How to identify and improve referral rates in your dental practice.
Why is it important to measure referral rate in your practice?
In healthcare, a referral source is a person or an organization from which a patient or group of patients are referred. Referral source data can be used to build and maintain relationships with your referral sources. Measuring referral sources of your new patients allows you to provide highly targeted marketing efforts to acquire new referral sources or enhance existing referral sources. Knowing where to invest in your marketing requires analysis of referral source data.
Referral KPIs in Practice by Numbers
PBN provides you with tools and data from which you can analyze Referral KPIs and make intelligent decisions with your marketing dollars. With PBN, dental practices can visually analyze which referral is providing them with the most new patients and the most value. Thus, practices can take action to build an effective referral program.
How do you find out which Referral source is generating the maximum number of new patients?
It is important to know the number and type of patients most frequently sent to you from referral sources. That way, your dental practice can decide where to spend money on marketing to generate new patients.
New Patients Seen by Referral Source - This KPI categorizes the number of new patients seen in the practice based on the referral source.
New Patients Entered by Referral Source - This KPI categorizes the number of new patients entered into the practice management system based on the referral source. These new patients may or may not be seen in the practice.
Active Source - This KPI categorizes the number of active patients seen at the practice based on the referral source.
Asking for Referrals from existing patients
Regularly asking your existing patients for referrals is an effective strategy for getting new patients.
KPI - Active % who refer - Percentage of active patients who have referred other patients. This is a custom KPI that can be found in the list of custom KPIs.
How do you find which referral source is generating maximum business?
It is not only important to know the number of patients coming from a referral source but also the quality of those new patients. If your practice is properly recording referrals, you can find out which referral source is providing the patients with the highest dollar value and which procedures are being most commonly referred. By measuring the most commonly referred procedures, you can even approach prospective referring healthcare providers and remind them of additional services that could benefit their patients. This data will be critical to planning and implementing your ongoing marketing efforts.
All patient production by referral source - This KPI categorizes production from all patients based on referral sources.
New patient production by referral source - This KPI categorizes production from new patients based on referral sources.
All patient collections by referral source - This KPI categorizes collections from all patients based on referral sources.
New patient collections by referral source - This KPI categorizes collections from new patients based on referral sources.
Production/patient by referral - This KPI categorizes production per patient based on the referral source.
New patient production/patient by referral - This KPI categorizes production per new patient based on the referral source.
How do we find the patients with missing referral sources?
If you do not record your referral sources, it’s hard to know where the new patients are coming from, and there is no way to judge where to spend the money to generate more new patients. Therefore, it is critical for dental practices to record the referral source of each new patient. Every new patient should be asked how they heard of you so every referral and source is captured and properly acknowledged in your practice management software.
Referral Entered % - Percentage of all patients seen in the practice whose referral source has been entered.
NP Referral % - Percentage of new patients seen in the practice that have a referral source entered
Number of patients without a referral
Number of new patients without a referral
List of patients with incomplete information (cell phone, home phone, email, referral)
List of new patients without a referral
By using these lists of patients with incomplete information from Practice by Numbers, practices can work on filling up missing information.