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KPIs for Dental Practices

Just as your patients come to you for an oral health evaluation where routine cleanings, patient education, and procedures follow a consistent process, analyzing your business results should also follow a set daily, monthly, quarterly and annual process.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurements that represent the most important factors leading to the success of your practice. They showcase both how well your practice is currently performing and provide a history of past performance.  Your KPIs can show how various initiatives have either helped or hindered a measurement, and provide insight as to the changes needed in your practice.

Rather than relying on you intuition, here are 6 KPIs you should consider reviewing on a routine basis.

1. Your practice’s production should always be increasing. Production by provider should also be reviewed looking for opportunities to improve both the scheduling of patients and the time procedures take.
2. Collections as a percent of production. Good dental practices focus on collecting for the services provided with a target rate of 98%. By submitting insurance claims daily, collecting co-payments up front, offering payment options, and establishing and communicating clear payment policies, dental practices are able to drive this metric upwards.
3. Percentage of active patients rescheduled. Patients not currently scheduled for their next office visit are potentially lost patients. Industry averages range from 65% to 95% and improving this ratio will drive hygiene production.
4. Average production per patient. This metric shows the average revenue that each patient brings to the practice. Dentists can drive this metric by offering additional services cases or adding additional diagnostics to the visit.
5. Average production per new patient. Dentists routinely diagnose larger cases due to the lack or prior dental care and having new scans available.  Average production per new patient should be two to three times higher than average production per patient.
6. Case acceptance rate. The % of cases that are accepted by patients for treatment.  This % can vary widely amongst practices. Oftentimes trust of the provider and cost are the main objections.  Suggestions to overcome these objections are to look for ways to gain rapport with the patient, allow for proper time to deliver treatment plan, answer the patient’s questions and respond to their objections with facts, and offer payment options.

Most dental software has the capability to track the above KPIs. The key to utilizing these metrics is to ensure these metrics can be pulled easily and in a format that allows for quick analysis without data manipulation by your office manager.  Once you start reviewing these metrics on a routine basis, You’ll notice trends and opportunities to grow your dental practice.