RESOURCES
IS YOUR PRACTICE GROWING AS MUCH AS YOU THINK IT SHOULD BE? Theresa Stenger; Director of Marketing, Leadership by Design
Are you attracting new patients every month but noticing that your revenue isn’t reflecting your expected growth rate? One issue you may be facing is a higher-thanaverage attrition rate. Attrition (in a dental practice) can be defined as someone who hasn’t been back to your practice in 18 months. Some dental practices operate at an impressive 7-10% attrition rate, but the typical practice comes in between 1720%. So, if you have a healthy practice with 1,600 active patients per doctor, you’re likely losing around 300 or so a year, or 25 patients every month.
It’s as important to retain patients as it is to attract new ones
No dentist wants to see patients leave the practice. This can feel incredibly frustrating. Fortunately finding out why they left can sometimes lead to a successful return. So, what are some of the more common reasons patients leave a practice?
Never assume you know the reason
There could be many reasons why your patients left: maybe they moved, maybe their insurance changed, maybe they were wooed away by a competitor, perhaps they needed more flexible scheduling, or a staff member didn’t treat them properly, or they’ve simply been remiss at their dental healthcare. Once you dig deeper, you and your staff can begin identifying the primary 3-4 reasons and group lost patients into different “buckets” to plan your reactivation strategies.
Focus on retention
Before you delve too far into winning back patients, what are you doing to retain
38
patients? It may be helpful to ensure a few strategies are in place, so they don’t leave in the first place. Here are a few tips we’ve found to be particularly effective: 1. Ensure that every patient leaves your office with his next appointment scheduled. Research shows that keeping patients on schedule leads to higher patient retention. 2. Create a warm welcoming culture. Greet your patients by name and don’t overlook the power of being polite. Requiring all staff to consistently use words like, “please”, “thank you” and “my pleasure” can have a memorable impact on patients of every age. 3. Connect personally with patients. Acknowledge major life events and reference prior topics of conversation that you’ve had with patients (job, sports teams they follow, etc.). Keep note of these things on patient records so you can easily reference.
Creating Reactivation Campaigns 1. Monitor the number of active patients who haven’t scheduled an appointment with you in over 12 months. Run reports at least every quarter – monthly is best. 2. Ask patients for feedback. If a patient calls to ask for a transfer of their records, instruct your team members to ask whether there’s anything the practice can do to encourage the patient to stay. Make sure your team member is prepared with effective response to the more common reasons patients leave.
3. Separate your lost patient list into “insurance” and “no insurance” categories so you can readily have custom communications available for each group. 4. Send post-visit feedback surveys. Most patients want to feel as though their opinions matter. When you send post-visit surveys, you give them a place to share their opinions, satisfying their desire to be heard. It also provides you with great feedback. 5. If you’re having difficulty getting enough feedback, sending a brief survey via email is the most effective way to reach former patients. Online tools such as Google Forms and SurveyMonkey make it easy to create professional-looking surveys that former patients can complete in less than a minute. 6. Develop customized Reactivation Campaigns. For instance, for patients with insurance, sending a reminder that regular appointments are covered at 100% can be all they need to hear. Likewise, sending a message to those without insurance about your financial payment options can yield successful outcomes as well. Dental treatment can be perceived as “expensive”, so it should come as no surprise that one of the primary reasons patients leave a practice is affordability. 7. Providing the right message for the right audience is key when it comes to reactivating patients. Be proactive when setting up and customizing your
