“Gaining new dental patients is always a challenge.”

Windmill Dental in Brighton is a well-run family dental practice.   Gaining new dental patients is always a challenge.  Andrew Whitehouse and his wife Ginny, who are both dentists, have been at their current location for 7 years.  Despite the use of a practice management system and a recall programme, a simple analysis of their 1000 strong patient base revealed a list of 219 patients who had not attended for a check-up for over 9 months but had attended within the past 3 years.

“I was amazed that so many patients had managed to be missed by our recall systems.  This represents a significant number of patients whom we are not serving at the optimal level and a significant impact on our business,” said Dr. Whitehouse.

“This is a very common state of affairs.  Most practices have a list of people they believe are attending every six months, but for one reason or another, haven’t been into the practice recently and don’t have a future appointment.  I have developed a process to deal with this called WINBACK,” comments David Holland from EXELA.

Most recall programmes are boring and one-dimensional.  They involve sending a couple of standard reminder letters.  However, this does work to bring back many patients.  But what about the people who don’t respond? There needs to be a way for a practice to reach out to this group and bring their business back too.

WINBACK involves sending a series of communications to lapsed patients. This communication needs to be attention grabbing.  Postcards are used first, followed by a letter with a Worry Doll included in the envelope.  Finally, if there has been no response, the patient gets a telephone call.

“It is essential that this is outsourced,” says David Holland.  “Each step generates momentum and has to be timed carefully and quickly.   The telephone calls are essential to getting good results.  They can’t be done quickly in-house, it just doesn’t work. EXELA does the whole thing and books patients into pre-allocated sessions.  It’s really simple and works very well.”

The results speak for themselves.  For Windmill, 36 patients booked appointments during one week of carrying out WINBACK activities, along with 2 extra referral patients!  The cost of the work was covered immediately.

“I am delighted.  This promotion effectively cost me nothing.  We couldn’t have done this in-house, and we have a full book in January, with a great year ahead of us,” said Dr Whitehouse.

Tags: New Patients