochhne ke liye kaha hai. Kya do-teen minute baat ho sakti hai?"

Telugu: "Namaskaram, nenu Sunrise Hospital nundi Priya maatladutunnanu. Ramesh Kumar garu leda vaari kutumba sabhyulatho maatladutunnana? Operation tarvata aayana ela unnaro kanukkomani Dr. Rao cheppaaru. Rendu moodu nimishaalu maatladavachcha?"

If the patient cannot talk, ask for a better time and call back then. Confirm only the name and the procedure date; do not read out diagnoses until you know who is on the line.

2. How the patient is feeling

1. "How is he feeling today compared with the day he went home: better, same or worse?"
2. "On a scale of 0 to 10, how bad is the pain right now? Is the pain medicine helping?"
3. "Has there been any fever or shivering?"
4. "How does the wound or dressing look? Any redness, swelling, bleeding or discharge?"
5. "Is he eating, drinking and passing urine normally?"

3. Medicines

1. "Were all the medicines on the discharge summary bought and started?"
2. "Has any medicine been stopped or skipped? Why?" (Common answers: side effects, cost, confusion about timing.)
3. "Any new problem since starting the medicines, like acidity, rash or dizziness?"

Record the answer word for word and pass it to the nurse. Do not tell the patient to start, stop or change any medicine.

4. Review appointment

"His review with Dr. Rao is on Tuesday at 11 a.m. for suture removal. Will someone be able to bring him? Please carry the discharge summary and any reports." If the date does not work, offer the next free slots and book one.

5. Questions and close

"Do you have any questions for the doctor? I will note them down and the nurse will call you back. If there is any emergency, such as heavy bleeding, breathlessness or chest pain, please go to the nearest emergency department or call 108 straight away. Thank you, and we wish him a quick recovery."

Red flags: when the call must go to a nurse or doctor

Write these rules with your surgeons. Any "yes" ends the routine script and triggers an alert to the duty nurse with the patient's name, number and the exact answer:

• Fever, or pain that is getting worse instead of better
• Bleeding, pus, foul smell or spreading redness at the wound
• Breathlessness, chest pain, fainting or confusion
• Calf pain or swelling in one leg after orthopaedic or long surgeries
• Vomiting, not passing urine, or not able to eat or drink
• Patient or family sounds worried and asks to speak to someone

Decide in advance who receives these alerts during the day and at night, and how fast they must call back.

Practical tips for Indian hospitals and clinics

• Collect the caregiver's number at discharge and note the preferred language. Many patients will not answer, but their family will.
• Get consent for calls and recording. Add one line to the discharge form saying the hospital will call to check on recovery and that calls may be recorded. Health details are personal data, so share call notes only with the treating team. See our guide on call recording consent.
• Call from a number patients recognise, ideally the hospital's own number, and call between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.
• Keep every answer on record. A short written note per call lets the doctor see at a glance who is fine and who needs a call back.
• Close the loop on missed reviews. A patient who skipped suture removal needs a call the same day, not next week.

Running these calls with an AI voice agent

Smaller hospitals often say the same thing: "We know we should call, but we have no team for it." This is where an AI voice agent fits well, because the script is fixed, the questions are predictable and the volume is steady.

With RANA AI you load the script above, your red-flag rules and your review timings. The AI employee calls each discharged patient on schedule in their language (it supports 11 Indian languages, and switches if the family replies in Telugu or Hindi), asks the questions, books or moves review slots, and records every call with a transcript. Anything on your red-flag list is flagged to your staff straight away; it does not give medical advice. You can see how this works for hospitals on our AI voice agent for clinics and hospitals page.

What it costs at small volumes: 15 surgeries a month, with two calls of about three minutes each, is roughly 90 connected minutes. That fits inside the 14-day free trial (100 minutes) for testing, and inside the Launch plan (₹4,999 a month for 400 minutes, plus GST) once you go live. Check current plans on the pricing page.

The same AI employee can also handle the day-before review reminder. For that script, see our clinic appointment reminder call script.

Quick checklist before you start

• Schedule agreed per procedure (Day 1–2, day before review, Day 7–10)
• Script approved by the surgeon, in each language you need
• Red-flag list and the name of the person who gets alerts
• Caregiver number and language captured at discharge
• Consent line on the discharge form
• A place where call notes are saved and reviewed daily

Ready to try it on your next week of discharges? Start a free trial and set up your first follow-up campaign.