Episode summary
How to Measure Patient Value and Practice Performance
The Dentist Money Show
· · 15 min · Hosts: Christine Uhen
Summary
Christine Uhen argues that patient base is not just a headcount metric, but a core driver of practice value across every stage of a dental business. In the growth phase, she says the priority is simply adding bodies in the chair, with heavy external marketing and strong recare systems to keep new patients returning. She gives a practical benchmark: roughly 2,000 patients of record marks the end of early growth, and about 200 patients can support one day of hygiene.
Once a practice is established, she shifts the focus to patient leakage and annual patient value. Christine says a solo general practice should aim for 25 to 30 new patients per month because some patients will be lost through attrition or inactivity. She warns that if new patient volume is strong but lost patients are higher, the practice can still end up shrinking. Annual patient value then becomes a planning tool for measuring how much production each patient generates and how many new patients are needed to hit growth targets.
She also connects patient metrics to strategy: differentiation may require targeted marketing and a different case mix, while expansion may mean adding a doctor, hours, or operatories. In the exit phase, she says owners should not coast, because buyers value a practice that can still grow, not just maintain itself.
Key takeaways
- Christine Uhen says roughly 2,000 patients of record marks the end of the pure growth stage for a dental practice.
- She says about 200 patients of record can support one day of hygiene, which helps time decisions on adding hygiene capacity.
- Christine says a solo general practice should target 25 to 30 new patients per month to offset lost patients and preserve growth.
- She warns that if lost patients outnumber new patients, the practice can have negative net growth even with healthy acquisition numbers.
- Christine says annual patient value helps estimate how many new patients are needed to produce a specific monthly production increase.
- In the exit phase, she says maintaining the patient base matters because buyers want evidence the practice can still grow, not just hold steady.
Notable quotes
“So, we'll go from growth to stability to expansion and dive into the practice data numbers a little bit deeper for each of those areas”
“growing up to roughly 2,000 patients of record is where we would call that stage of a practice of growth”
“One day of hygiene is roughly 200 patients of record”
“25 to 30 new patients of record is what you want to have for an established maintaining the growth and health of a business for every solo practitioner”
“the value right now is just addition of bodies in the chair”
How the episode opens
Hello everybody. This is Christine, the business strategist with the Dennis Advisors team, and I'm here again to dive a little bit deeper into the productivity pearls, the five points of productivity that we talked about. And today, we're going to dive a little bit deeper into the first of those five points of productivity, which was about bodies in the chair, your patient base, your patient count.
And we're going to dive into this on a different level, looking at the different phases of a dental practice. So, we'll go from growth to stability to expansion and dive into the practice data numbers a little bit deeper for each of those areas.
Consult an adviser or conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by Dennis Adviser, a registered investment adviser.
So, we'll start out with growth. And obviously when you're starting a new practice, whether you're hanging out your shingle, taking over another practice, every patient is a new patient at that point. And when you're in growth mode, it is all about getting more people in the front door.
So, first and foremost, looking at every patient being an opportunity, every patient having potential value of who knows based on what your productivity could be with those patients. But the value right now is just addition of bodies in the chair. So at this point your primary focus is really marketing attracting those new patients both from internal and external.
We talked about that on the last seminar. And really there's just no end to the number that you could and should be seeing. So right now every patient counts.
Grow grow. Here we grow. growing up to roughly 2,000 patients of record is where we would call that stage of a practice of growth.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- patient value measurement
- patient retention rates
- annual patient value
- practice performance
- dental productivity benchmarks
Watch the episode
Watch “How to Measure Patient Value and Practice Performance” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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The Dentist Money Show, this episode and its artwork belong to Dentist Advisors - Financial Planning and Investment Management. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
