The sober sum: what does better patient follow-up actually earn a practice?

Promises of more revenue and higher patient satisfaction sound good, but most practice owners are rightly sceptical. They have tried something before that delivered little, and they have no time for investments that don't clearly pay for themselves.

So this blog isn't about grand promises. It is about the sums most practices have never done, but which are surprisingly simple. And which show that the bar for a return on better patient communication is much lower than most people expect.

What is an active patient actually worth?

Most practice owners don't know the exact answer, but it is the most fundamental question in any business case. How much is a patient who comes back every year worth to your practice?

For a dental practice this varies widely, depending on the type of treatment. A patient who comes once a year for a check-up and a scale and polish already represents a few hundred euros a year. A patient who also has orthodontic treatment, implants or cosmetic procedures can be worth thousands of euros over several years.

For a cosmetic clinic the figures are similar or higher. A client who returns for repeat sessions or additional treatments has a considerably higher lifetime value than someone who visits once.

Keep that value in mind, and the sums around patient retention and patient follow-up change quickly.

The sum for returning patients

Suppose your practice loses ten to fifteen patients a year who could really have stayed. Not because they moved or for a medical reason, but simply because something small went wrong that was never picked up, or because the reminder they received wasn't convincing enough to bring them back.

If you manage to keep just five of those ten to fifteen patients through better follow-up, and each of them is worth an average of three hundred euros a year, that is already one thousand five hundred euros in retained revenue. Every year. Structurally.

These aren't big numbers. But they aren't zero either. And the investment needed to achieve this can, in many cases, be a fraction of that amount.

The sum for reviews

Anyone looking for a new practice checks the reviews first these days. The average Google rating and the number of recent reviews have a measurable effect on how many new patients decide to get in touch.

Suppose your practice receives ten extra positive reviews a year because patients are asked for a review at the right moment. And suppose those reviews lead one extra new patient a month to call your practice instead of a competitor. That is twelve new patients a year, each with their own value over the course of the relationship.

These are assumptions. The real figures depend on your situation, your market and your existing reputation. But the direction of the reasoning holds in almost every context.

Why a low response rate is not a problem

One of the most common objections to patient communication systems is that most patients don't respond anyway. That is true. A low response rate is normal in many sectors, and healthcare is no different.

But that objection loses its force as soon as you do the sums. If a patient is worth an average of three hundred to five hundred euros a year, and a handful of patients won back or retained can already pay back the investment, then nowhere near everyone needs to respond to tip the balance into the positive.

It is not about everyone responding. It is about the people who do respond getting the right follow-up. And about the people who don't respond being approached in the right way at a later moment.

Compared with recruiting new patients

There is one more sum that few practices do: comparing the cost of keeping an existing patient with the cost of recruiting a new one.

Recruiting new patients takes money and effort. An advert, a listing on a platform, a referral from another care provider. In commercial sectors it is often assumed that winning a new customer costs five to seven times more than keeping an existing one.

Exactly how that ratio works out differs from one healthcare practice to the next, but the principle is the same. Those who invest in keeping existing patients and bringing returning patients back get more return from the same budget than those who put all their money into recruiting new patients.

Want the wider business case, including complaints, reputation and quality requirements? Read What does continuous patient feedback deliver? as well.

What this asks of a practice

The sums above aren't complicated. But they do call for a different way of looking at patient communication: not as a cost or an obligation, but as an investment with a measurable return.

That also means the approach has to differ from what most practices are used to. Not sending everyone the same message. Not waiting for patients to get in touch themselves. But actively reaching the right patient, at the right moment, in the right way.

The good news is that this doesn't have to take more time. It calls for a better set-up of something most practices already try to do, but don't manage to do structurally.

Conclusion

Better patient follow-up doesn't have to be a big investment to deliver something. The sums are simple, the bar is low, and the value of a few patients won back or retained each year can soon outweigh the cost.

If you'd like to see how CareView makes that sum concrete for your practice, a conversation is a good place to start.