Top 3 Must-Have Dental Practice Software Features To Grow Your Practice

Kiltesh Patel
June 18, 2019 | 4 min read

As the saying goes, “what gets measured gets done” --  in order to grow your dental practice, you need to know what metrics to track, so you can focus your resources on doing what will make the business more profitable.emma-matthews-1296167-unsplash

Here are 3 key dental practice KPIs you should measure, and the key features you should look for in a dental management software platform to boost your revenue and grow your practice:

1. Incomplete Treatments

When a patient hasn’t completed their treatment, you aren’t just missing out on the revenue associated with the unfinished part of the procedure. These patients are also less likely to return to your practice in the future, and you’ll be missing out on recurring revenues.

In order to maximize profit, you need to track the number of patients who haven’t completed their treatments and contact them in a timely manner to increase the likelihood that they’ll return for a follow-up appointment.

To make sure that nothing falls through the cracks, you can use a dental management software application that automatically detects patients with incomplete treatments and sends them a reminder to schedule a follow-up visit.

The email or text message should also direct the recipients to an online landing page which they can schedule an appointment based on your real-time availability to eliminate unnecessary back-and-forth that could deter them from following through.

A dental practice management platform that helps you automatically contact patients with incomplete treatment not only helps maximize your revenue and improve patient outcomes but also streamline your operation and reduce administrative tasks so your staff can focus on delivering the highest-quality service to your patients.

For example, using tab32, you can run an Incomplete Treatment report and program it to trigger a series of text or email messages with links for the recipients to book a follow-up appointment.

2. Patient Recall

Just like any business, it costs less to retain an existing patient than to acquire a new one. More returning patients often means higher profit margins for your practice. Therefore, the patient retention rate is a key performance indicator for any dental practice.

To better retain patients, it’s important to get them back for a checkup and hygiene appointments at regular intervals. This will help maintain the relations and stay top of mind while allowing you to detect any issue that’d require treatment as soon as possible (and the patient will likely to continue the treatment with you.)

Most people aren’t diligent about keeping track of their dental hygiene appointments, so you should be proactive in reminding them to schedule a visit. Yet, having your staff manually follow up with each patient is inefficient and time-consuming.

To ensure that you’re capturing every existing patient due for a checkup and minimizing the time your staff spends on contacting each person, you can use a dental practice management software, such as tab32, that’ll automatically send out a text or email reminder to patients due for a hygiene appointment.

In addition, tab32 allows you to add the options to book an appointment online or request a call from the front office. This will reduce the friction in scheduling a visit and increase the likelihood that patients will take the next step.

3. Lapsed Patients and Missed Opportunities

Another key dental KPI you should monitor is the number of missed opportunities from existing and lapsed patients. For example, your patients aren’t likely to remember that they need to schedule appointments for preventive procedures (e.g., FMXs) that are required infrequently.

These procedures are great opportunities to not only increase revenue from returning patients but also get back in touch with lapsed patients and re-engage with them. However, it’s almost always up to the dental practice to follow up with patients and remind them to schedule a visit.

A dental management platform can help you effectively capture these opportunities without requiring your staff to spend hours combing through thousands of patient records. For example, tab32 can automatically detect these opportunities and send out a reminder to patients with a link to make an appointment online or request a call back from your office.

Your staff should be able to pull up patient records from your dental management platform when a patient calls so they can provide the most relevant treatment information or remind the caller to schedule a hygiene or follow-up appointment. You should also be able to manage missed calls and voicemails on the same platform to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

In addition, make sure you stay top of mind so the next time your patients have a dental issue, you’ll be the first practice they call. For example, tab32 helps you stay in touch with your patients by sending a personalized birthday message automatically from your dental management software to maintain patient relationships.

Summary

Keeping track of these dental key performance indicators above can help you monitor production and increase your revenues. Make sure you use a dental management system that allows you to have full visibility into these critical dental KPIs.

Last but not least, your dental management software should also have robust reporting and analytics capabilities, so you can keep track of important metrics and the growth of your practice. Trust us, your dental consultant will love you for it!

No Comments Yet

Let us know what you think