As we wrap up the second quarter of 2022, let’s wrap a big bow around everything we talked about with patient retention and how you can continue to drive these systems home in your dental practice. Learning a new system or new task is great. However, it doesn’t do us any good if we don’t implement it and build it into our daily habits. Creating consistency inside of your Dentrix software and your automated patient communications will provide lasting results in the success of your practice.
When we kicked off Q2, I was teasing you about how you needed to close the back door because you were letting too many patients slip out of your practice. Hopefully you have taken that to heart and have been able to make small improvements to your retention numbers. If we just think about making small improvements every day, it can lead to huge gains over time.
Hopefully by now you have learned where to find your patient retention number, how to track it on a regular basis, and learned some daily routines to keep it steady throughout the year. Let’s recap . . .
- You can find your patient retention number either on the Dentrix Practice Advisor Report or by using Jarvis Analytics. I have been working closely with Jarvis to make sure the numbers you pull from Dentrix will match up with the numbers you will see in Jarvis. This is important because when you start to see different metrics in different places you will not trust the data.
- Add a Reason to Return (RFR) to your clinical note documentation to help give your scheduling team some ammunition when a patient is trying to cancel or on the fence to schedule his or her next recare visit. These clinical talking points can be super effective in holding patients accountable to their oral health.
- Use automation as much as possible when communicating with your scheduled and non-scheduled patients. The check in link through Patient Engage is a great way to not only get confirmation, but also have the patient fill out an updated health history form to be better prepared for his or her visit. Your hygienists will love this!
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