A general practice with a revolving door of patients is one that always seems to be losing patients at the same rate that they are attracting them. New patients are showing up for appointments, but most of them vanish off to never be seen again. While it’s tempting to invest most of your marketing efforts towards attracting new patients, without making an attempt to keep the old ones, you’ll end up with a revolving door of patients.
Why Are Patients Leaving?
One survey of patients who chose to leave their medical practice of choice found that patients have 4 core reasons for putting their medical care in someone else’s hands:
- Feeling neglected
- Poor communication or misinformation
- Feeling rushed
- Lack of detail or description for procedures, tests and results
At the heart of all 4 of those things is that sometimes, doctors do not have enough time to satisfy patient needs fully. What does that mean? You should go above and beyond to provide patients with additional resources and also distribute the patient retention responsibility throughout your practice. It isn’t just the doctor who is responsible for keeping patients. Instead, it’s also the receptionists, nurses, technicians and more.
Educate
Invest in resources that can educate your patients. While you might not have time to explain a procedure to a patient in one visit thoroughly, you could show a video, offer them literature or direct them to a page on your website. When patients know where to find the information that they need, they will be much more likely to seek it out and sate their curiosity.
Ask and Reassess
Regular patient surveys are another great way to see how you’re doing and make changes to suit the needs of your patients better. In some cases, patients value the opportunity to express themselves more than actual changes taking place! Make it clear that you care about your patients, their health and their experience at your practice and you will be much closer to retaining them.
Follow Up
When a patient leaves that means that they’re gone forever, right? No! If a patient leaves your practice, despite your efforts to retain them, you should place a follow-up call to see why they chose to do so. Many patients are willing to give you valuable insight on why they left, which could help you pull more patients out of the revolving door of patients.
Additional Retention Tips
- Ensure that patients are informed of when their next appointment is.
- Reward patient loyalty.
- Send appointment reminders.
- Make scheduling as easy as possible.
- Keep track of important patient information, like birthdays and contact information.
Practice Guidance for Your Practice from Vetters Enterprises
Vetters Enterprises specializes in practice management, private practice business support and revenue cycle optimization. We can perform in-depth assessments of your practice or facility and identify potential issues. Let us keep your business as healthy as you keep your patients! Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.