Do You Know Why You’re Losing Patients?

If you’re running a dental practice, then you’re (hopefully) tracking your recare rate. That’s the number of new patients that keep coming back, generating ongoing, reliable income.

Your recare rate gives you a decent, back-of-the-envelope sense of what your patients think of your practice. If you’re hitting 75 percent or above, that’s a good sign.?

However, what your recare rate doesn’t do is answer the question of why some of your patients show up for a first appointment (or a first procedure) and then disappear. What gives?

This is where you need to dig deeper. Making a regular, consistent effort to follow up with patients after a procedure can do wonders.?

Let’s say, for example, that a patient goes home after a filling and realizes that something has gone wrong with their bite. The cause is probably something as simple as a little excess composite that needs to be removed but in the patient’s mind, you’ve botched the job and violated their trust.

By following up with the patient over the phone, via text, or through email, you’ll give yourself a better chance at uncovering that kind of problem so that you can offer to make it right. You won’t win them all back, but many patients will notice and appreciate the effort.

If you want to earn your patients’ loyalty, show them why you deserve it.