5 Steps to Reducing Patient Attrition
Dentists put a lot of emphasis on attracting new patients, but it’s just as important to keep existing patients coming back. When it comes to patient attrition, how is your dental practice measuring up?
Ongoing research by The Levin Group has shown that the top 10% of dental practices have an attrition rate of just 7% to 8% annually. By comparison, the average practice has an attrition rate between 12% and 15% annually.
How can you reduce your attrition rate? The following five steps will help..
Step 1: Never let a patient leave without their next appointment.
The best way to keep patients coming back: Always aim to schedule their return appointment at the end of their current appointment. This eliminates the risk that the patient will never call back to schedule their next appointment and helps to keep patients “in the fold.” Drill the importance of this practice into your front desk staff.
Step 2: Communicate clearly.
Miscommunication can not only cause missed appointments but can also create an impression that your office is poorly run. Imagine if a patient takes time off work and fights their way through traffic only to find out your staff told them the wrong appointment time? You likely won’t see that patient again. Using automation can help ensure patients always get the right information. Lighthouse 360 automatically reminds patients of upcoming appointments in their chosen format—phone, email, text or mail—and sends automated confirmations directly to your PMS. You can even text back-and-forth with patients directly from the desktop and send one, convenient family message to families who are bringing multiple patients to one visit.
Step 3: Get personal.
Automated patient communications are an excellent tool to save front desk staff time and efficiently remind patients they need to make appointments. However, your office shouldn’t rely on them to the exclusion of the human touch. If a patient isn’t responding to automated emails or texts, your front desk staff should reach out with a phone call to remind them of the importance of dental care. If you use Lighthouse 360, your team can take advantage of the two-way texting feature to have personal text conversations with clients.
Step 4: Contact no-shows and last-minute cancellations.
Often, attrition starts with a patient skipping a scheduled appointment or cancelling at the last minute. To prevent the situation from worsening, your team should make it a habit to contact no-show patients right away, find out why they missed the appointment, and schedule a new one. For cancellations, make every effort to reschedule at the time of the cancellation. (Lighthouse 360 can save the day when cancellations happen by automatically finding a patient to fill the time slot.)
Step 5: Reach out.
If several months go by without a patient contacting your office, all is not lost. Lighthouse 360 makes it easy to reach out to dormant patients and automatically send them customized recall emails and letters. Continuing to send dormant patients your email newsletter can also help remind them of the value of your services.
More than one-fourth (26.5%) of dentists in an American Dental Association survey say they aren’t busy enough. Keeping your patients of record returning can go a long way toward filling your days—and your coffers.
Original Post by Lighthouse 360