Dental Consultants Retention Rate: Keeping Patients

The typical dental practice has hundreds of overdue patients on record in their filing cabinet, but most do very little to reactivate these people. They spend thousands of dollars trying to find more patients when they previously have plenty of overdue patients on record in their filing cabinet waiting to be contacted by a dental practice’s dental recall system. Dentists spend thousands of dollars every year trying to get new patients to come to their practice. Many place a creative design their car, others try radio ads, some direct mail, but is it the most efficient? The average dental office retains less than 41 percent of their additional patients. Dental Consultants means by this that most of the funds that is being put into marketing is being lost after patients come in for only a single visit. Partaking meaningful experiences, having a great relationship with your practice, and performing consistent dental recalls will keep your patient coming back. Concentrating more on acquiring new patients will cause old patients to slip away and stop coming into your practice.

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Loyal Patients

The risk of focusing too much on acquiring new patients and not enough on holding current ones though you dental recalls is that within the dental industry there are many competitors. An effective dental office should never let a patient leave the office without a return appointment. Don’t allow your patients forget their appointment, whether it is through an email reminder, a text reminder, or your dental recall systems doing the reminding for you. This simple task will help you to sidestep patients becoming overdue and inactive. Dental recall systems call your overdue patients for you. Think of exactly how much your practice could grow if more of the new patient converted to loyal patients who came in for all of their twice a year check-ups. Taking good care of them and remaining in contact with them with a good recall system can help you increase your patient retention. An overdue patient is less likely to beat the odds and they are not going to pick up the phone to call you and schedule an appointment say Dental Consultants. An operative dental recall system takes the initiative and calls those overdue patients for you so that they will not slip through the cracks. Your patients are wide-open to the marketing efforts of dozens of other competing dentist. Your patients need to have an incentive to stay with your practice.

Office Appearance and Hours

You may not think all that much on the look of the practice. It is a fact that the appearance of your office and the quality of conversation with your patients during your dental recalls will help you retain your patients. By keeping your office clean, modern, organized, and treat your patients great they will keep coming back. Instead of spending tons of money on your next advertising campaign, try focusing those funds on the overdue patients you have in your filing cabinets by contacting them. So try something a little different in your practice. Dental Consultants says sample a new dental recall system, or a new reminder system, and watch your practice’s revenue grow faster than any results from advertising campaigns you have tried. Fine-tune your schedule so that each week the appointment times available change. For instance, every week the dentist could alternate working Monday-Thursday and then switching to work Wednesday - Saturday. This permits patients who need a Saturday appointment time to have many appointment times available to them. Adjusting the dentist’s work schedule to fit their needs as well as those of the patients will help you to retain more patients.

Over-the-top Customer Service

From the second that a patient walks through the door they ought to feel that they are the most essential person in the office. By providing your patients with a pleasant experience every time they come into your practice will build a fantastic relationship with them and keep them coming back. Be imaginative and find new ways to make your patients feel special. Your patients have extremely busy lives and habitually don’t think about the need to visit the dental office. In some circumstances they might not be aware of the remaining health benefits that they have for the year. A Dental recall system can help you contact your overdue patients and schedule them for hygiene appointments or discussions with the dentist. Dental Consultants recommends that the more overdue a patient is in your practice, the more likely they are to become inactive. An active dental recall system will help you stay current on your practice’s recall, keep your patients current on their check-ups, and keep your retention rate high. Studies show that the longer you wait to contact these patients, the less likely they will be to return to your practice for their bi-annual checkups. Not only will a worthy dental recall system allow you to keep a full schedule and maximize your revenues, it will also help your patients to remain current on their check-ups and prevent them from expensive dental procedures in the future. For instance, several patients that may be cutting cost due to the economic downturn may have needed a simple cavity filling that would have cost under $200. After delaying their check-up, what could have been a very simple and inexpensive procedure, requires a root canal that may cost them up to $2,800. So, not only does your recall system help your practice but it also helps your dental patients.

Dental Consultants Retention Rate: Keeping Patients