Attracting new patients is a key component for growth in any business. It is important to monitor but also not to ignore looking after your current ones! How you manage this balance depends on how much you focus on nurturing existing patients or gaining new ones.
How it’s Calculated:
Total number of all appointments with new patients (those appointments with a active new patient tag), in a selected time period.
Useful for:
- Tracking new patient numbers
- Success in converting Leads into Appointments – see below
- Evaluating Advertising campaigns – are you seeing an increase in new Patient appointments in the weeks after an ad campaign?
- Predicting Busy Periods – if you got an influx of new patients at a certain time last year that wasn’t due to an advertising campaign, you may well see same surge this year.
Further Insight:
- Lead Capture – monitor the ratio of Leads to New Patient Appointments, as the names you enter into the Lead Capture area are all potential new patients. If the number of new appointments and leads don’t match, identify why – are you not following up well enough or do you not offer the services being enquired about?
Questions to Ask Yourself:
Are increases due to campaigns or other known sources?
If New Patient numbers are increasing due to a recent advertising campaign or similar promotion, you can compare that to previous months to give a better idea of how many new patients the campaign generated. This will allow you to have a better understanding on whether the campaign can be deemed a success and should be repeated.
Are the efforts we are putting into Lead Capture working? If not, why not?
Are you using the Lead Capture feature in the Control Centre? If used correctly it will allow you to follow up on inquires made by potential patients and thereby increase the number of new patients. You can learn more about using this feature
here.
Can trends be established with certain months that allow us to anticipate additional business?
Looking at your year on year numbers, can you identify certain months that show an increase in new patient numbers? Do you understand what might be causing this – could it be a pre summer rush or in time with the children’s return to school? If so you can alter your working hours to make better use of these busy periods.
Are we neglecting our current patient base?
Also worthwhile monitoring is the number of Appointments by Existing Patients. Existing patients are also key to maximising growth and revenue, be sure not to neglect them in your quest to gain new patients.
