Ensuring patients return to the practice is a challenging aspect of practice management. This article provides tips on how to improve patient recall numbers using simple, yet effective, strategies

In today's busy dental practices, ensuring you have an effective system in place to recall patient numbers is as important—if not more so—as attracting new patients to attend your practice.

Once you have a patient, ensuring that they stay with you can be very hard work indeed. Implementing strategies and putting systems in place that work together can define your practice recall rates and help from losing your patients to your competitors. Realising the importance of patient recall is half the battle. Without an effective system in place, you will be missing many opportunities for patients to return to your practice and hence increase practice production and profits. The following 10 tips will show you how you can improve your recall numbers.

Tip one: train your staff

Ensuring all staff deliver the same message can take a long time and a lot of investment. However, once they are trained, they should be able to deliver the most wonderful patient journeys, irrespective of what the treatments are and help retain patients, so they feel like they want to come back again and again to the practice.

Ensure your staff know how to communicate and answer patient queries effectively. Establish that their verbal and listening skills are excellent and they show positive body language when engaging patients.

Tip two: ensure your practice systems are in place

Making sure your team and software system are working side by side is vital. There is no point having software that generates the monthly recall list if your staff do not act on it and generate the recall correspondence with your practice's individual touches. Having set systems in place and having staff who know what to do will save time and hence ensure a smoother process.

Also, if you have a software system in place, such as CS R4+ Practice Management Software, ensure you are using it to its full potential. Many software systems will be able to generate a list of patients who have not attended for their recalls. Ensure that your staff are aware of this function and follow up with patients who have missed their recall.

Tip three: stay in touch

Ensuring your relationships with the patients are warm and heartfelt will allow your patients to feel more welcomed. Exceeding their expectations will also show to your patients how much they mean to your practice. Creating good rapport with patients will make them feel valued and listening to them will make them feel important too.

Keeping in touch with your patients is just as important as talking to them. Engaging them in newsletters with fun facts or competitions, sending out birthday cards, Christmas cards, thank you cards or special offers at the practice is a nice way for them to keep in touch with what is going on and helps to show that you value them.

Tip four: personalise your correspondence

Sending out a simple recall card or message saying ‘You are due for your next appointment, please call the practice,’ is totally uninspiring for the patient. Although the message is precise and to the point, it is also monotonous and very impersonal. Patients will not feel like they are part of your practice but just another patient number. Your correspondence with any patients needs to be personal and show that you have actually missed their presence at your practice.

Use patients' names instead of generic formatting, put something into the correspondence about their last visit and finish off with an acknowledgment from the dentist, hygienist or reception staff, making sure it is signed by a staff member.

Tip five: help to eliminate patients' fears or concerns

If a patient wants to return to your practice, but is unable to for some reason, find out what that reason may be. Are there cost issues that you could help him/her with, such as a monthly payment plan or an interest free loan? Does he/she have a phobia that your team could help with to reduce the problem?

If taking time off work to attend is an issue, try to accommodate the patient in perhaps fewer appointments that are longer or offer appointments out of working hours.

Tip six: educate and motivate your patients

Helping patients to understand why they need to attend the practice is almost as critical as them actually attending. If a patient does not see value in what you are offering and does not perceive a need for it, they are unlikely to attend.

Educate your patients to help them understand that regular check-ups, hygienist visits, and oral health sessions at your practice can benefit them by improving and maintaining their oral health. This is a most challenging area but getting staff involved in this area can also be very rewarding.

Tip seven: value patients' time

Don't keep your patients waiting and if such circumstances arise then keep your patients informed. Give them the option of rearranging and accommodate them as best you can. Leaving a patient waiting for a long time can cause a lot of unnecessary aggravation on both sides.

Tip eight: give your patients incentives

Rewarding patients with little tokens of thanks could be a nice gesture to end their trip to the dentist, such as giving out free samples of toothbrushes, toothpastes, mouth wash—the list is truly endless.

Hold monthly competitions for all the patients that are due to have their check-ups that month and let them know on their correspondence that when they attend, they will automatically be entered into a prize draw for a free check-up or an electric toothbrush. Be creative and get your team to work together.

Tip nine: use questionnaires

Asking your patients when they attend their appointments if they were happy with the treatment they received or if there were any reasons why they may not return is a great way to not only get feedback, but also eliminate any no shows and patients who will not return.

The Friends and Family Test, which comes out on 1 April, will allow practices to ask these types of questions on top of the mandatory question all practices will be required to ask (NHS England, 2014).

Utilise the information and relay it back to all team members and establish an area that may need to be changed or enhanced in the practice management.

Tip ten: ask lapsed patients why they did not return

A simple letter to patients who have informed you that they will not be returning may be as imperative as trying to attract new patients. Finding out why they left in the first place can help you to realise what is actually going on in your practice that you may not have previously noticed.

Perhaps the patients did not enjoy the way a member of staff spoke to them, or perhaps the waiting room was not very accommodating. Whatever the reason, getting to the bottom of it is a learning curve for any practice. Of course there will always be reasons that you will not be able help with, such as a patient moving to a different area, but at least you can try to help improve your practice in areas that you can do something about.

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Conclusion

Of course the list of why patients do not attend can be endless, but finding out why and acting on the reasons you can help with will benefit your practice immensely. Remember to value your patients and try to exceed their expectations. Create a warmth in your rapport with them and entice them to come back to a practice that is welcoming, friendly and values their custom.

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