What if you were measuring success but your measurements were wrong?
Every good dental practice keeps track of certain benchmarks. These are the key business metrics that help you grow your practice and generally achieve success.
But when it comes to benchmark management, what are the stats your practice should be tracking? Keep reading to discover the answer!
Profit
Perhaps the most obvious aspect of benchmark management is your profit. Simply put, your practice needs more profits each year if you truly want to grow.
But what do dental analytics tell us about your profit? It’s healthy for your profit to grow by 5% to 6% over a three-year period. So if your goal is to increase profits by 6% in the next three years, you should aim to increase profit by an average of 2% each year.
New Patients
Of course, if you want more profits, then you need more patients. Therefore, it’s important to keep track of how many new patients you are getting. However, when measuring your key business metrics, it’s very important that you measure net new patients.
Why net? On paper, getting 24 new patients in a month sounds great, but if you effectively lost 20 old patients, you only actually gained 4 patients. Keep track of net patient growth to grow your business.
Collection
Dentists and patients alike understand that dental services can be expensive. Because of this, patients often seek special payment arrangements. But it’s important for your practice to keep track of over-the-counter collections.
Ideally, you should be collecting anywhere between 45%-55% over-the-counter collections. The best way to achieve these numbers is to condition new patients that they must pay for their services at the time the service is received. If your OTC collection is significantly lower than this, your practice is effectively lowering the value of the money that you receive (after all, money now is always better than money later).
Treatment Presented vs. Treatment Accepted
One of the more frustrating experiences for a dentist is to recommend an important treatment and then have the patient decline that treatment. With that in mind, your own dental analytics should include the percentage of presented treatment to accepted treatment.
Ideally, this benchmark should not dip below 70%, and some dentists strive for as high as 90%. Increasing this benchmark at your own practice increases profits while improving the quality of life for patients.
Overhead
One of the key business metrics you can never lose sight of is your overhead. On a basic level, monitoring overhead helps you ensure profit. But understanding your overhead compared to national trends can help you really grow your business.
As an example, you might have a 10% higher staff labor percentage than the national average. If you can find a way to lower that percentage without compromising the quality of your practice, your business can grow like never before.
Dental Benchmark Management Made Easy
Now you know the key business metrics for your own benchmark management. But what if you could make benchmark management easier than ever?
We specialize in helping dentists track the metrics that help their business grow. To discover what we can do for your own practice, contact us today!
