Under ordinary circumstances, the average dental practice loses six out of every ten patients that walk through the door per ADA data. COVID-19 hasn’t made it any easier.
Virtually every industry is seeing major losses in terms of loyalty and retention due to the pandemic, but this doesn’t have to mean your practice will see declines too. Quite the opposite. With loyalty shaken, this is the prime time for your office to attract new patients and keep them. Below, we’ll explore some of the recent shifts in patient behavior, plus what you can do to boost satisfaction and loyalty.
1. Stay in Contact Constantly
Regular communication keeps you at the forefront of minds, builds relationships, and helps ensure you’re your patients’ most trusted source of dental information. If you aren’t already sending e-newsletters, commit to doing it monthly for the next year (more on the benefits of patient newsletters here). You can also explore patient texting and emails for birthdays, anniversaries, practice specials, and outstanding treatment reminders.
Pro-Tip: Practice-Web includes one-on-one text message and email capabilities with paid Support. If you’d like the ability to do mass emails and texts, contact our team to inquire about pwConnect and pwNewsletter.
2. Keep Patients Aware of Your Additional COVID Measures
Patients who believe their provider didn’t handle COVID-19 well are three times more likely to delay treatment or not return according to a recent consumer survey. To be clear, this is based purely on perception, not necessarily whether the provider took appropriate measures.
Connect with your team on creating cohesive coronavirus messaging that focuses on boosting trust and comfort rather than fear. You can also address your messaging through more subtle ways, such as by placing hand sanitizer at your door or charging a small fee to cover additional PPE costs in accordance with ADA recommendations.
3. Be in Touch with Trends
Whether you’re posting to social media or connecting with a patient in the chair, discussing how stress-related behaviors impact oral health and including emerging trends in your screening questions can make a world of difference. Covering things like clenching and grinding or increased use of substances like tobacco and alcohol not only shows you care about their overall wellbeing but allows you to provide a higher level of care and opens the door for additional treatments like night guards.
4. Explore Financial Solutions for Patients
Overall, 43 percent of Americans say they or someone in their household has lost their job or received a pay cut due to COVID according to Pew Research. Within the lower income bracket, the number climbs to more than half.
Challenges today typically involve the affordability of treatment, as simply keeping up with monthly bills has become difficult for many. Going forward, patients may also struggle with debt and credit issues due to maxed credit cards, which can disqualify them from traditional healthcare financing programs too.
That in mind, you may want to create your own discount program or consider allowing patients to pay for treatment in installments.
Pro Tip: Practice-Web makes it easy to boost production and establish customized financial solutions for your patients with the ability to create discount plans, set up recurring charges, and make payment plans.
5. Consider a Loyalty Program
Sometimes dentists combine their discount plans and loyalty programs into one, but they really are distinct things. Whereas discount programs focus on making treatment more affordable and are typically leveraged by the uninsured, loyalty programs are made available to your entire practice and encourage everyone to keep up with their regular visits.
One common example of this is the free whitening programs some dentists offer to new patients. You simply create their trays on the first visit and provide them with whitening gel upon request during their hygiene visits, provided they keep to their schedule.
To increase loyalty throughout the practice, these offerings should not be limited to new patients either. You can create alternative rewards for those who don’t qualify for whitening too. Things like electric toothbrushes and dental gear are always a big hit.
6. Roll Out Value-Added Services
Everyone talks about how delighting patients is the best way to win their loyalty, as if providing a perk like a bottle of water when they walk in the door is going to change their whole view of the appointment. It doesn’t. Research out of Harvard and countless other studies shows that what people consistently want is to have their needs met with the least effort on their part. Yes, the care you provide matters. Nothing outshines quality patient care and excellent chairside manner. However, if you’re eyeballing a list of perks your practice could potentially offer, it’s better to zero in on things that make working with your practice easier.
Patient Portals
The adoption of tech has grown dramatically since the pandemic and now virtually every demographic is comfortable with self-help tools. Many prefer them over live human representatives now too. By including essential patient information, such as upcoming appointments and balances, in your patient portal, patients can get info when it’s convenient for them with ease. If you’re a Practice-Web user, you’ll automatically have access to Patient and Dentist Portals with paid Support.
Digital Paperwork
By placing links to paperwork online or sending links to it in advance of an appointment, your patients can complete it when they’re feeling unrushed and can arrive prepared. Like Patient Portals, Paperless and Online Forms are included in Practice-Web Support, so they integrate seamlessly with your software, are customizable, and no manual entry is involved.
Online Scheduling
Almost 40 percent of appointments are booked after hours and more than three-quarters of patients want to self-appoint. You can make this effortless for them by providing an online booking portal on your practice website and on sites like Facebook, Yelp!, and Google. With Practice-Web’s Online Scheduling Smart Tool, all patient and appointment data automatically imports into Practice-Web, so appointments and reminders fall within your natural workflows and the experience is effortless for your team too.
Teledentistry
Teledentistry can prove invaluable to patients by allowing them to connect with you from the comfort of their own home or office and eliminating travel time. By offering teledentistry services, your practice can increase production and patient satisfaction without tying up an operatory too. If you’re a Practice-Web user, pwTeledentist integrates with your current software and all workflows, from scheduling through charting and billing. Patients can access sessions via their Patient Portal, a tool they’re already comfortable with.
Digital Payments
Paying by mail is an outdated practice. Chances are, most of your patients don’t keep a checkbook or stamps close at hand and it’s not always easy to phone in a payment during business hours. That in mind, the ability to accept payments digitally is a practice necessity, but it’s also a major boon for cash flow. Check out the Pay-by-Text Smart Tool if you’re a Practice-Web user. It can integrate with your Portals or can be used to send text messages to patients about their outstanding balances, allowing them to pay when it’s convenient without third-party downloads and automatically recording the payment in their ledger to save your team time.
Get More from Your Dental Practice Management Software
The tips outlined here are universal and can help you regardless of which software your dental practice leverages. However, not all dental software provides you with these capabilities like Practice-Web does.
If you’re a current Practice-Web user who would like to activate some of these features, please reach out to our Sales or Support Team by clicking here.
If you’re currently using another software or are selecting dental software for the first time, we recommend starting with a demo. Our team will walk you through how Practice-Web works and provide you with a trial version to explore at your leisure, so you can move forward with confidence. Click here to request your complimentary demo.