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Five Ways to (Really) Increase Production Per Visit

Increasing Production Per Visit is one of the most important things you and your team should be focused on to grow your practice.

Dental Intelligence

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September 8, 2021

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When you’re trying to increase your dental practice’s profitability, one of the most important things you can focus on is to increase production. Obvious, right? Production is what keeps the lights on, pays your staff, add new equipment, and so much more. Most importantly, it's what keeps your patients healthy. 

For all its importance, you would think increasing production would be easier to track, but not necessarily. However, just because it’s hard to track doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and honestly, once you know what works, it won’t take you hours to track your practice’s production. This process begins by breaking production down into manageable pieces that you can track. Here’s how we do it at Dental Intelligence

Most practices understandably assume that if their schedule is full, Production Per Visit (PPV) will take care of itself. Having your schedule full is good, but if you’re not focused on optimizing Production Per Visit as well, you’re probably just working more without seeing much of a difference to your bottom line. So, let’s take a look at the different options you have for increasing PPV and setting your practice up for success. 

#1 - Increase Your Fees

There’s a reason this is first on the list. Increasing your fees is one of the simplest ways to affect supply and demand and is one of the first levers you should consider pulling to increase your PPV. Now, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all sort of solution. You can’t just start increasing your fees and hope for the best. If you’re not already busy, increasing your fees probably won’t help you grow your practice. Here are some helpful ways to determine whether a fee increase is the right step to take: 

The basic principle is this: The lower you price your services, the more demand there will be for them. Conversely, as you raise your fees, demand will naturally begin to slow. In this case, that’s a good thing, because while the pressure on your schedule eases due to higher fees, your production per visit will be increasing. 

#2 - Choose Your Best Patients

When you consistently have a full schedule, you have the luxury of being picky with whom you choose to schedule and whom you choose to let walk out the door without an appointment scheduled. That means there’s no need to continue to reschedule patients who cause you and your staff headaches.

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You can go about this however you want, but most of your stress-causing patients will simply fade away once you stop chasing them. So, when a chronic canceler inevitably cancels, don’t automatically offer to reschedule. The same goes for the patient who always shows up 30 minutes late and throws your whole schedule off. Requiring that everyone pay at time of service will help you winnow patients who never pay their bill on time. Whatever your situation, if you stop accommodating the patient behaviors that disrupt your practice, you’ll find that your practice runs smoother and more efficiently — and you’ll see your production per visit increase.  

#3 - Expand Treatment Offerings

This can be as complicated or simple as you want it to be. Expanding treatment offerings isn’t just about adding new procedures and services. Sure, adding sleep apnea and aligners to your services can help increase your production per visit, but that may not be the simplest solution. 

Instead, consider starting by consistently offering the optional services you already have available. It’s not uncommon for practices to see a significant increase in production per visit just by focusing on simple add-ons like fluoride, sealings, and teeth whitening. 

#4 - Diagnose More Treatment

This may seem like an odd suggestion. After all, you should just diagnose the treatment your patients need to get healthy, right? 

Yes. But what counts as a healthy mouth at your practice? Does everyone agree on what that means? Unless you’ve instituted common standards in your practice, it’s likely that some practitioners are under-diagnosing their patients. This is another easy way to increase your production per visit. All it takes is getting everyone on the same page so that your whole practice is diagnosing the correct amount of treatment. 

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#5 - Increase Case Acceptance

Increasing case acceptance isn’t just for increasing visits. It’s also a valuable tool for increasing production per visit. The key here is helping the patient understand the importance of accepting diagnosed treatment. A few things you can try to increase acceptance include: 

If you can get your case acceptance up, your production per visit will inevitably follow. 

Increasing production per visit is the most important thing you and your team should be focused on. It's the key to making everything else work. Increasing PPV should be part of your regular conversations in team huddles and leadership meetings. Making this a priority will solve many of your challenges and increase your ability to improve the lives of your patients and team members. Now go make it happen!

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