Many dentists believe that all their revenue problems lie with case acceptance. But there is an interesting financial reality that parallels the patient journey from first contact through case presentation, case acceptance, treatment and follow-up. Essentially, there is a significant reduction in potential revenue from each new patient “opportunity” as the patient moves along the path through your practice. We call this the “Revenue Black Hole.”
The basic assumption to the Revenue Black Hole model is that not every patient will book an appointment, not every patient will show up for their appointment, and not all patients will accept recommended treatment. So the Black Hole is a mechanism that demonstrates revenue attrition at each step in the patient journey.
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Watch Alex Nottingham JD MBA, Larry Guzzardo, All-Star’s Head Instructor, and Eric Vickery, All-Star Coach, discuss Case Acceptance and the Black Hole…
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For our exercise, we
will assume $5 Million in new patient opportunities. Let’s look at what happens
to this number as a patient progresses.
Step 1 – The Phone Call
The first interaction
with your practice in the patient journey is the phone call into the office. Call
tracking research that shows that, on average, only 35% of prospective new
patient calls actually convert to appointments. This means that significant potential
revenue from new patient opportunities is lost with only the phone call itself.
So, that $5 Million in
opportunities is immediately reduced by 65% to $1.75 Million – a “loss” of
$3.25 Million.
Why is this
important to case acceptance?
Ultimately, you need to see that you will never get case acceptance from a patient who doesn’t book an appointment. Another way to look at it is that the process of case acceptance begins with whomever speaks with the prospective new patient.
Therefore, training for
case presentation begins with training on the phones. 65% of Black Hole revenue
losses come with being unable to convert phone calls.
Start with the Phones
It’s important to start
with phone calls because this is where people form opinions about what working
with you will be like. And the ability to give a great impression of the
practice to the prospective patient is not intuitive for most of us. It is also
where you begin to establish rapport with the new patient. In our other case
acceptance videos, we have shown just how critical rapport is to your ultimate
success at case presentation.
One of the great things about the Revenue Black Hole model is that it is simple and stark. Use any number for opportunities and it will be immediately cut to less than half – just on that first phone call. This loss is so significant that it should be obvious that you must start training your team on the phones to have any hope of improving case acceptance.
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Step 2 – Showing Up
Research shows that,
typically, only 85% of patients show up for their appointment. The 15% who fail
to show up represent another huge loss in revenue. Our original $5 million in
opportunities was slashed by 65% loss due to failed conversion, and cut again
by 15%. We went from $1.75 million and are now at $1.5 million in opportunities
– another loss of $250,000.