How Long Should I Try to Reactivate Dental Patients?

This is a question we’ve heard from dentists before and it’s a good one. Loss of dental patients is one of the main drawbacks of running a practice. This is because any income lost from inactive patients does need to be replaced. Unfortunately, it’s been shown that only 25-40% of lost dental patients will return.

Reactivating Dental Patients

When reactivating dental patients, there are a few things to keep in mind. These include:

• Have the next appointment scheduled before your patient leaves the office – This should be the standard practice in any dental office! It’s very unlikely that inactive patients will one day decide to call and make an appointment. Because of this, your team needs to have a plan in place before they leave your office!
• Cancellations will happen – It’s inevitable that cancellations will happen in your dental practice. Patients will cancel appointments and may not call back to reschedule. They may also have emergencies that cause them to cancel last minute. Whatever the reason, unscheduled patients can easily slip through the cracks and become inactive. Make sure your team is on top of rescheduling when a patient needs to cancel.
• When to stop trying to reactivate your dental patients – Just because patients haven’t responded to communication attempts does not mean they’ve found another dentist. People may not respond because of a hectic schedule or fear of visiting the dentist. Don’t stop attempting to reach out to inactive patients unless they let you know they’ve moved or are seeing a different dentist.

Here at CTC Associates, we’re here to help you build and establish a successful and profitable dental practice. For more information on the services we can provide to your office, please contact CTC Associates today.