Most dental practices strive for excellence in patient care, but what if I told you that improving communication could dramatically enhance your practice's efficiency and profitability?
Unfortunately, most patient management software that includes communication features can offer only limited communication capabilities, leading to continued miscommunication. The costs of miscommunication in a dental practice can be high, but identifying what causes these issues is enormously beneficial. This is true not only between practice and patient, but between practices themselves (such as communication for referrals).
The financial cost of miscommunication
When thinking about the financial cost of miscommunication, one thing immediately springs to mind: the cost of missed appointments. About a third of all appointments are missed-either due to no-shows, rescheduling, or cancellations-and are often the result of miscommunication between the patient and the practice.1 What this means is that your practice could be making about a third more income than it currently earns.
Depending on the type of appointment and practice, this could be costing a dental clinic between $160,000 to $2 million every year.2 However, this is not where the costs of miscommunication end.
Cost of labor
It is no secret that staffing shortages have affected the health-care industry at large. Having your staff spend more time on administrative tasks can be costly. To put this into perspective, dental office managers make an average of $30/hour in the US.3 But the dental practice also must pay the dentist, assistant, and so on. Between all of these salaries, a practice could be losing ~$160,000 per year to labor costs spent on managing miscommunication issues.
Cost of losing staff
While the economy ebbs and flows, so does staff. Current estimates put the loss of staff at between six to nine months of that employee's salary.4 This could be costing a practice upward of ~$25,000 per employee per year, depending on the number of employees who choose not to stay with the practice.
Cost of not retaining patients
The lifetime value of a patient can be calculated as total lifetime value = value of a single patient + value of secondary referrals.5 Depending on what kind of practice you have, these values will be different. If a patient is spending $500 a year and stays with your practice for 30 years, their lifetime value is $15,000, in addition to any referrals they may bring in. If they bring in three patients who are also worth $15,000 each, that means that each patient can be worth $60,000 each.
However, this is the lifetime value. If we consider it by the year ($60,000 divided by 30 years), the yearly value of a patient is $2,000. The average dentist's active patient base is about 1,200 patients, and attrition rate is about 10%7 for an average of 120 patients. This means that a practice could be losing $240,000 by not retaining patients.
Cost of online patient advocacy
Online reviews are one of the best ways patients can advocate for their dental practices. In fact, for any business, negative reviews can cost a business 70% of potential customer or patient growth.6 Even if a practice has good reviews, they should be actively trying to gain more.
The logistical cost of miscommunication
One of the most significant consequences of miscommunication is the logistical burden it imposes on dental offices. If one third of a practice's appointments are missed, tasks like following up to rebook appointments, resending the messaging cadence that involves confirming and reminding, and ensuring the patient has the correct instructions for the appointment, may also lead to miscommunication. This can happen for several reasons. Some of these include:
- A method of communication that isn't meaningful to the patient (i.e., leaving a voicemail for a younger patient who would benefit from a text reminder)
- Gaps in a messaging cadence (i.e., not enough reminders and requests for confirmations at the right times)
- Issues with time management-the time that it takes to handle missed appointments may make staff fall behind on other tasks, some of which could've been avoided if initial communication methods were different.
The emotional cost of miscommunication
The emotional cost of miscommunication can be challenging to measure, but we can see it manifest in relation to a staff's job satisfaction and the treatment outcomes for patients.
Miscommunication takes an emotional toll in any context. But this is especially true in health care. Some of the emotional costs of miscommunication in health care include:
- High stress outcomes for clinicians
- Decreased patient satisfaction
- Decreased job satisfaction and work-life balance
- Poor patient outcomes
When we tie this in with the logistical costs of miscommunication, we can see how this can significantly impact the work-life balance and job satisfaction of a practice's staff. When employees repeatedly redo tasks due to miscommunication, they often end up working late hours or missing lunch breaks. This persistent strain leads to burnout and, ultimately, higher turnover rates as dissatisfied staff leave their positions.
For many patients, there is already a certain amount of emotional impact in visiting the dentist. Miscommunication between front-office staff or with the dentist only increases this emotional impact.
What should dental practices make of all this?
The good news is that miscommunication is a fixable problem for every dental practice.
Now armed with this information, your practice can start to identify where miscommunication may be occurring. Some questions to start asking are:
- Where is the team experiencing the biggest breakdown? Is it during an appointment reminder or a request for confirmation, for example?
- What logistical changes could be made to prevent this breakdown? What processes could look different?
- When patients give constructive feedback, what is that usually focused on? Could this be an area that inspires change?
- When your staff feels dissatisfied in their work, what specifically makes them feel down? What could be improved? Could this be an area that inspires change?
References
- Alqahtani MH, Alawaji NY. Exploring factors associated with missed dental appointments: A machine learning analysis of electronic dental records. Cureus. 2023 Oct; 15(10): e47304. doi: 10.7759/cureus.47304
- Cortigiano C. Average number of patient visits dentists have had annually since 2000. Becker's Dental. August 14, 2023. https://www.beckersdental.com/benchmarking/41681-average-number-of-patient-visits-dentists-have-had-annually-since-2000
- How much does a dental office manager make? Glassdoor. Updated June 6, 2024. https://www.glassdoor.co.in/Salaries/us-dental-office-manager-salary-SRCH_IL.0,2_IN1_KO3,24.htm#
- Lindquist M. The real costs of healthcare staff turnover. Oracle. March 22, 2023. https://www.oracle.com/ca-en/human-capital-management/cost-employee-turnover-healthcare/
- What's the lifetime value of a dental patient? Dandy. Updated June 11, 2024. https://www.meetdandy.com/learning-center/articles/whats-the-lifetime-value-of-a-dental-patient/
- How much will a bad online reputation cost your medical practice? Practice Builders. July 26, 2019. https://www.practicebuilders.com/blog/how-much-will-a-bad-online-reputation-cost-your-medical-practice/
- Healy T. Do you know Your dental practice's patient attrition percentage? TNT Dental. https://www.tntdental.com/blog/do-you-know-your-attrition/
