Why Aren’t You Getting Enough New Patients?
Most doctors say that they need more new patients but what we’ve found is that each dentist in the practice, if it’s multiple doctors, needs at least 25-30 new patients per month.
If you’re getting maybe 5 or 10 new patients a month and still running a successful practice and you’re still profitable, it’s probably because you’ve set up a successful and consistent hygiene department.
On the other hand, if you’re struggling to get new patients, I want to give you 5 huge tips to help.
1. No One is Responsible for New Patients
The first reason that you’re not getting enough new patients is that there is no one who is responsible for getting new patients.
In most practices, the office manager or the doctor is responsible for this, rather than one individual whose sole job and responsibility it is to get more new patients. The same goes for recall and reactivation. Sometimes, it’s the entire offices’ job to work on new patient acquisition and because of this the job is only worked on when staff “get around to it”.
When everyone is responsible, no one is responsible.
This almost never works out and the important work of getting new patients ultimately gets neglected. The first thing that needs to be fixed is that there needs to be one person whose sole responsibility is to bring patients through the doors.
That can be through direct mail, working on the website, PPC, and so on, but there must be one person who you can look at for bringing in new patients so that you can always keep a finger on the pulse of your practice.
2. Ineffective Marketing
The second reason for not getting new patients is ineffective marketing. While it’s true that any marketing is better than no marketing, many doctors don’t even know if their marketing is effective or not.
What we would suggest to do is to start tracking your KPIs. Start graphing out each of your KPIs every month and start to collect data. What you’ll begin to notice are trends as to whether the marketing is raising your bottom-line, having no effect, or actually hurting you.
If you’re spending $5,000 per month on PPC or $10,000 on a new website, but the numbers don’t budge, then it’s ineffective. Don’t lie to yourself or stay in denial with these statistics. If something in your practice isn’t working, it’s important that you fix the issue right away.
3. Inconsistent Marketing
The third reason is inconsistent marketing. Marketing has to be done regularly, on a consistent basis, and must be repeated. If you’re reading this, you’ve likely been in contact with some of our marketing which might have been our direct mail, email drip campaigns, or online ads. Make sure that you’re not pulling out of your marketing before it starts taking effect.
4. Premature Disqualification
The fourth reason is that the patients are reaching but you’re not getting them in once the phone is answered. Some consultants believe that you have to pre-qualify the patients. Our view is that you need to just get the patient in.
Emergency patients aren’t always very polite, but that’s understandable because they’re in pain. Many times, they’re in pain because they’ve been avoiding the dentist so they’re anxious that they finally have to give you a visit. Often times, the nature of people’s visits are pain driven, that’s just the nature of our industry. As a result, most people aren’t going to seem like the ideal patients while they’re on the phone.
5. Inconvenient Scheduling
Finally, reason number five is that it takes too long for them to see the doctor. Emergency patients can’t wait a week, they need to be seen the same day. New patients who are feeling brave for the day should be seen tomorrow at the latest. Put them into hygiene or into the doctor’s schedule.
Everything we talked about here today is handled with our service. We have a special that we’re running right now and all you need to do is go watch our case study. See if we’re a good fit. If you think we can help, schedule a meeting with us and we’ll see how we can help.
