Active patient count is one of the most important but least understood terms in dental practice management. Even dentists who know how many active patients their clinic has are often unsure what this number means for their practice.

Knowing your active patient base will help you make better business decisions and manage your dental clinic more efficiently. So, what’s the deal with active patient count, and why does it matter?

What Is Active Patient Count?

First, let’s draw the line between active and inactive patients. The ADA defines active patients as individuals who have received dental care in your clinic within the past year or patients of record treated at your practice within the last 24 months (but not in the past 12 months)¹.  

Inactive patients are patients of record who haven’t come into your clinic for dental treatment within the last 24 months.

Dental Intelligence defines active patients as those seen in the last 18 months and marked as active in your PMS.

Calculating Active Patient Count 

You can determine your active patient count by:

• Performing a full chart audit that involves counting all patients who come into your practice within a defined period
• Using a partial chart audit to estimate the number of active patients

Calculating your active patient count is much easier when you use advanced tools by Dental Intelligence Metrics & Reporting.

What Active Patient Count Should You Aim for?

Your active patient base is easily the most important asset of your dental practice. Building a healthy patient base takes skill, reputation, marketing efforts, and years of providing excellent dental services. But how many active patients should a dental clinic have?

If you’re running a solo practice with one full-time general dentist, a hygienist, and a hygiene assistant, you should aim for an active patient base in the range of 1300 to 1500 patients. These numbers provide a fair balance between profit and quality of care.

Each extra dentist day per week adds around 300 active patients your clinic can handle without compromising care quality or patient experience. For example, if a second dentist comes in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, your practice may aspire to about 1,900-2,100 active patients. 

Maintaining and Growing Your Active Patient Base

Some of your patients will eventually move to a different area, pass away, or (even if you make every effort to foster patient loyalty) switch to a different dental practice. On average, a dental clinic loses about 10%-15% of its active patients every year, which is why you must continue marketing your services and acquiring new patients. 

Striving to gain about 25 patients every month for every full-time dentist who works in your clinic is a reasonable growth goal. If you run your practice well and provide high-quality care, most new patients will come from referrals through existing active patients. 

Patient referral incentives, efficient SEO and a website upgrade, pay-per-click advertising, and traditional print advertising are some methods you may consider to attract patients to your clinic. However, if you see an especially high patient attrition rate, you might want to examine your work processes and focus on retaining existing patients. Dental Intelligence offers a library of ready to use marketing tools to help boost your visibility and marketing efforts.

What If You Have Too Many Patients?

Dental practice owners often put a lot of effort into growing their active patient base and fitting new patients into a busy schedule. However, if you overstretch your clinic’s resources to accommodate too many patients, the quality of care will suffer. You’ll have less time to devote to each patient, and mistakes and oversights may occur more often.

When this occurs, patient satisfaction, patient loyalty, and annual billings per patient will drop. You’ll find yourself working harder but earning less. 

This is where active patient count becomes important. This number can let you know you’re taking on more patients than you can reasonably handle, helping you decide whether it’s time to add more staff to your dental practice. 

For example, if your analytics show your solo practice has an active patient count of 1800, you may consider adding an associate. Alternatively, you may choose to cut down on your marketing efforts and reduce the number of new patients you take on each month. 

Gain Actionable Insights for Your Practice with Dental Intelligence

Our practice performance solution by Dental Intelligence helps you save time, earn more money, and deliver a better patient experience. We offer all you need for efficient practice management, from determining active patient count to dental patient reactivation and people-friendly communication.

Join over 9,000 clinics across the U.S. already using Dental Intelligence for all their practice management needs. Request your demo today.

Resources

¹ ADA