Does your clinic have a plan in place for recall appointments? Even if you’re seeing a steady stream of new patients, it’s essential to keep your existing ones coming back. After all, they’re the ones who’ve already had a chance to experience your work firsthand. Recall is one of the most important and highly profitable aspects of running a dental practice. Without proper recall systems in place, patients, even the regular ones, can easily fall through the cracks, and appointments can be missed. This can, unfortunately, lead to a decline in your clinic’s productivity and profits.
Here are a few strategies that you can use to improve your recall system, so you can keep your patients coming back for months and years to come.
1. Inform and educate your patients on the recall process
It’s estimated that the average person will see a dentist every six months. However, many people often wait much longer to see a dentist. This can be for a variety of reasons, but the most common reason is that they forget or don’t make the time. An effective appointment recall system can help to ensure your patients are coming in for their regular cleanings and check-ups. One of the best ways to do this is by educating your patients about the recall process and explaining why appointments are important and what will happen if they don’t come in regularly. Share with them how recall appointments can help maintain good oral hygiene and help identify any potential problems early on, which can save them from costly and time-consuming treatments down the line. You can do this during your patients’ visits and also through other forms of communication such as email newsletters or social media.
2. Make it easy for patients to schedule and confirm recall appointments
One way to encourage patients to book their next appointments is by having them do so in advance. This can be done by either having them book their appointments when they come in for their current appointment or by sending out email reminders after the patient’s departure. Another way to increase the likelihood of patients booking their next appointments is by using an SMS marketing tool that can instantly book an appointment to your system once a patient replies with a confirmation text. These easy and convenient methods of setting recall appointments will also make the patient feel appreciated and valued, which could lead to more referrals in the future.
3. Reward patients for returning for their checkups
Even if some treatments can be covered or subsidized by insurance plans, it’s no secret that dental appointments can be costly especially if you have to return for multiple sessions. This is why one way to encourage your recall patients to confirm their next appointment is by offering them incentives and rewards such as discounts on treatment plans or a free service. Believe it or not, patients are always looking for ways to save money on dental treatments so this is an opportunity that you can definitely utilize.
4. Use dental management software to keep track of appointments and recalls
The use of dental management software like Paradigm Clinical has proven to have helped dental offices boost the performance of their practice and increase the number of their recall appointments even during a pandemic. This type of software allows you to keep track of appointments and recalls, not only reducing the chance of missed appointments and potential lost revenue but also helping maintain strong relationships with your patients.
The latest V10 update of Paradigm Clinical includes a new feature called IntelliRecall. This feature allows you to customize the way you use and analyze statistics, including how many recalls were booked, how many patients were contacted, etc. This way, you can closely monitor the status of your recall patients, and keep them coming back for their appointments. The customized reports are also helpful for your clinic to measure your staff’s productivity in terms of the number of recalls booked by every team member. With a better system in place, you won’t need to manually list down the status of your recall data, and you won’t have to lose any potential revenue.
To learn more about Paradigm Clinical, IntelliRecall, and all the V10 updates, call our sales manager at 905-946-1477 or email Logic Tech at sales@logictechcorp.com.