Which of the following is an example of active follow-up methods?

• A. Social Security Death Index
• B. Physician letters
• C. Motor vehicle records
• D. Stage voter registration files

Answer: (B)

Active follow-up means actively seeking information by contacting sources that can provide updates, rather than waiting for information to appear in records. In cancer management, this typically involves reaching out directly to clinicians who treated the patient to obtain current status, treatments received, or outcomes. Sending letters to physicians is a classic example of this proactive approach because it involves a deliberate request for new information from someone with firsthand knowledge of the patient’s care.

The physician letters method best represents this active approach. In contrast, relying on sources like a death index or other administrative databases involves extracting information from existing records without actively seeking new updates through direct outreach, and while such records can be useful, they don’t constitute an active information-gathering step about the patient’s present status.