Dr. Richard Madow calls inactive patient lists a "million dollar file cabinet." Half of patients leave without scheduling their next visit, and some practices have thousands sitting unused. He told one practice to stop taking new patients until they fixed their reappointment system.
About half the time (≈50%).
Around 1,000 to 2,000 patients (described as a "million dollar file cabinet").
We found that so many dental practices have a poor reappointment percentage. They have 1,000 or 2,000 patients who have been in before but have slipped through the cracks and they have no systems to get those patients back in. They all say, oh, nobody leaves here without an appointment, yet they do. We found about half the time a patient will leave without an appointment and it's just a matter of getting your systems and protocols down so patients don't slip through the cracks. If and when they do, we've got a great system for bringing them back. And I would never recommend this, but one time I was so fed up with a practice I said, you know what, we are not going to accept new patients until we get this straightened out because you've got thousands of patients I call the million dollar file cabinet just waiting to be reactivated. So that's dumping number one, focusing too much on new patients while you're ignoring your existing one.
