HOW MANY “ACTIVE” PATIENTS DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR PRACTICE?

When I ask dental consulting clients that question, I typically get a puzzled look, a shoulder shrug, or a rough “guess-timate”. However, monitoring the number of active patients is to the health of your practice as important as monitoring blood pressure is to the health of a person. The effectiveness of your Recare System, key to practice growth, production, and profitability, is predicated on the number of active patients.

An active patient in General Dental Practice may be defined as one who has received treatment or hygiene care within the past 24 months, NOT including single visit emergencies. In Pediatric Dental Practice, an active patient may be defined as one seen for treatment or recare within the past 12 to 18 months, NOT including emergencies seen for a single appointment. Your computer system should have the capability of generating an active patient count upon demand, and that number should be on the monthly report you, the dentist, receive from your business staff.

If a practice has 2000 active patients, each of whom should be seen for hygiene care every six months, one can calculate:

• 2000 active patients, each seen every 6 months = 333 recare patients/month       
• Actual average = 160 recares/month = 48% effective system            
• Goal = 70-80% effective Recare System            
• 70% effective system with 2000 active patients = 233 recare appointments/month

AN EYE OPENER: Multiply the additional 73 recare patients per month given in this example by your average recare fee (with or without X-rays or other additional procedures) to calculate the additional production in a month. WOW!!!