Do you know your practice's patient attrition rate? An average dental practice loses more than 20% of their patients - one of the highest attrition rates in healthcare. There are a number of reasons for this high attrition rate, like competition on cost of treatment, number of dentists in a small area and lack of distinction in services.
We've seen attrition rate not given enough attention by some owners and management experts. They focus instead on new patient growth and acquisition. But, like we've talked about a number of times, keeping the patients you already have makes a successful practice.
tab32 has many revenue discovery tools to help mitigate patient attrition! You can book a demo to see them yourself, just click here.
When we migrate the data on tab32 cloud dental software for an average dental practice with few years in business, there are 2,000 active patients (patients seen in less than 18 months) and roughly same number of inactive patients after subtracting non-patients, like insurance subscriber, guarantor, etc. The life-time-value (LTV) on these lost patients over these years equates to $2,000,000 (2,000 inactive patient times $1,000 LTV per lost patient). Yes, it is $2 million in LOST OPPORTUNITY!
Digging a little deeper, we can show that a modest improvement of 2% to 3% for 3 years in patient retention rate will increase the practice value by $100,000. This assumes a valuation at 80% of practice revenue. And hence, it is equally important to also develop a strategy to increase patient retention rate.
We've posted a number of times about the patient experience and how critical it is to growing your practice. These individual touches and communications make a difference in if and when the patient returns to your practice. We know that it's important to bring in new patients, to get those patients to accept treatment plans, and to get them to come back. But the full patient experience, from finding you to paying their bill, should bring them back.
There is also a misbelief among the owners that patient communication for appointment confirmations and reminders is a patient experience. Actually, it is just one small aspect of larger puzzle of patient experience. Meticulous planning is required to decrease the attrition rate by 2% to 3% along with integrated and transparent software to track patient relationships.
At tab32, we've carefully studied this patient journey and created a solution to help you not only run a successful practice, but to bring in new patients and keep those you already brought through the door. Want to learn more? Contact us today for a free, one-on-one demo.
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