How To Raise Your Patient Retention Rate

Are you doing everything possible to provide a positive patient experience? While there are many areas to cover when running a dental practice, focusing on your patients is a top priority. Here are some powerful strategies you can implement to strengthen the doctor-patient relationship and improve patient retention.

1. Personalized Care and Communication

Communication is vital in all types of medicine. This is particularly true in dentistry, where nearly 40% of patients experience treatment-related anxiety. The right approach to communication improves patients’ overall experience and leaves them more satisfied with both the quality of their care and the results you deliver.

As a dentist, you need your patients to trust you in order to provide effective care. Taking the time to listen intently to their concerns and respond appropriately is a major step in the right direction. You don’t want your patients to be afraid to open up to you out of concern about your reaction. Instead, actively work to keep your practice a judgment-free zone.

How you talk to your patients is also critical. Remember that your patients don’t have the breadth of dental knowledge you do. So take a few extra minutes to explain diagnoses, treatment plans, and procedures so that they fully understand their options.

2. Convenient Appointment Scheduling and Accessibility

Finding the time to visit the dentist is already a challenge for many of your patients. They don’t need any additional barriers. Making your practice easy to work with will help you retain more patients, ensure they don’t miss out on important care, and grow your business.

One area to look at is your appointment-setting method. Many effective software solutions and platforms are available to handle dental practice scheduling. This allows patients to set appointments online. Not only is this easier for them, but it also eases your team’s administrative burden.

Extending or shifting your hours on certain days can also considerably benefit your patients. While many dentists prefer to stick to a 9-to-5 schedule, this makes finding time to visit the dentist difficult for many patients. Having alternative hours available so patients can more easily schedule appointments around their work hours or kids’ extracurriculars could be a deciding factor.

3. Comprehensive Services Offered In-House

A top priority for patients choosing a new dentist is whether they can find all the services they need under one roof. Patients don’t particularly enjoy being sent off to visit a new practitioner at another practice for necessary dental treatments, especially when they’re dealing with painful issues like toothaches and active infections.

Expanding the treatment options you offer greatly improves the patient experience. One way to achieve this is by investing in the necessary training and equipment to prepare yourself and your team to carry out new treatments. However, it may be more economical to work with strategic partners instead.

You can do this by partnering with traveling specialists to offer more treatment options within your practice. EndoConnect is a prime example of this type of partnership. An endodontist in Dallas will come to your practice with the necessary experience, skills, and equipment to provide effective endodontics for your patients. Not only does this improve the patient experience, but you also keep a share of the revenue from treatment.

4. Comfort and Amenities

While quality of care is the top priority, it’s not the only thing patients consider. They also want a comfortable and welcoming practice. This is true even if they don’t consciously make their decision based on that factor, as it has a major impact on their emotional response to your practice.

Of course, make sure that your practice is clean with a homey but modern appearance. Try to avoid too sterile an appearance and warm things up a bit instead. Ensure that you and your team intentionally speak with patients in a way that makes them feel welcome.

Simple improvements like comfortable dental chairs and reception room furniture can also make a big difference. You might consider offering music or television in your operatories to help patients relax.

5. Follow-Up Care and Patient Education

Follow-up is key to ensuring patient retention. Ideally, you should leave much of the follow-up process to software solutions. Reminders, scheduling routine visits, and other tasks are achievable through simple emails and text messages. But a simple phone call after complex treatments (like surgical extractions or implant placement) can go a long way in reassuring patients that your team truly cares.

Remember to ensure that your patient has access to high-quality educational resources. While you should keep yourself open for any questions, some patients prefer to read about an issue or treatment or watch a video rather than have a direct conversation.

Increase your patient retention with EndoConnect.

You can provide the best for your patients and ensure they stay around for the long haul by working with experienced Dallas endodontists at EndoConnect. Become a partner today to improve your office’s patient experience and achieve dental practice success.