Did you know it costs less to reactivate a lapsed dental patient than it does to acquire a new one?
Is dental reactivation a practice priority?
If you are not currently engaging in a plan to reactivate lapsed patients, you might be losing valuable billings. There are many reasons patients may stop visiting the dentist, but most just need a simple reminder from you to start coming back!
Now, you’re probably thinking of your lapsed patient files and wondering where to start.
As a general rule, for patients you haven’t seen in:
8-24 months – Send Reactivation Cards quarterly
Longer than 24 months – Send Reactivation Cards every six months
But, sending attention-getting Reactivation Cards is only the first step in the process. Be sure to follow up on your mailed communication with a phone call, text or e-mail.
Services such as PracticeMojo™ link to your dental practice management system data and enable you to automatically send postcards, e-mails and text messages to your lapsed and current patients. Automating the dental recall and reactivation process makes reactivating lapsed patients a breeze. In all your practice can save over two weeks every year of valuable time by turning over your recall and reactivation efforts to PracticeMojo.
PracticeMojo also has automated programs for dental recall, acquisition, birthday, welcome, promotions and many more. Visit their site to learn more or to start automating your dental recall system today!
Keys to Successful Dental Patient Reactivation:
1. Choose a different Reactivation Card design and alternate your reactivation message for each mailing to achieve maximum impact.
2. When lapsed patients return to your practice, be sure to ask them for referrals by giving them Referral Cards or Slips to pass along to friends and family.
3. Welcome patients back with Welcome Cards. They will appreciate the gesture and may even refer friends or family.
4. After each reactivation mailing update your list to exclude those who called to schedule an appointment, or who have indicated they are being treated by another dentist.
A little bit of time and effort focusing on bringing back lapsed dental patients will have surprising results on your practice’s bottom line. Get started today!
Jonathan
Marketing Specialist
In my own experience I have to say that to some extent trying to regain attendance of patients who have lapsed is not especially worthwhile. The patients worth having for a dentist are the regular attenders who are keen to keep their mouths in good order and who readily accept advice and treatment suggestions, and new patients who provide you with new work to do.
Patients who have not been for more than 18 months are sometimes those who: are reluctant to attend until they really need to and therefore more difficult to treat, sometimes turning up as an emergency at inconvenient times, or who have been to another dentist in the meantime because they were unhappy about treatment received. If they return again to you after seeing another dentist they may realise you’re not so bad after all, or may be just difficult to please or constantly shopping around. They might even be motivated to launch a complaint at your feet for financial gain, claiming you over treated or under treated them, most often in respect of gum problems and periodontal disease. Maybe I’m just being cynical.