Let’s talk about retention. Controlling patient retention is one of the best ways to control practice revenue and stability.

Losing patients to other providers obviously hurts your bottom line. And finding new patients to replace them takes time and resources. Industry consultants Dental Strategic estimate the average cost of acquiring a single new patient to be up to $300. Maybe that doesn’t sound like too much, but if you want 25 new patients a month, you’re looking at a monthly spend of up to $7,500. That’s ninety grand a year.

Ouch.

On the other hand, research in the Harvard Business Review suggests that improving retention rates by as little as 5% could boost profits by as much as 95%.

Dental Strategic places the lifetime worth of a general dentistry patient at up to $15,000. So those 25 new monthly patients have to potential to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in practice revenue—but only if they stick around.

At the end of the day, patient retention comes down to patient choices. And one of the best ways clinicians can influence patient choice is with the type and quality of procedures they offer.

So let’s play a quick game of “would you rather?” Say you were a patient requiring periodontal or restorative treatment. Would you rather…

• Receive a traditional treatment with metal tools that cause bleeding and discomfort, or a modern one that causes virtually none?
• Require anesthetic injections (needles!) and stitches, or potentially avoid them altogether?
• Have a recovery period that is measured in weeks or days?

When up to 80% of adults have some amount of dental anxiety potentially keeping them from treatment, the choice is clear.

With lasers, these are the choices you are presenting to your patients. When used in periodontal and restorative procedures, lasers significantly reduce and sometimes eliminate the tissue damage, pain, and bleeding caused by scalpels. Patients typically require minimal anesthesia and stitches. They also experience accelerated recovery times compared to traditional treatments.

In short, better healing is better retention, which in turn means more predictable revenue year over year. In an environment where practices face more competition than ever and patients are more discerning than ever, one of the best ways you can differentiate your practice is with technology that improves treatment outcomes and patient comfort.