dental reactivation letter

Established or New Dental Patients – Which is more important for practice growth?
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Established or New Dental Patients – Which is more important for practice growth?

Hello Friends,

So which is more important to your practice growth – obtaining new patients or retaining established patients?

The short answer, both are very important to successfully grow your dental practice.

Yes, new patients are very important, in fact, we should have a monthly new patient goal that we are working toward each month. Offices love new patients. I hear doctors and teams all the time saying “We need more new patients!” They believe that is the answer to all of their scheduling, production, and collection woes. But is that good enough to grow your practice, just ensuring that you’re getting fresh new patients each month?

Well, if you want to spend lots of money and ultimately work harder instead of smarter, then yes. But, I think it’s safe to say, that isn’t your intention or end goal.

And yet, that is exactly what I am seeing many doctors doing in their practice. They are investing time and money to bring in new patients but are not giving the same attention to retaining those new patients. Like they are just spinning their wheels and will eventually just burn out.

Oftentimes, I will see healthy new patient numbers each month, and yet, the office isn’t growing at all and their production is weak. Why is that? When I examine the data, I learn that far too many of their new patients are one-timers. They left the office without scheduling a future appointment. Why is this a bummer situation? Calling, emailing, texting, and snail-mailing our patients to get them to reappoint can be a drag. It’s tough to reach patients once they leave. It’s possible of course, but it takes money, time, and energy that could be better spent elsewhere. Unfortunately, we don’t always see those attempts being made to reach out to those unscheduled new patients. No one really knows what happens to the patient after their first visit. Or they make minimal attempts to reach out to the patients before giving up after a couple of months.

What does your new patient experience look like from the initial call, and first visit, to how you stay in touch with them after they leave?

Do you know what your new patient retention numbers look like?

So if the most expensive patients to acquire are your new patients, the easiest and best patients to fill your schedules are those who have come to you before.  But, you may be thinking… that takes time and money to reappoint established patients too. That’s true but you have a huge advantage when reaching out to established patients of record; It’s the power of pre-existing relationships.  (Oh, by the way, on average, it can cost up to six times more to gain a new patient than it does to retain an existing patient.)

What does retaining, reactivating, and reappointing established patients mean for you and the patient?

  • We are creatures of habit.  It’s easier to do something we are already doing than to do something different.
  • Established relationship. (They already know, like, and trust you. You just need to focus on strengthening that relationship)
  • No marketing costs – you’ve already paid the initial investment in getting the patient.

What are you doing to keep track of your established patients? What are you doing to ensure your established patients don’t slip through the cracks?

What are you doing to keep your new and established patients loyal to your practice?

Loyal patients, isn’t that what we want? Patients that return year after year, accept your treatment recommendations and refer their friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. They are loyal to your dental practice because they like and trust you. You’ve earned the privilege to serve them not just for a moment but for life.

Is it really a privilege to serve them? Absolutely! Any office that struggles with getting and keeping new patients, struggles with getting patients to accept their treatment recommendations, struggles with the hygiene department’s continuing care reports and Swiss cheese-like appointment schedules, struggles to keep up with all the record transfer requests from patients for their new dental office, will learn (hopefully quickly) that having loyal patients in your practice is an earned privilege. The best part with loyal patients is the aforementioned struggles are greatly reduced or eliminated altogether.

Of course, this takes some work – implementing and following closely, effective office systems/protocols are critical to you successfully retaining your patients and reaching/exceeding your practice goals.

Practice Owners, if you would like to grow and improve your dental practice and have wondered what it might be like to work with me and what coaching is all about… please feel free to reach out to me to schedule a complimentary, no-obligation coaching call at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com.

Have you signed up to receive my complimentary dental marketing and practice management ideas that are sent right to your email inbox each month? If not, take a second and sign up. Or send me your email address (bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com) and I will send you an invite to follow. This way, you won’t miss a single idea

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty (Dental Coach)

P.S. If you enjoy the complimentary ideas that I share or if they’ve been of help to you and your practice –  I would truly appreciate it if you would please take a second and leave a review/recommendation for me on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you!!

February 2022 Dental Practice Management and Leadership Tips and Ideas
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February 2022 Dental Practice Management and Leadership Tips and Ideas

Hello Friends,

I hope that this year is off to a happy and healthy start for you and your team. Are you on track to meet or exceed your first quarter goals? Today, I am sharing some office management and leadership tips and ideas to help you enjoy a fantastic February.

Are you looking for marketing and practice growth tips and ideas for February 2022? Check these out: February’s Children’s Dental Health Month and Marketing and Practice Growth Tips & Ideas for February

Do you enjoy the complimentary tips and ideas that I share each month?   I would love and truly appreciate it for you to please take a second to leave a review/recommendation for me here on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK – Thank you!!!

February 2022 Management and Leadership Tips and Ideas

Team Building – National Chili Day 24th – Have an in-office chili cook-off lunch. Everyone brings in a crockpot of chili. Have prizes for the best tasting, most unique, etc.

Random Acts of Kindness Week: 13-19 – Do something special for your employees this week. Bring in an unexpected sweet treat or small gift to let them know just how much you appreciate them. (By the way, your doctor would also appreciate an unexpected act of kindness this week!)

Reappointments and Reactivation – Now is a great time to reach out to your unscheduled patients both active and inactive patients. Do you know how many of your active patients are unscheduled? (If your practice management software is Dentrix, Eaglesoft, or Open Dental I can help you quickly get those numbers. Just send me an email to bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com and let me know that you’d like to get the FREE data analysis.)

Make a plan to reach out to your unscheduled patients. Rather than just calling to ask if they would like to schedule an appointment, use this occasion to simply check-in to see how they’re doing and let them know you’re thinking about them. This is about building and strengthening relationships. 

Take advantage of all the different communication methods to reach your patients – telephone, text, email, letter/cards, and your social media pages.  You’re planting little reminder seeds that you are still here for them during these crazy times.

Please stop by and say hello to me on  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest

Insurance Claims – Send out “clean” insurance claims with the correct information, provider, date of service, Xrays, attachments, and documentation.  Your goal is to not have any unpaid claims sitting out there past 30-60 days.  (Did you know that your collection percentage drops significantly after 90 days past due? Over 120 days past due it drops to about 30% – you lose a lot of your money the longer these claims sit out there. Worse yet, you run the risk of the claim not being paid at all!)

What does your insurance aging report look like? How often are you checking on outstanding insurance claims? Who is monitoring and working on your aging reports, daily?

February is National Time Management Month –  “Respect others time and your time will be respected“

Review your office systems and protocols to ensure that everyone is using their time efficiently and effectively. Arriving at the office with plenty of time before the first scheduled patient, expecting your patients to arrive on time, never waiting on hygiene exams, calculate the actual amount of time it takes to do procedures, control the schedules, these things will help you stay on time.

If you’re often running behind schedule, investigate the reason(s) why. If you know the why… change whatever it is causing you to stray from the schedule. Running behind schedule sends a message to your patients AND your team that you don’t respect their time. Respect your team by sticking to the scheduled work hours. Be sure that they are not habitually working through their lunch or having to work late. They need breaks to refresh and refuel. Give them that.

Have you signed up to receive my complimentary dental marketing and practice management ideas that are sent right to your email inbox each month? If not, take a second and sign up. Or send me your email address to bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com and I will send you an invite to follow. This way, you won’t miss a single idea.

I would love the opportunity to work along with you and your team to help you set and exceed your practice goals. If you would like to schedule a no-obligation, complimentary consultation to learn how our coaching program works, please email me at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com.

As always, wishing you a happy, healthy, and productive month!

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty (Dental Coach)

P.S. Please stop by and say hello to me on  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest

Dental Patient Reappointment and Reactivation Tips and Ideas
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Dental Patient Reappointment and Reactivation Tips and Ideas

Hello Friends,

Where are your dental patients? Have they been reappointed to come back for another visit? Or have they been left unscheduled? Whether or schedule is light or jammed packed with patients the answers to these questions matter greatly to the success of your practice.

Friends, do you know how many of your active patients are scheduled for a future visit and how many are unscheduled? You need to know where you’re at currently to know what your potential for growth is. To help you get that data quickly, like within minutes – if your PMS is either Dentrix, Eaglesoft, or Open Dental you can request a complimentary, no-obligation practice data snapshot here: Game-Changing Awareness from Dental Intelligence  – Within minutes we’ll identify your practice’s strengths and uncover hidden opportunities.

Why is this so important? Because when your patients are healthy – your practice is healthy.  For your patients to smile healthy they need to schedule the treatment you’ve diagnosed and to come in regularly for their hygiene continuing care appointments.

Are you struggling with any of the following?

  • Low treatment plan acceptance from your patients.
  • The schedule is so full that you have no available appointments for several months.
  • Not knowing your active and inactive patient numbers.
  • Hygiene continuing care reports are a nightmare.
  • Too many holes in the schedule.
  • Poor treatment presentation skills.
  • Too many patients left the practice and you don’t know why.
  • Not enough time to keep your office social media sites current.
  • Very few patient reviews and recommendations on Google and Facebook
  • Unengaged Employees

Plan now to end 2021 as your BEST year yet! Get whatever help and training you need and want to make the necessary improvements. Feel free to contact me for a complimentary, no-obligation consultation at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com to see if a coaching relationship is right for you.

Please stop by and follow me on  Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest

Today, I’d like to help you tackle one of those struggles… your inactive and unscheduled patients. Let’s reactivate all of your patients that haven’t been in for one year or longer and schedule your active patients that are currently unscheduled.

What is your plan and system for reactivating and reappointing your patients…. (attack that File Cabinet…or computer patient database!)

Ideally, daily, weekly, and monthly efforts should be made to develop and maintain relationships with your patients in order to keep them active. This is true even when you’re so busy you have no time to reach out to your unscheduled patients and/or no available appointments. Why?

The best way to keep your patients active is to be sure to reappoint them for their next hygiene continuing care visit when they are there at the office. Also, help more of your patients say yes to your treatment recommendations and have them reserve their appointment at the time treatment is diagnosed and presented to them. You should be tracking both your pre-appointments and your re-appointments.  This is important if you want to reduce patient attrition and reduce the amount of money and time spent trying to reach these patients later on down the road.

Control the Schedule – Same-day cancelations attempts and broken appointments must be handled effectively. The goal is to greatly reduce the number of same-day schedule changes and for the appointments that you can’t save be sure to reschedule them while the patient is still on the phone. (Unless of course, they’re a habitual offender!) See more tips here: How to Reduce Same Day Dental Appointment Cancellations and No Shows

However, if for whatever reason your inactive patient database is growing (you are tracking this, right?) – take steps now to welcome those patients back into the schedule. You can start by reaching out to them with a We Miss You reactivation letter and email.

If you would like a sample letter that you can customize to your practice for your patients – feel free to request one at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com.

Some suggestions for your letter are:

  • Include a deadline to respond.
  • Use a handwritten colored envelope (Grab their attention!).
  • Include Special Call to Action Offer
  • Make a call to the patients about a week after mailing the letter.
  • Be sure to document all attempts at contacting the patient and the response in your practice management software.
  • Include Social Media & Office Contact Information.

I hope that these tips and ideas are helpful to you.

I would love and truly appreciate for you to please leave a review/recommendation for me on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK.    Thank you very much!!

Are you receiving my free Dental Leadership, Practice Management, and Marketing Ideas in your email inbox each month? If not, please follow today or send me (bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com) your email address and I will send you an invitation to follow. This way, you won’t miss a single idea.

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

P.S.

Dental Practice Management Tips and Ideas for February 2021
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Dental Practice Management Tips and Ideas for February 2021

Hello Friends,

How is your first quarter looking so far? What are you doing to ensure this is a healthy and productive year for you, your office, and your team?

“Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.” – Walt Disney

Here are a few Practice Management and Leadership Tips and Ideas for February.

February is National Time Management Month: When was the last time you reviewed all your office systems and protocols to ensure that you’re using your time efficiently and effectively?

If you’re often running behind schedule, investigate as to the reason(s) why. If you know the why… change whatever it is causing you to stray from the schedule.

“You get to decide where your time goes. You can either spend it moving forward, or you can spend it putting out fires. You decide. And if you don’t decide, others will decide for you.” – Tony Morgan

Arrive at the office with plenty of time before the first scheduled patient, expect your patients to arrive on time, never wait on hygiene exams, calculate the actual amount of time it takes to do procedures, control the schedules, these things will help you stay on time.

Doctors, if you would like to grow and improve your dental practice and have wondered what it might be like to work with me and what coaching is all about… please feel free to reach out to me to schedule a complimentary, no-obligation coaching call at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com.

Reappointments and Reactivation – Now is a great time to reach out to your unscheduled patients both active and inactive patients.

Rather than just calling to ask if they would like to schedule an appointment, use this occasion to simply check in to see how they’re doing and let them know you’re thinking about them. This is about building and strengthening relationships. 

Take advantage of the different methods to reach them – telephone, text, email, letter/care, and your social media pages.  You’re planting little reminder seeds that you are still here for them during these crazy times.

Here is an idea: February 24th is Forget Me Not Day – This is a day to remember family, friends, loved ones, and unscheduled patients.

Remind your patients to not forget to schedule their all-important dental cleaning, examination, and oral cancer screening!

Friends, do you know how many of your active patients have a future appointment and how many do not? Do you know how many new patients you are welcoming into the practice AND how many patients you’re losing each month?  To help you get that data quickly, like within minutes – if your PMS is either Dentrix, Eaglesoft, or Open Dental you can request a complimentary, no-obligation practice data snapshot here: Game-Changing Awareness from Dental Intelligence  – Within minutes we’ll identify your practice’s strengths and uncover hidden opportunities.  I am happy to assist you with this at no charge and with absolutely no obligation to do anything further with me. 

Telephones – As a team, create your Telephone Principles (scripting guidelines) which include your goals & expectations for each call.

Practice, Practice, Practice how to effectively handle different types of calls and questions until you feel comfortable. A few tips:

  • Answer the phone during hours/days that patients are most likely to call.
  • Avoid putting callers on hold – first, find out who it is and how you can help them.
  • Call Steps: Smile, Reassure, Get Name, Discovery, Relationship Building & Scheduling.
  • NP’s – Always get their referral source. Also, ask if they have any other family members that they would like to schedule an appointment for.

To learn more, see: https://bettyhaydenconsulting.com/2020/01/30/dental-office-telephone-principles/

Insurance Claims – Send out clean claims with the correct information, provider, date of service, xrays, attachments, documentation.  Your goal is to not have any unpaid claims sitting out there past 30-60 days.  What does your insurance aging report look like? (Did you know that your collection percentage drops significantly after 90 days past due? Over 120 days past due it drops to about 30% – you lose a lot of your money the longer these claims sit out there.)

For Dental Marketing Tips and Ideas for February visit here: https://bettyhaydenconsulting.com/2021/01/05/dental-office-marketing-tips-and-ideas-for-february-2021/

As always, wishing you the very best!

I would love and truly appreciate for you to please leave a review/recommendation for me here on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK.

Don’t miss out on any of the ideas that I share each month! Are you receiving my complimentary Practice Management and Marketing Ideas in your email inbox each month? If not, please start following us today. If you prefer, send me your email address at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com and I will send you an invitation to follow my blog.

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

P.S. Please stop by and say hello to me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest