Dental Practice Analytics- Metrics that Matter

As a dentist, it’s part of your job to remind your patients to check on their oral health regularly. You likely also let them know that when there’s a problem, it’s best to seek care as soon as possible. In fact, many dentists even provide the tools their patients need to proactively care for their oral health. And yet, many dentists fail to take the same care, the same precautions, and the same actions when it comes to the health of their practice.

For many dentists, the struggle with taking action involves a variety of factors, including not knowing what metrics to track, trouble tracking those metrics, or, more often, an inability to analyze those metrics. Metrics, alone, are just numbers. Dental practice analytics take those numbers, compares them, and gauges how they fit into your existing goals, allowing you and your staff to address shortfalls, particularly when it comes to revenue.

Quick Links

• What are Dental Practice Analytics?
• Which Dental Practice Metrics Matter?
• Why Dental Practice Analytics are Important?
• Finding the Right Dental Practice Analytics Tool to Improve Your Dental Practice

What are Dental Practice Analytics?

Dental practice analytics take practice data and turn it into valuable metrics that allow you to measure the health of your practice. For example, the number of new patients you have had in the past month is valuable data, but it’s merely a number until you compare it to new patient acquisition goals which are determined by profit and growth goals. For example, you may have 20 new patients in a month, which seems great–until you realize that to continue growth and profitability you need at least 50 a month to hit your profit and growth targets.

Dental practice analytics take the metrics you gather and put them into perspective, showing you where you are making progress and where you may need to double down on efforts.

Which Dental Practice Metrics Matter?

The honest answer is that the metrics that matter depend upon your goals. While growth is a goal for most dental practices, the metric that will matter most will be the one where you are lagging.

Let’s say you're doing a great job of acquiring new patients through various initiatives or community outreach, but your recall numbers are low. Existing patients are just not scheduling treatments or procedures noted on your treatment plan. Then, for you, the metrics that may matter most include:

1. Number of active patients
2. Unscheduled procedures/treatments
3. Number of reappointments
4. Cancellations
5. Patient satisfaction

So, to determine which metrics matter most, you’ll need to identify your goals and then determine which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can help you measure strengths and weaknesses. From there, you can focus on the weaker areas. 

For example, you may notice that reappointments are low and that’s impacting your overall profitability. You can then look at your practice and determine why that metric may be low. It may be a matter of creating and effectively communicating treatment plans, or it could be a matter of practice efficiency or service. Either way, you’ll never know where you can improve without measuring where you are.

So, what other metrics might you look at to help you analyze your practice and its health? 

A few key metrics:

1. Production- From practice production to the production of individual dentists and hygienists, keeping track of how busy your team is from day to day as well as month over month is vital. If your practice is slow and productivity is low, you’ll need to take a closer look at what’s going wrong.

2. Patients- Keeping track of, as mentioned above, new patients as well as returning patients can help you determine where you need to focus when it comes to generating revenue. For example, if you notice that you’ve got your returning patients scheduled out, and those treatment plans are being completed, and your existing staff can produce more, then it’s time to focus on new patient acquisition. Under patient metrics, be sure to include retention, turnover, recall, cancellations, no-shows, and treatment plan completion.

3. Overhead- Monitoring your overhead is important. A profit margin of about 40% is ideal. Growing your practice without adding to your headcount, by improving efficiency, should be the goal.

4. Profits- Tracking your profit is about more than keeping tabs on what you make (less your overhead). In fact, one of the best ways to track your profits is by procedures. This allows you to factor in the costs and determine which procedures are generating the most revenue and making the best use of your staff. You may, as a result, determine that certain procedures are not cost effective and finding a partner practice that specializes in that may help your bottom line.

5. Accounts receivable- This is one area that most practices tend to overlook. From claim delays to unpaid patient balances, failing to monitor what’s coming in (and how quickly after billing) can limit cash flow. And, if you notice delays or a significant number of claims denied, it’s time to look at your AR process and consider dental claims and billing support.

6. Scheduling- Not only is it important to consider whether your schedule is full but also how well it’s being optimized. That means understanding how long procedures are taking (and how staff is performing) and maximizing your daily schedule to meet the needs of your patients and practice.

While not an exhaustive list, these cover some of the more essential areas where metrics and their analytics will help you improve your practice and profitability.

Why Dental Practice Analytics are Important?

When it comes to running a successful dental practice, most practice owners and managers realize, fairly quickly, that business insights matter as much as other aspects of patient care. Analytics, as noted, allow you to gauge the health of your practice and are similar to the same preventative care and regular dental exams you perform for patients. For you, we recommend more frequent check-ups–and analytics allow you to do that.

Instead of just looking at basic metrics, such as the number of new patients, practice analytics help you put that number in perspective. That is, you can look at how new patient acquisition fits into your goals for growth, especially when compared to patient retention and turnover numbers. In short, analytics help put a framework around your metrics so you can quickly analyze how those KPIs impact your practice.

If you want to truly measure the health of your dental practice, then analytics is the tool you need. But, you also need the right tools to help you with those analytics.

Finding the Right Dental Practice Analytics Tool to Improve Your Dental Practice

Actionable analytics require a few key components. The first is the ability to collect the data you need. That means finding an analytics tool that integrates with your existing practice management software.

In addition to integrating with your software, the right solution provides the ability to drill down into all the needed metrics. For example, iCoreAnalytics, the practice revenue analytics software from iCoreConnect, allows you to view details by your daily schedule. From there, you can assess the metrics that matter, including everything from daily, recall, and treatment plan scheduling to accounts receivable and insurance verification. 

Keeping tabs on all of these analytics, in one location, where you can access valuable real-time data, view it in a simple format, set goals and take actionable steps can help change the trajectory of your practice.

For example, if John Smith is on your schedule, with iCoreAnalytics, you’re able to verify his insurance, see if he has a treatment plan, identify whether that treatment plan is scheduled out, and get alerted if there is money owed from previous visits. And, in addition to this individual patient’s metrics, you can move out to a bird’s eye view and see how the entire day’s schedule is impacting your practice and revenue over the month, and the year.

One of the biggest benefits to this is the ability to identify open AR. Every year, at iCoreConnect, we see practices leaving millions of dollars in both missing AR and missed treatment opportunities on the table. We designed iCoreAnalytics to correct those issues and put the data and analytics you need to capture that revenue at your fingertips.

Ultimately, your ability to, regularly, assess the health of your dental practice rests in your ability to assess your KPIs and understand how they’re interconnected and how they impact your revenue. If you’re ready to realize the revenue you need to grow, to provide the care your patients need and are entitled to, and to use analytics to improve team performance and efficiency, then investing in the right tools can help.

Reach out to the iCoreConnect team today for a demo of iCoreAnalytics and let us show you how the information you already have can be aggregated in dental practice analytics software to provide valuable insights to your practice.