Pillars of Dental Success: Systems and Strategies to Streamline the Marketing and Management of the Modern Dental Practice by Mark Costes

Author:Mark Costes [Costes, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-24T23:00:00+00:00

Referral Generation Whiteboard

Referral Generation Poster

CHAPTER 10:

PATIENT REACTIVATION “Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.” —Malcolm s. forbes

Most dentists do not realize that they have a “gold mine” sitting untapped in their inactive charts.

If you are currently using or have ever used physical paper charts in your practice, you know firsthand how quickly inactive charts can accumulate and create a space issue.

Patient Reactivation For those of you who are completely paperless, there is less of a visual reminder, but your inactive patient list still persistently grows.

Unfortunately, once a patient has left the o ffice and has not returned for a length of time, most dentists write that patient off as “gone forever.”

What most dentists don’t realize is that most of the patients who have switched to “inactive” status still live in your community and haven’t sought dentistry anywhere else.

It’s true that there will be some natural attrition due to relocation, philosophical differences, and death, but most of those patients still consider you as their dentist.The majority of them just need a little nudge to get them to come back into your office and back into their healthy routine.

Dentists often send out a postcard or a letter in an attempt to reactivate patients who haven’t returned to the office in some time; but if there is no response, these dentists give up and write the patient off.

It’s worth taking a moment to think about why people become inactive in the first place once they have visited your office. Of course, there are countless reasons why people do not return to your practice after becoming an established patient, but let’s address the most likely reasons for their absence.

1. The patient has moved away from the community.

2. The patient had a bad experience with you or a member of your team and found another dentist.

3. The patient passed away.

4. The patient has financial difficulty or switched insurance. 5. The patient likes you and your o ffice and understands the importance of dental care but has gotten busy and hasn’t been able to free up time for an appointment.

6. The patient is procrastinating because he or she is phobic and dreads dental visits. When patients stop coming into the o ffice without notice, it’s impossible to know the reasons why. Obviously, if they are the minority and fall into the first three categories, they will never be back to your office.

The patients who fall into the last three categories, however, can be targeted for a simple reactivation campaign that will bring many of them back to the office.

The steps are as follows:

1. Use your practice management software to create a list of patients who have not been to your office for a specified period of time (for example, eighteen to twenty-four months).

2. Generate a letter o ffering a complimentary “Get Reacquainted Exam,” including a full-mouth series of X-rays for a limited time. (The expiration date for the offer should not exceed one month.)

3. In one week, send a follow-up letter stamped “Second Notice,” reminding them of the initial offer.

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