One of the most important ways to bring revenue into the practice is to perform exams on new and existing patients. It’s the lifeblood of a practice and opens the doors for not only more procedures but it is an opportunity to build trust between the dentist and dental team members and the patient.
One way to get an overview of how a practice, and how the U.S. dental profession, is doing is to examine how many exams, or evaluations, a practice is performing each month. These numbers will help paint an overall picture of the health of your practice, says Dayna Johnson, founder and owner of Rae Dental Management.
“You have to know your numbers, and that includes how many patients are coming into your practice,” Johnson said. “These aren’t numbers that you can guess about or numbers that you think you know. You have to know how many patients are really in your practice, what they’re investing in and where your practice can be improving.
“There are key metrics to a practice’s success, and the number of exams you’re performing each month is definitely one to which dentists should be paying attention.”
When looking at the numbers of exams done per month in each practice, there were some interesting findings. Overall, practices throughout the U.S. are performing about five more evaluations per month then they were five years ago. Other data shows that recall effectiveness has grown (a trend that we’ll be touching upon in an article later this month). More evaluations per month and a higher rate of recall effectiveness work hand in hand to ensure that a steady stream of patients is walking through the practice’s doors.
To look at total exams per month per practice, we combined comprehensive exams (CDT codes D0150, D0180) and periodic exams (CDT code D0120) for the final number. The codes focus on both new and established patients:
- D0120: Periodic oral evaluation — established patient
- D0150: Comprehensive oral evaluation — new or established patient
- D0180: Comprehensive periodontal evaluation — new or established patient
Upward trend
In order to find the average number of total exams in a dental practice, we extracted data from Sikka Software that has been collected from more than 12,500 dental practices from around the U.S. since 2010 until the end of 2016.
Let’s take a look at the numbers compiled by this data over the last seven years.
The good news is that total exams are going up as we’ve seen an upward trend over the last four years. This indicates that practices are doing a better job of not only bringing in new patients, but also emphasizing the importance of returning to their existing patients. During the economic downturn, many patients were putting other things ahead of their oral health. These numbers seem to indicate that trend has turned around.
Practice tip
Of course, to keep that trend going up in your practice, you have to keep your patients coming back in for their regular checkups and you also have to attract new patients to your practice. Social media can play a key role in attracting new patients, according to Mike Pedersen, owner and founder of The Dental Boost.
Reaching today’s patients where they are and touching upon their perceived needs is a critical step that many practices overlook, Pedersen said.
“People will go to your dental website before they become a patient,” Pedersen said. “Make sure to have content on all your service pages that meet them at their emotional need. Don’t make it about you and your practice, but about how much better they are going to feel about themselves after they see you.”
Note: Want to learn more about what Sikka Software can do for your practice? Practice Mobilizer is the free app that lets you send HIPAA-compliant video messages, track patient arrival times, provides zip code specific fee data and more. Click here. Link to www.practicemobilizer.com.
This article was originally published July 14, 2017 on DrBicuspid. You can view the original article here: http://bit.ly/2tNFHc7
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