The Importance of Recare
in Maximizing Dental Practice Revenue
The Importance of Recare in Maximizing Dental Practice Revenue
You have probably heard that recare is the lifeblood of your dental practice. Without a strong recare system, you could be losing tens of thousands of dollars annually. Patient retention is vital to practice growth. If you haven’t reviewed your recare system recently, money could literally be walking out the door. The recare system is a vital element in patient retention.
Recare—alternatively referred to as recall, hygiene, preventative care, and continuing care—is the process of encouraging existing patients to return for regular check-ups and treatments. More importantly, it is the cornerstone of a successful dental practice. Beyond its obvious benefits for patient health, an effective recare system is critical for maintaining and increasing a practice’s revenue.
Read on to learn:
- How recare brightens your practice’s finances
- How to implement a successful recare system
- Why recare is the root of patient loyalty
The Financial Impact of Recare
Between 40 and 85% of a dental practice’s revenue comes from hygiene/recare appointments. With each patient contributing an average of $450 annually to your practice, keeping those patients coming back is the key to unlocking steady revenue streams. If your practice sees, for example, 1,000 clients annually, losing 20% of your patients could mean $90,000 in lost revenue over the year!
This might seem obvious to you, and maybe you’re thinking you’re already a master of recare. Not so fast! Based on data from 12,500 American dental practices across seven years, there is often a huge gap between what dentists think is happening in their practice and what actually is happening. While most practices claim their reappointment rate is over 90%, the reality is that only 59% of patients scheduled another appointment.
As a dentist, you know that regular appointments are key to chronic disease management and preventing new cavitations. A 2020 study emphasized the importance of routine hygiene visits in the diagnosing of oral diseases, which is important in both maintaining the health of patients and keeping dentists’ calendars filled.
Another key benefit to a robust patient retention system is the reduction of patient attrition. When patients become inactive or switch to another practice, you are left to find a new patient to fill that space. This requires injecting resources into marketing instead of spending that money elsewhere. Retaining existing patients is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones.
Implementing the Best Recare System
Studies show again and again that an advanced appointment system (AAS)—also known as pre-scheduling, pre-booking, or pre-appointing—is the best way to get patients back into the chair on time. In an AAS, patients schedule their next appointment before leaving the office. While it may be that the patient is unsure of what commitments they may have in six months, when their next cleaning is due, an AAS is the most reliable way to bring the patient back.
However, as we know, not every patient will want to schedule their next appointment before leaving the office. Moreover, some patients will forget about appointments they scheduled months ago and become no-shows. So, an AAS is not sufficient for any dental practice.
There are 3 keys to building your best recare system (on top of AAS):
Optimizing patient management systems
Training staff
Providing incentives to patients
Optimizing patient management systems
Rather than having your staff chase down overdue patients when they have some free time (and do they ever have free time?), your patient management system (PMS) can keep track of patients’ recare schedules for you. Outdated systems might mean your competitors are already ahead in retention. Polish your PMS for patient recare in these 6 ways:
1. Send automated reminders and follow-ups to patients. One study reports that 30% of patients don’t adhere to their recare appointments, and forgetting about the appointment is a common cause of no-shows in healthcare. Using your PMS to send text and email reminders can help patients remember and attend their appointments, ensuring they get the care they need and you don’t lose out. You can also schedule automated follow-up messages emphasizing the importance of the appointment and encouraging patients to schedule their next visit.
4. Track and report recare KPIs. Leverage the reporting capabilities of your PMS to track key performance indicators (KPIs) related to patient recare, such as recare appointment adherence and no-show rates. Monitoring these KPIs helps identify areas for improvement and measure the success of your recare strategies.
2. Customize recare schedules. You can configure your PMS to customize the recare schedule for each patient according to their needs and personalized care plan.
5. Integrate online booking. Ensure your PMS is integrated with an online booking system that allows patients to schedule their recare appointments easily. This convenience increases the likelihood of patients booking their appointments on time, in the event that your AAS failed.
3. Segment patients for targeted communications. Use your PMS to segment patients by criteria such as last visit date, treatment history, or specific dental conditions. This allows you to send targeted messages reminding patients who have a gap in their attendance to schedule their recare appointments.
6. Educate and engage patients. Use your PMS to send patients educational materials about the importance of regular dental care and the benefits of recare. Engaging patients with informative content can motivate them to keep up with their appointments.
Training staff
As fantastic as an optimized PMS is, you can’t rely on it 100%. You must regularly audit the data within your PMS to ensure the patient information and automated messages are accurate. Train your staff on the customized recare schedules and patient segmentations so they can ensure that your PMS is operating as intended.
As stated, AAS takes the crown. Getting patients to commit to their next appointment before they brush out the door is the best, most cost-effective method to scheduling recare. Therefore, training your staff to maximize the number of patients who pre-schedule should be a priority.
For example, train your staff NOT to ask, “Do you want to schedule your next appointment?” This is easily brushed off with a simple “No” from the patient. Instead, your staff should say something like, “The hygienist wants to next see you in March. I have the 21st and the 29th available. Which would work best for you?”
Additionally, train staff on key talking points when faced with patient objections, whether they’re financial, temporal, or psychological. Be sure to acknowledge the patient’s concern, but also know how to convince them that a follow-up appointment is in their best interest. For example, if a patient worries that they can’t afford a dental procedure, explain that delaying care will make the problem worse and more expensive. A swiftly scheduled appointment will actually save them money in the long run. Address other concerns, too, like assuaging patient fears about dental care or emphasizing the importance of making time for dental care despite busy schedules,
It is also important to ensure that your office staff truly understand the importance of recare. Routine appointments with the hygienist are more than “just cleanings”—they’re vital to preventative care! Train your staff to act as liaisons for the importance of not just dental care in general but of each patient’s needs.
Finally, provide your staff specific time blocks to call patients for recare. Sure, most patients prefer texts these days, and most calls go to voicemail, but phone calls are worth the grind. You can expect about one new appointment per hour of calling, but—hey—that’s one more than you had at the beginning! Track how many patients each team member successfully books before they leave the office, and set a target of at least 90% of pre-scheduled patients.
Providing incentives to patients
One last tip for getting patients back in the chair for recare is to sweeten the deal for the patient!
The first and most obvious method is to clearly explain the importance of the appointment. Are there any specific issues that the dentist or hygienist wants to follow up on, such as a cracked filling? Your patients are busy, so you have to communicate what the value is to them to return.
Second, consider what other rewards you can provide your patients. We all remember getting a fun-colored toothbrush after our appointments when we were kids. That might still work for today’s kids, but what about the adults? A rewards program with perks like complimentary services is a possibility. You can also consider loyalty programs or partnering with local businesses to offer patients exclusive discounts after their recare appointments.
Enhancing Patient Loyalty
While owning a dental practice means you are a business owner and must think like one, you likely see yourself as a dentist first. That means you value providing high quality care to your patients.
The American Dental Association highlights the importance of creating and nurturing a positive dentist/patient relationship with every patient. A robust recare system facilitates ongoing contact and communication with patients, fostering long-term trust and loyalty. This trust and open communication, in turn, helps you provide personalized care to each patient.
Prioritizing recare is beneficial for your practice and your patients. It is the cornerstone of any dental practice. Without an optimized recare system, your patients could miss out on necessary care, and you will miss out on revenue. Boost both your patients’ oral health and your practice’s financial health by optimizing your PMS for recare tracking and automation, training your staff on communicating with patients, and highlighting the benefits of recare to your patients. Once you have mastered recare, you can focus your attention on the elusive unscheduled treatments.
Is your recare system optimized for success? Take a closer look today and start maximizing your practice’s revenue. Contact us today for a consultation and the first steps to an improved recare system.
About Emmie Saavedra
Emmie is the President and Founder of Champion Dentists. With more than 30 years in the medical and dental industries, and over a decade in entrepreneurship, her strengths lie in building deep relationships, elevating personal and team performance, and empowering strong leadership. Emmie is committed to empowering Dentists to achieve phenomenal success both in life and in business because she believes that both are tightly integrated and hold the KEY to living a fulfilling and joyful life.
About Champion Dentists
Champion Dentists is a premier professional business advisory firm dedicated to providing comprehensive consulting solutions for dental practices. We specialize in delivering highly tailored onsite solutions, addressing the unique challenges faced by the dental industry through a streamlined and effective approach. Our primary objective is to equip dentists with the essential business management skills necessary for practice management and growth, enhancing both