Calculating the Cost of Patient Acquisition and Retaining Patients

Do you track the sources of your patients? In many practice management systems, your staff can enter the source where your patients came from such as radio advertisement, yellow pages and patient referrals. You can track numbers of patients who came to you from these various sources in your practice management system's reports. Look for reports that provide you with the source and count of patients from that source as well as dates the persons were registered.

If you are tracking the sources of your patients, do you know what it costs to gain a new patient? You will have to look at the amount of money you are spending for radio ads, yellow pages, patient appreciation events, signage, and other promotions. Then you can take the number of patients who came to you from that source and divide that number by the amount you spend on that promotion.

That will give you the cost of acquisition. Granted, costs for some things such as signage and welcoming facilities are hard to apportion to either acquisition or retention. Did a new patient come because he saw your name on your sign? Did an existing patient stop in because you advertise that you have certain glasses frames in stock? The numbers will never be perfect, but they will give you an idea of what is working. Knowing the cost of acquiring a patient by various means and the average dollars in revenue for a patient will give you an idea on how much you can spend to acquire a new patient.

You may have patients who have been coming to you for years. They love and trust you and wouldn't dream of going anywhere else. You may be the only option in town, which certainly makes it easier to retain patients, but chances are that your patients have other options even if they have to travel a ways. Many practices lose about 50% of their patient base every 5 years. You can calculate your cost of patient acquisition by tracking the source of your patients and dividing the number of patients from that source by the cost of that source. You can also calculate your retention cost by doing the same thing; dividing the number of patients who visited you this year by your costs of retention. You will always find that your cost to acquire new patients will exceed your cost to retain them by a large margin.

Besides providing excellent medical care, there are many ways to retain patients with little or no cost. One of the easiest is always scheduling follow-ups whether they are appointments or recalls while the patient is in the office. Telephone, text, email or mailed reminders are other ways. A monthly newsletter is another option. Notifications sent to patients with certain diagnoses for which you have a new treatment are other ways.

Some practices outlay more money for patient retention. Some occasionally offer patient appreciation events. If patients have not had a visit in quite a while, there are services that can help reactivate patients by mining recall, visit history and claims data. You will find that it is always less expensive to retain existing patients than to find new ones. Therefore, it is better for your bottom line to do so.

To learn more about KeyMed Practice Management, KeyChart EHR, KeyOptical Inventory and Dispensing software and ways to help ophthalmologists (Eye MDs) attract and retain patients, go to http://www.keymedicalsoftware.com. KeyMed Practice Management software can provide you with data for tracking newly acquired and retained patients as well as the sources of your patients.