Why do you need to keep statistics in your practice? The reason is because it is the best way to know what is going on in your practice.
Do you need a new patient to fill out paperwork, ask questions during a consultation and exam, to find out what’s going on with their health? You should also keep track of the health of your practice.
Along with tracking the health of your practice, keep statistics …
The following statistics are 7 areas that you should review on a monthly basis. In fact, it won’t hurt to review weekly if you really want to determine how your practice is doing.
# 1. Number of new patients
A new patient is anyone who enters and completes an exam. Only count it as a new patient when they have paid for the first visit or if they are a free exam but are scheduled to return.
Don’t include people who come in for a free consultation and leave.
# 2. Average number of visits a new patient receives
This is often referred to as your “withholding” or “PVA.” PVA stands for “Average Patient Visits”.
To measure it for a full month, take all your visits for that month and divide by the number of new patients you had during the same month.
# 3. Average dollars raised per patient
To calculate this, take your total charges for the month and divide by the number of new patients you had during that month.
# 4. Conversion rate of new patients to care for
To find this number, take the number of patients who started receiving care during a month, then divide by the total number of new patients you had that month.
# 5. Average number of cases
The case average is a number that represents how much money that patient will generate over time in their practice. Take your collections for the month (or quarterly, annually) and divide by the number of new patients during the month. Or take your PVA multiplied by your $ / visit. So take the n. 2 and No. 3 above and multiply them.
# 6. ROI for your marketing
ROI stands for “return on investment”. To calculate it, simply take the amount of revenue (gross receipts) that your marketing brought to your practice and divide it by what you spent on that marketing.
To accurately measure your ROI, ask the patient (either on their intake forms or verbally) where they found out about your office. With your software, keep track of new patient sources. Check back regularly and update the ROI as it will continue to increase as the patient (or insurance) pays for their care over time.
Also, measure all the types of advertising and marketing you do … newspaper ads, yellow pages, internet leads, sending $ 5 Starbucks cards to new patients with a sticky letter, website costs, direct mail, money transfers, etc., etc.
# 7. Net profit
To calculate your net profit, withdraw your total charges minus your overhead and personal benefits. If you have a car in your office, pay for your health insurance, etc., go back to all of that to get a real picture.
And get your salary too. You want to know how much your practice contributes to you overall and compare it to previous months and years. You can add your salary and benefits back later for accounting and tax purposes.
Below are additional statistics that you need to keep so you can calculate the numbers in the top 7. These others, like fees and charges, tell you a lot about the health of your practice.
- visits
- charges
- general collections
- insurance charges
- % of money raised compared to collected
- dollars charged for service
- Money spent on marketing
- number of conversions
- new patient sources
Last but not least … create a weekly and monthly spreadsheet that lists all the statistics in this article. Once you’ve formatted it, you or your staff will only need minutes per day to enter the numbers at the end of each day.