Maximize Efficiency and Profitability with These Essential Metrics

Key Takeaways:
  • Tracking key metrics like collection percentage, hygiene production and case acceptance is important to improving the profitability of your dental practice.
  • Monitoring periodontal procedures, hygiene chair downtime and recare reappointment rates can reveal hidden inefficiencies and opportunities for growth.
  • Consistent analysis of these KPIs will help you make informed decisions that boost practice performance and patient satisfaction.

 

Do you know how to measure the health of your dental practice? As a practice owner, you’ve likely heard the term “Key Performance Indicator” (KPIs), but have you decided which KPIs are important to your practice? KPIs allow you to track the health and effectiveness of different aspects of your office. Using this data, you can make significant changes to boost your growth and profitability. 

Not sure where to start? Here are six of the top KPIs we suggest you track on a monthly basis: 

 

1. Collection Percentage

Collections as a percentage of your net production is a common metric to track, and the first one to investigate if you are having cash flow issues. Your collection percentage will fluctuate over time, but an average of 99% to 103% should be your goal.  

This number will fluctuate due to the timing of insurance payments. If your office submitted a few large claims at the end of the month, you may find your collection percentage to be lower than ideal. However, upon receiving those payments the following month, you will see the percentage shift positively. 

If your collection percentage is anything less than 99%, it’s time to be concerned. Even if you are seeing a 96% collection rate that 4% is likely significant. A practice that produces $100,000 per month and has a 96% collection rate is missing $4,000 from services already rendered. 

Recommendations to Improve Metric: 

  • Create a documented financial policy, both for internal use and for patients. Make sure your team fully understands the policy and financing options you offer. 
  • Collect the patient portion at the time of service. 
  • Develop a process for collecting overdue insurance and patient payments. 

 

2. Hygiene Department Production

Many offices keep track of overall production, but not as many look at individual departments or providers. We recommend tracking production by hygienist. The goal for each hygienist should be to produce three times their salary. The hygiene department as a whole should produce about one-third of the practice’s total production. 

When considering a hygienist’s salary, add all pretax wages, benefits and other expenses like uniforms and continuing education. All those aspects count toward their salary and must be considered in this metric. A hygienist’s production should include all preventive, diagnostic, and restorative procedures they are responsible for, including radiographs, sealants and products. 

Recommendations to Improve Metric: 

  • Add adjunctive services and products. 
  • Create space for new patients and scaling and root planning procedures. 
  • Take major films when indicated by the patient’s oral health and caries risk assessment.

 

3. Periodontal Procedures

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly half of all adults (aged 30 years old or older) have some form of periodontal disease. On top of that, more than 70% of adults aged 65 or older have periodontal disease. And yet, have you looked at the percentage of periodontal patients within your practice? Chances are high that your periodontal diagnosis is lower than those numbers. General dental practices should aim for a periodontal procedure percentage of 30-35%. To calculate this percentage, start by identifying the total count for the following services. 

  • Adult Prophy (D1110) 
  • SRP (D4341+D4342) 
  • Periodontal Maintenance (D4910) 

Once you have these numbers, divide the periodontal totals (D4341, D4342, D4910) by the total number of procedures.  

Recommendations to Improve Metric: 

  • Reevaluate your periodontal protocol and ensure all team members are clear on the diagnosis. 
  • Allow ample time to perform periodontal assessments on new and existing patients.

 

4. Hygiene Chair Downtime

Open chair time is a practice killer. The best hygienists produce more than $200 per visit and since we know most hygiene appointments are one hour, we can assume that one open hour of hygiene time results in a loss of more than $200 to the practice. Include the missed hygiene production, paid wages and loss of treatment opportunities, and that number grows. 

A good goal for hygiene downtime is no more than 5-8%. If your practice management software does not calculate this, simply divide the number of filled hours by the number of hours the hygienist was available. Track this on a monthly basis. 

Recommendations to Improve Metric: 

  • Confirm patient appointments two days before their visit. 
  • Implement a cancellation policy and coach your team on how to uphold it. 
  • Create a short-call list for new patients or those who want to come in sooner. 
  • Use a communication method that allows you to bulk send texts about appointment openings.

 

5. Case Acceptance

While seemingly straightforward, case acceptance can be quite an elusive metric to track and improve. Your practice management or analytics software may or may not have this feature and if it does, it’s important to understand how it is calculated. Some software only includes treatment that is scheduled on the same day, and some count an entire case accepted if the first round of treatment is booked. No one way is correct, just be sure that you are consistent in how case acceptance is measured. 

Dental practices with strong case acceptance usually see around 55-70% (depending on how it’s tracked) case acceptance, with about $3,200 of treatment proposed per patient exam.  

Recommendations to Improve Metric: 

  • Underscore the value of treatment at every visit. Use intraoral photos and 3-D images to educate the patient and discuss the consequences of not moving forward with treatment. 
  • Allow flexible payment options and break down the cost by month. Instead of giving the patient a large number, show how minimal it can be when broken down into 6-12 monthly payments with a financing company. 
  • Train your team in your treatment philosophy so that you all communicate with the patient the same way.

 

6. Recare Reappointment Rate

This number tells you how many of your hygiene patients left the office with their next recare appointment scheduled. Aim for a recare reappointment rate of 90% or higher. If a patient leaves without their next recare appointment, it will take your team much time and effort to get that patient back on the schedule. 

An additional metric you can track is called the pre-appointment rate. This number tells you how many of your active patients have a future appointment scheduled – be it for recare or restorative services. 

Recommendations to Improve Metric: 

  • Schedule patient recare appointments in the back office, especially when waiting for a doctor’s exam. 
  • Consider scheduling the next appointment when the patient arrives and is waiting in the lobby. 
  • Keep a list of school closings and holidays to schedule children and college students during breaks. 

 

Track KPIs Consistently 

These KPIs are crucial for gaining insights into the performance and health of your dental practice. Unless you are using an analytics software, this may take you some time to learn how to calculate and read the data. If you need help getting this process started, talk with one of our dental practice advisors today. We offer a full practice analysis for your office, as well as ongoing support options to help you improve your KPIs.