Are you leaving money on the table?
What’s the impact of patients not completing their treatments on your dental practice’s bottom line? Is it worth investing the resources to make sure they follow through with their treatments?
Let’s do the math to see the potential production value in
This sales funnel:
Let’s say you have 10 treatment plans in the queue per week and each has an average value of $2,000. Multiply that by 6 weeks in rolling and you have $120,000 in the pipeline.
Now assume that your sales pipeline has a conversion rate of 5% to 10% on a weekly rolling basis. Capturing these incomplete opportunities will increase potential production by $6,000 to 12,000 per month.
The best way to minimize lost revenue from incomplete treatments is to make sure patients make follow-up appointments during their visits.
However, it’s not always possible.
To generate as much revenue from incomplete treatments as possible, you need to incorporate these 3 key strategies in your post-visit follow-up plan:
The chances of a patient booking a follow-up appointment are the highest within the first couple of days after an office visit and will decrease significantly over time.
If a patient wasn’t sure about the treatment plan or couldn’t commit to an appointment time when she’s at your office, send a reminder within the first day or two of her visit.
You can use a dental practice management software application that can automatically detect incomplete treatments and send out reminders via email or text. These messages should also provide patients with a convenient way to book their appointments.
For example, tab32 not only detects incomplete treatments and sends out automatic reminders but also allows you to include a link for patients to book their appointments online to eliminate friction and increase the chances that they’ll follow through.
You should also review the status of patients with incomplete treatments from the previous day during your morning huddle. Focus on those who haven’t booked appointments and discuss the follow-up plan with your front desk staff or treatment coordinator.
It’s important to keep good documentation and record pre-existing conditions, treatments-in-planning, and completed treatments with a cloud dental software, so your staff can access the most up-to-date patient information during the follow-up calls.
Review open treatment plans (i.e., those without appointments already set up) weekly and set up a workflow for your front desk staff to check in with patients.
Since different people prefer different communication methods, you should contact patients through a variety of channels, such as phone, text, and email. Set up your dental management software to prompt your front desk staff to follow up with patients at least a couple of times within a 4 to 8-week period.
The follow-up communications should emphasize the importance of completing treatments and educate patients about the costs and consequences of delaying treatments. For example, a filling could turn into a root canal if a cavity isn’t taken care of in a timely manner.
Make sure that your staff is armed with the right tools and information to confidently answer questions from your patients. You can provide them with scripts and training on effective patient communications to help them comfortably handle different situations.
Your front desk staff should also have sufficient knowledge about the treatments, so they can help patients understand the procedures and payment options.
To further enhance patient experience and improve results, your staff should have the most up-to-date patient information in front of them when they make the follow-up calls. For example, with tab32’s Complete VoIP Telephony feature, they can call patients directly from the EHR platform and refer to their treatment histories to provide the most relevant information.
To make sure nothing falls through the cracks, you can use a dental management software application to automate follow-up email and text messages.
For example, tab32 can automatically detect incomplete treatments in EHRs and send personalized messages to schedule follow-up appointments. Using the online booking functionality, users can simply click on a link and schedule their visits quickly and seamlessly -- increasing the chances that they’ll book an appointment.
In addition, you can set up automatic appointment confirmations and reminders via text or email to reduce no-show and increase the likelihood that patients will continue their treatments. Also, track your metrics to identify when patients are most responsive, so you can schedule treatment reminders to be sent out during those days and times.
Incomplete treatments represent a lot of revenue potential, and it’s important that you have the right strategy in place to capture as many opportunities as possible.
Not to mention, patients who complete their treatment plans are more likely to have better outcomes, return to your practice, and refer others to you.
tab32 is a cloud-based dental practice management software that allows you to empower your staff with real-time patient information, schedule follow-up messages, and offer online booking so as many patients will complete their treatments as possible.
Request a free demo to see how we can help your practice become more profitable.
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