October 24, 2018
In a 100% effective recare system, all of your active patients will be coming in every six months for an exam and prophy. This is the calculation: # of active patients / 6 months. If for example you have 2000 active patients, use 2000 / 6 = 333. A 100% effective recare system means you will average 333 recare appointments per month. Yes, this makes assumptions about distribution, but over a year the numbers average out. Divide your perfect number by your actual appointment count, and you have your recare effectiveness number. Continuing with our example, let’s say you’ve been averaging 200 recare appointments per month; so 200/333 = 60% effectiveness.
I hope you are interested in knowing your number. To make the calculation for your practice in Dentrix Ascend, first you need the total number of active patients within a selected time period. Then, you need the total number of recare appointments completed within that same time period.
How to:
- Navigate to Home > Power Reporting > Patient, and click to open the Active Patient Count – HSPA report.
- The default report goes back two years. To look at just the past 12 months, click the Month filter, set the Filter on Month value to Previous 12 Month, and click OK.
- Look at the Grand Total number in the bottom-right corner of the report. This is your active patient count.
- Now, filter this same report to see just the recare patients. Click the Add More Fields icon to open the Available fields panel.
- Scroll down to the Procedure section. Drag the Proc Code (procedure code) field from the panel, and drop it into the filter area.
- In the Filter on Proc Code window, search for and select the procedure code(s) that represent a typical recare appointment in your practice, and click the right arrow (>) to move it into the Currently Included column. When you have included all the desired code(s), click OK.
- Once the report refreshes, look again at the Grand Total number in the bottom right corner of the report. This is your recare appointment count.
- Calculate your recare effectiveness using your two grand total numbers. The following is merely an example to illustrate the calculation steps. You will substitute your actual numbers.
Total Patients: 7401 ÷ 12 = 617 patients/month
Recare Total: 4562 ÷ 12 = 380 recare appointments/month
380 ÷ 617 = 0.615 = 62% effectiveness rate
Additional Information
- To really measure the impact of your recare effectiveness, figure out how many appointments you’re missing out on each month (perfect amount minus the actual amount), and then multiply the result by the value of a typical recare appointment. That’s missed revenue every single month.
- Once you determine your baseline number, you can set improvement goals and take steps to increase your effectiveness. One great activity is to make sure you have phone numbers and email addresses for all your primary contacts.