The Practicon Viewpoint by Ann Page Griffin

QUICK: CAN YOU TELL ME HOW MANY ACTIVE PATIENTS YOU HAVE IN YOUR PRACTICE?

In my many years of dental practice consulting, this was often one of the first questions I asked a client. Typically, I received a puzzled look, a shoulder shrug, or a rough "guess-timate." By the time we concluded the consultation, the dentist understood that monitoring the number of active patients is as important to the health of the practice as monitoring blood pressure is to the health of a person. The effectiveness of your recare system, the key to practice growth, production, and profitability, is predicated on the number of active patients.

An active patient in general dental practices is defined as one who has received an initial examination, treatment, or recare within the past 24 months, not including single visit emergencies (in pediatric practices, within the past 12 to 18 months).

Your practice management software can generate a count or list of patients who fit those parameters. This number should appear on each Monthly Practice Monitor report the dentist receives at the end of each month.

The following example is based on a practice with 3,000 active patients, each of whom should be seen for hygiene care every six months:

• A 100% effective recare system would include 500 recare appointments per month
• If the actual average is only 280 recare appointments per month, this is a 56% effective system
• A 70% to 80% effective recare system will include 350 to 400 recare appointments per month

It's easy to see that, by increasing the effectiveness of the recare system and adding 70 to 120 recare appointments, then multiplying by your average recare fee, the impact this can have on your overall production. In a word, WOW!

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