My name is Jerry Durham and I love the Conversion side of business!
There are many metrics that you probably track to measure the short and long term success of your practice. Though, one metric is the key to unlocking all of the rest, and that metric is New Patients Seen. The new patient metric is the single most important measurement for your practice. New patients drive your revenue and ultimately your profit!
How deep are you digging into this number though? What more can these New Patients tell me?
If you dig a little deeper and ask more questions of the data….and then ask yet more questions, then you will have the data to make your company MORE successful and MORE efficient. Can you currently answer all the questions below?….you should be able to. The data is already at your fingertips.
How are your New Patients finding you?…..really.
How many people called your office trying to schedule an evaluation? (Hint: more than you think)
How are the people who call your office but dont schedule finding you?
Why are people not scheduling with you when they call you?
What Providers are sending you patients?
Is your Marketing generating revenue?
All these questions can be answered in one place at one time.
This all comes down to Referral Conversion Rate, or for short Conversion Rate. Conversion Rate, simply put, is how many people who call your office turn into a New Patient seen.
If you only track the new patient seen in your practice, without tracking your Conversion Rate, you are missing a huge opportunity. There is tremendous value in knowing how many potential new patients call your office everyday, and why they did or did not translate into scheduled visits.
Jerry – I love the thought provoking questions in your post. It’s really about what’s going on behind the numbers that yields the insights. It’s a great idea to understand the why’s you talk about here. It is the key to finding the keys to increasing growth in your practice.
One of the things we believe is that every one of these calls should be logged, if possible with a source that drove the call. As much information as you can get. Then, let the clock start ticking. How long does it take for a call to turn into a visit? If they don’t turn into a visit, do you have a way to capture that event and find out why. If necessary, use a research company to figure out why the calls don’t turn into new patients. The key is having a tracking system, using the system and constantly talking about what you learn.
One of my friends who’s also a business coach says “The Culture Lives in the Conversation”. If we measure the rate at which the inquirers become new patients, and our staff is constantly talking about the reasons we get new patients or lose them, we can change our cultures! Keep up the great work!
Thanks Jim
Yours point are exactly inline with what Conversion is all about.
Each Practice whether 1 PT or 30 can benefit from measuring this!.
Thank you