If you haven't already, please read the article: What is churn? Am I actually losing patients?
The point is: CHURN (or patient loss) unfortunately happens naturally! And it is mission critical to the growth of the practice that churn is kept to an absolute minimum.
Pre-appointment is ESSENTIAL! And it's actually scary to realize that the risks of NOT pre-appointing are stark. And the margin for error is very thin.
Let's demonstrate!
The charts and tables below illustrate the difference in doing pre-appointment at 100% vs. 85% retention rate, and the increments of 5% in between.
Over 3 years, if done at 100% the practice will grow from 150 patients to 507 patients!! Yet if done at 85%, the practice will only have 231 patients in the same period.
Pre-appointment is perhaps the single most important driver in a practices ability to grow. Therefore it must be monitored and maintained religiously!
