Keeping patients
Featured Products Promotional FeaturesPosted by: Dental Design 8th September 2024
Growing your practice requires a complete understanding of your current performance, giving you the confidence to chart the waters of financial expansion. Growth can take many forms: new staff, new patients, new technology – even a new building. It is crucial to quantify your success in appropriate areas so that an effective course of action can be decided. In particular, patient numbers are a major Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that can be the deciding factor for when or how you choose to grow your practice.
Retaining the regulars
A demographic of patients to initially consider are those that regularly engage with your practice; the ones that attend their appointments as recommended. Patients who return to the same practice over a consistent length of time display trust and loyalty, leading to sustained business growth and positive word of mouth.[i] By monitoring these active patients, your practice can assess patient engagement and retention, marking positive areas and looking to build further upon them.
Failing to attend
Conversely, it is vital to measure patient attrition. A high attrition rate, such as over the 17% yearly average, can point towards dissatisfaction, distrust or discomfort.[ii] This can be an important observation, leading to a reassessment of the practice and the quality of service.
For patients who have stopped engaging with the practice, this can take several main forms: those who simply don’t rebook, no-shows, and cancellations – be aware also that these can simply be caused by scheduling factors, forgetfulness, transportation and work-related issues.[iii] No-shows are more damaging to the dental business as they are occupied slots – an empty dental chair could have been filled with another patient if enough notice was given. Instead, no-shows can deprive other patients of essential care and, as 80% of a dentist’s income is treatment-related, it causes a loss of income for clinicians too.[iv]
When patients miss appointments, the delay in important treatments can lead to complications that may require more costly and complex procedures later on.[v] The other impact is that if the no-show patient wanted to rebook their missed appointment, they are now contributing to an even longer waiting list for dental services. This in turn may negatively impact patient-practitioner interactions if the waiting times increase.[vi] Keeping a close eye on your practice’s no-shows can indicate the strength of your business and if it is feasible to grow. If no-shows are high, it is worth asking patients for feedback to see what can be improved, whilst also incorporating convenient appointment reminders.
New patients
Monitoring the number of new patients is a KPI that can determine the performance of your marketing campaigns, as well as the expected trajectory of your business. Word of mouth is difficult to monitor but a rise in new patients can indicate that recent marketing and promotional work has been successful.
Tracking new patients each month (or over a year) can give you the average expected intake, allowing you to fittingly budget for things like marketing campaigns or new staff as you hope to expand your business into new areas or specialties.
Some new patients may come from those seeking emergency treatment. This can offset the no-shows, eliminating the associated costs and, if the patient is happy with their treatment, can lead to a new patient who will return in the future. Despite being stochastic in nature, noting and analysing emergency treatments can give you a rough estimate for the potential growth in income of the practice in the future.[vii]
Seeing all
Loyal regulars, no-shows and new patients are three crucial KPIs for assessing the strength of your practice. To monitor them accurately, consider Sensei Cloud from the practice and patient management brand of Carestream Dental. The cloud-based software is more convenient than on-premise practice software, with real-time dashboards illuminating the live metrics on performance, finances and patient interaction. The Patient Bridge centralises patient communications to promote stronger engagement and better relationships. The software also uses a subscription model, avoiding high up-front costs to help manage the budget of your practice. Through the innovations of Sensei Cloud, you can identify a wide variety of critical KPIs and better realise the growth of your business.[viii]
Having a steady flow of patients, new and regular, will keep your practice financially fit to grow, and identifying no-shows can lead to reflection on what needs to be done better. Ultimately, the dentist who prioritises patient well-being will be the one with the successful practice.[ix]
For more information on Sensei Cloud visit https://gosensei.co.uk/
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Facebook and Instagram @carestreamdental.uk
[i] El, M., Alshareef, R.I., Alkahtani, A.R., Alhajri, S.M., Alhumaidany, T.M., AlQarni, W.A., Almuaddi, A.M. and Aldossary, M.S. (2023). Patient Satisfaction as a Determinant of Patient Loyalty to the Dentist in Dental Clinics. Journal of patient experience, 10, p.237437352311665-237437352311665. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/23743735231166506.
[ii] The True Cost of Losing Patients. (2023, August 10). Carestream Dental. https://gosensei.com/blogs/news/the-true-cost-of-losing-patients
[iii] Alabdulkarim, Y., Almukaynizi, M., Alameer, A., Makanati, B., Althumairy, R. and Almaslukh, A. (2022). Predicting no-shows for dental appointments. PeerJ Computer Science, [online] 8, p.e1147. doi:https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.1147.
[iv] Herrera, Maria & Molinero, Cecilio. (2004). Missed appointments at a NHS dental practice. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/33420947_Missed_appointments_at_a_NHS_dental_practice
[v] Alabdulkarim, Y., Almukaynizi, M., Alameer, A., Makanati, B., Althumairy, R. and Almaslukh, A. (2022). Predicting no-shows for dental appointments. PeerJ Computer Science, [online] 8, p.e1147. doi:https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.1147.
[vi] Gideon Leibner, Shuli Brammli‐Greenberg, Mendlovic, J. and Israeli, A. (2023). To charge or not to charge: reducing patient no-show. Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, 12(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s13584-023-00575-8.
[vii] Herrera, Maria & Molinero, Cecilio. (2004). Missed appointments at a NHS dental practice. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/33420947_Missed_appointments_at_a_NHS_dental_practice
[viii] Carestream Dental. (2024). 12 Critical KPIs Every Dental Practice Should Measure. [online] Available at: https://gosensei.com/blogs/news/12-critical-kpis-every-dental-practice-should-measure [Accessed 4 Jun. 2024].
[ix] Sriyono, N. W. (2006). The business of dental practice. Isi, 39(2).
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