June historically marks the return to normal patient volume following the traditional May lull. With the vast majority (86 percent!) of dentists reporting they’re back to pre-COVID levels per the ADA, most dental practices should be enjoying a nice uptick in hygiene appointments and exams this month, with a surge of new patients heading in around August.
This shift means two important things. First, people are resuming their normal habits, so practices are also likely to see a slew of no-shows and last-minute cancellations this month as patients resume their summer vacation planning. Second, fall is historically a slow period. Practices that take action now can maintain momentum through the rest of the year.
Use the tips outlined below to make the most of your summer rush and maintain high levels of production and revenue through the fall.
1. Use Appointment Lists
Appointment Lists are a robust set of tools that allow you to filter and sort, so it’s easy to find patients to fill cancellations as needed or market to patients who require a specific treatment, and reach them with a targeted text message quickly.
With that said, most Appointment Lists require some setup to work properly. For example, you’ll want to create appointments for procedures at the time of diagnosis to maximize the value of the Planned Tracker List and you’ll want to send appointments to the Unscheduled List when patients break appointments and don’t reschedule right away. You’ll also want to ask patients if you can add them to the ASAP list while you’re chatting with them.
Make sure everyone on your team knows how these features work now while you’re busy, so it’s easy to boost production in the fall when things slow down and you can use them now to fill cancellations. Our texting webinar (below) gives a brief overview of how they work. You’ll find detailed tutorials for each in our Appointment Module playlist on YouTube.
2. Ask for Reviews
Almost 90 percent of patients read online reviews before booking with your practice and people trust them as much as they trust a recommendation from a friend or family member. They check out your overall star rating and look into how many reviews you have as well as how recent those reviews are too.
Because August is typically the biggest month of the year for new patient appointments, you’ll want to stack the deck by getting more reviews on platforms like Yelp and Google now while patients are flooding your office. This simple step will go a long way to filling your chairs in the fall and can be completely automated.
pwReviews, our online reviews Smart Tool makes it easy by automatically requesting reviews from patients after appointments. You can send patients a pre-qualification survey to ensure they’re happy before asking for an external review to protect your good reputation (or boost a low star rating) or send patients links that take them directly to the review platforms of your choosing to maximize the number of reviews you receive.
3. Confirm, Confirm, Confirm
Practices often have a no-show and cancellation rate of around ten percent, with some reaching 20 percent or more. That may not sound like much, but it’s about one patient per day for a typical hygienist. Do the math. A prophy and exam are usually in the neighborhood of $200 nowadays. That’s $200 per day x 5 days per week x 52 weeks per year, which amounts to $52,000 per year in lost production!!! In addition, around 80 percent of a dentist’s production stems from hygiene appointments. These missed appointments aren’t merely “cleanings.” They’re damaging to your practice as a whole.
If you aren’t already automating your reminders and confirmations and leveraging effective communication channels, shore up your strategy now to ensure your team isn’t weighed down with excessive cancellations over the summer.
4. Connect
It’s estimated that dental practices lose around 17 percent of their active patients every year. If you’re leveraging Lists and automating reminders, you’ll have fewer patients slipping through the cracks and vanishing already. However, it’s important to connect with patients outside of their immediate care needs to keep your practice at the forefront of their minds. The easiest way to do this is through e-newsletters, which come with a multitude of additional benefits. They can:
- Educate patients
- Boost case acceptance
- Increase patient loyalty
- Encourage more referrals
- Amplify revenue
Our mass email marketing Smart Tool, pwNewsletter, comes with pre-designed templates you can customize using a simple drag-and-drop tool, so it’s easy to create professional-looking newsletters and promotional emails quickly. If you’re launching a summer campaign, consider covering topics like what patients can do if they have a dental emergency while on vacation and how they can keep their smiles healthy during the summer.
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