Are you losing your patients?

 

No dentist likes to lose patients, especially when those patients take your business to competing nearby practice. Patient walkout cannot be prevented altogether, however, there are steps dentists can take to drive their former patients back into your practice and prevent other patients from leaving in the first place.

Take feedback before separation

If a patient calls your clinic to ask for previous treatment records, X rays or otherwise just to inform you of them leaving, instruct your staff to ask whether there’s anything they can do to encourage the patient to stay. The conversation should be empathetic but firm. If the patient is not open to staying, talk to the patient directly, do not be dependent on your staff to reason with the patient. There is a possibility that a staff member might be the reason for your loss. Ask specifically why he or she is leaving. Perhaps the person found the front office staff to be rude, or he or she is dissatisfied with the long wait on hold when scheduling appointments. Criticism like this can help you improve your dental practice.

Most of the time, patients will not let you know they’re leaving, they will simply stop booking appointments and stop responding to outreach efforts. The most effective way to receive feedback from these patients is to send them a survey to ask about their departure. If you do not have patient email addresses in your database, you can send surveys through the post which if I may say is a little old school,but has a human touch to it.

If they do not respond via mail too, the only option left is to send coupons or an offer, or a goodbye gift.

To encourage more participation, keep your surveys short and straight. Ask the patients to select their reasons for leaving from a list of possibilities. These might include:

● Moving out of the area or have had other life changes that prevent me from returning to this practice.

● My insurance has changed and this practice does not accept my new insurance provider.

● I am not happy with the location of the clinic, e.g difficulty parking, that made me not want to return to this practice.

● I had difficulty reaching the clinic by phone to schedule an appointment.

● The service I received from the staff was not up to my standards.

● The treatment I received from the dentist was not up to my standards.

● Other (please explain).

Then ask patients to provide more detail as to why they left. The answers you receive are your most valuable feedback.

Make adjustments based on patient feedback

Once you know why a patient left, see if you can make the changes necessary to draw them back. If you receive complaints mostly about trouble getting a staff member on the phone to book appointments, you could add online scheduling to your practice website. Or if patients indicate that finding parking is difficult, you could offer a valet service or find an area nearby to park for the patients.

You cannot resolve every complaint about your practice, but you can prioritize projects to attract the maximum number of former patients.

Broadcast your practice changes

Firstly, it gives an impression that you are not a stubborn practice who are not open to changes. If you are making changes to your practice based on patient assessment, reach out to let these “ex” patients know about the changes. To increase the possibility of their return, offer them a free consultation or a small discount on products or services.

Be sure to also share changes with ongoing patients. This will keep them informed and demonstrate that you take patient satisfaction seriously.

Don’t assume dormant patients have departed

It would be a blunder to assume that patients you have not seen in some time have left your practice. Many patients need reminders before they crack down and call to schedule appointments. The easiest way to keep in touch with dormant and other patients is to send appointment reminders by email, text message, or postcard. You can also keep in touch with patients by sharing educational content such as dental health tips or a newsletter.

If patients still do not schedule appointments, try to draw them in with special promotions on services not typically covered by insurance, such as cosmetics.

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