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Calculating New Patient Growth

Use this one metric to measure success throughout your practice

DAVID MILLS, O.D., M.B.A.

Established patients leave O.D. practices for a variety of reasons, such as relocation or changes in insurance coverage. This attrition rate can be as high as 12% to 14%. Therefore, optometric practices must attract and retain a steady stream of new patients to remain financially healthy. By striving for a new patient influx of 18% to 20%, a practice can not only replace the deficit of lost patients, but also continue to grow. Practices can monitor their progress by calculating new patient growth.

Calculating new patient growth can be used to measure success in other areas. An example: if a practice adds a provider or offers a new specialty or services, such as specialty contact lenses. Calculating the new patient growth rate of the new specialty specifically, as well as the revenues generated, will determine whether the addition of the new service is financially sound.

How to calculate

Your calculation will vary based on which area of the practice you wish to evaluate.

► Overall growth. Calculating new patient growth for the entire practice is as easy as counting the number of new patients. This can be done simply by using your EHR system.

However, it is important to remember to count only those patients who are truly new to the practice. Therefore, you must be mindful of potential sources of error when calculating new patient growth.

For example, billing criteria for most insurance plans allows the coding of a patient encounter to be considered “new” if the patient has not been evaluated in the practice for more than three years. You want to be sure NOT to count these patients, as doing so will lead to a potential false high assessment. Most EHR demographics have the capability of classifying patients as “new” or “established.” Be sure to use this field.

► Specialty or added services. The process is slightly different for newly added services or specialties. In these instances, your calculation should include the total number of “new” patients who were evaluated for the specialty or service for the first time. This will include both truly new patients as well as established patients who are being seen for the new specialty or service for the first time.

How to fix

Increasing the new patient growth rate, regardless of whether you are evaluating a new specialty or the entire practice, revolves around marketing. All practices should continually evaluate their marketing plan to ensure maximum visibility and reach based on their target audience’s preferences. For example, practices that have a young patient base should focus their efforts online.

Also, patient incentive programs, such as a reward for referrals, can be a very powerful source of increasing the growth rate of new patients. When adding a new specialty or service, marketing strategies to both the existing patient base as well as to the general public should be developed.

Finally, embrace the usage of social media, such as Facebook or ZocDoc, as it can be very effective in driving new patients to your practice. OM

DR. MILLS PRACTICES AT OCEAN STATE EYE CARE IN WARWICK, R.I., AND HOLDS A M.B.A. FROM PROVIDENCE COLLEGE. E-MAIL HIM AT MILLSD@NECO.EDU OR COMMENT AT TINYURL.COM/OMCOMMENT.