5 Key Metrics Dentists Should Follow Closely
Dental practice success isn’t something that happens by accident. It takes long-term commitment and a strategic approach. Making the right decisions requires an understanding of where you are now and where you want to go. Evaluating the appropriate business metrics can help you do just that.
1. Production and Collection Numbers
There are certain key performance indicators (KPIs) that every dental practice should track. Production and collection are among the most essential. Production is the total value of all services provided within a specific time frame. Collections are the actual payments received.
Tracking these values will provide useful data for your practice. If your production numbers are significantly higher than your collections, you may have a billing problem or patient delinquency. Low production overall could reveal the need for schedule optimization or additional services.
This clear insight into your practice’s overall financials will let you make strategic decisions. You can gain insights into how to modify patient financing options, team productivity, and your fee structures to help build a sustainable and resilient practice.
2. Case Acceptance Rate
Case acceptance rate is another critical metric to gauge the success of your practice. It’s the percentage of proposed treatment plans accepted by your patients. It can indicate how well your patients trust you and how effectively you and your team communicate with patients.
Low case acceptance rates could be caused by poor communication or lack of patient education. Your patients are hesitating for some reason, and you’ll need to identify the underlying cause to take action. This could mean shifting the way your team communicates or focusing on new ways to improve patient education.
Improving acceptance rates lets you provide better care for your patients. They’ll be more likely to get the important care they need. It also unlocks additional opportunities for your practice and lets you focus on implementing long-term treatment plans.
3. Patient Retention and Recall Rates
Patient retention and recall rates focus on how well your practice retains patients. High recall rates show that patients are keeping up with follow-up appointments and preventive care. Overall patient retention is based on trust and satisfaction over time, with high retention showing that you’re building lasting patient relationships.
Low retention and recall rates could be due to a variety of different reasons, whether dissatisfaction with results or a lack of engagement with you and your team. Monitoring these metrics over time will help you identify when it’s time to make serious changes to your strategies.
Achieving strong retention will secure a solid patient base for your practice. Instead of primarily focusing on drawing in new patients, you can spend more energy providing quality treatment for existing ones. Make things as easy on your patients as possible by automating reminders and communications whenever possible.
4. New Patient Numbers and Referral Sources
Whenever you have a new patient, your onboarding workflow should include asking where they heard about your practice. Tracking the number of new patients and their specific referral sources will reveal which of your marketing and outreach strategies work and which don’t.
New patients can come from a variety of sources, whether Google, word of mouth, or referral from other practitioners. You can optimize your marketing spend using this information. You should also leverage digital insights on any online marketing to know the breakdown of website visits from search, social media, and other sources.
Analyze these metrics carefully to understand how you can better handle marketing and partnerships. And don’t forget to monitor new patient trends closely to head off any potential drops in your patient base.
5. Overhead and Profit Margins
Paying close attention to your practice’s finances is vital for long-term success. Tracking overhead and profit margins provides deeper insight than looking at revenue alone. Even if you’re making more money overall, you need to compare that to your ongoing and incidental costs to stay ahead.
Track this information over time to help establish benchmarks for your practice’s financial health. If overhead rises or profit margins decline over time, you’ll need to take action. Whether adjusting your prices or expanding into other opportunities, such as orthodontic services, maintaining healthy margins is critical for dental practice success.
Put business metrics to work for your practice.
Are you doing everything you can to achieve dental practice success? Tracking the above metrics can help you understand your overall performance and work to improve it. Take time each month to review these values and adjust your approach as needed.
You can develop a strong foundation to build toward dental practice success with help from the American Orthodontic Society. Our orthodontic courses cover both treatment methods and the practice management skills needed to thrive and grow. View our available courses today to get started.
To learn more about our popular orthodontics courses for pediatric and general dentists, check out one of the upcoming events below.
