What’s The #1 Problem, You’ll Be Surprised!

Conventional wisdom mandates that new patients are the solution for all that ails your office…but is it really?  New patients are the lifeblood of all offices, certainly, but are there other critical factors you’re not looking at?   Try this simple test; look in your electronic records or paper files at all the patients who have walked through your doors.

 There are a whole lot of people that didn’t return, dropped out before completing recommendations, or simply fell off the face of the earth.  What if you were still seeing 10% of that population?  How about 20%?  Remember, for the most part this is cash, predictable, the shortest adjustment times and they are the most fun to care for!

 By not examining retention, you will forever race around the hamster wheel of getting new patients, only to have them drop out and be replaced.  Not only is this stressful, it is economically inefficient.

Is your practice really growing when you keep losing patients and constantly have to replace them?

In the world of dentistry, it’s all about the retention!

If you looked at your dentist’s electronic health records, and saw, for example, Liz Walker, and you asked about her as a patient; your dentist responds with  “I saw her just last week, she sure is a great patient. She has been coming in for years”.

The case value of each and every patient skyrockets when they get into the swing of being healthy, rather than in pain relief only.

For many DCs the case value is only a few hundred dollars.  Not only is this an unsustainable strategy, it’s expensive to continually attract new patients.  With ongoing care, this figure bursts into the thousands to even the tens of thousands.

How about referrals?  It’s a known fact that active patients refer at a much higher rate than dormant patients who only came in for a few visits.

In 2018, there is so much emphasis on “new patients” and sometimes we forget what to do with them once they walk through our doors.

If we treat each patient the right way, and allow them to have a true choice in their care, they will reward us with loyalty and become an advocate for our offices for years.