No we are not talking about when you are sleeping we are talking about the most important benchmark of your practice. Much has been written about the important #’s that indicate you have a healthy practice. We have written quite a few of those articles. Over the years I have added another # to the mix that most General Dentist do not talk about. Orthodontist talk about this number all the time. So what is the magic number, it is Treatment Acceptance, Conversion or any of the other things that it is called. What it really means is how well are you converting treatment plans into scheduled appointments. It doesn’t matter if you are getting 100 new patients a month, it is what you do with them that counts.
When speaking with Orthodontist we continually talk about Conversion Rate and how important that is to their practice. But it is much less talked about in other areas of dentistry. When we help a new general dentist open a practice the new dentist generally does their own hygiene, which gives the dentist plenty of time to get to know the patient and bond with them. The Treatment acceptance rate for the most part is around 75-80%%, meaning that most of the patients walking out the door with a treatment plan have also scheduled for that treatment. Fast forward 4 – 6 months and we see the treatment acceptance rate drop to around 40 – 45%. Why is that? Well at the 4-6 month mark the practice is busy enough to hire a hygienist, so the Doctor spends much less time bonding with the patient. Granted, there are now more patients coming through the door, and the chance for same day conversions is going down because the Dr.’s schedule is busier, but that is not the problem. The amount of treatment scheduled is pretty much a direct correlation to the time the Dr. spends with the patient on the first visit.
Do I advocate that the Doctor does all the hygiene for the rest of his/her days, absolutely not that would cost the practice to much money, plus the Doctor would mutiny So what is the answer?
Solving this problem is very much dependent on each individual practice, however here are a few suggestions:
Bring all New Patients into the Dr.s schedule for a longer Comprehensive exam and Records, then send to hygiene.
Bring into hygiene, but Dr. meets patient first to introduce themselves, review Medical History, and order x-rays needed, then comes back at end of appointment for exam.
Tighten up Hand off skills, Hygiene to Dr., Front to back, Back to front, etc More treatment is lost on the walk to the front desk.
Do you know what your Number is saying about your practice??????