For a dentist, analytics involves collecting and working with data to compare your practice’s performance metrics against goals and industry standards.
These days, the software programs that dentists use to run their practices are incredibly sophisticated and user-friendly. It’s easier than ever before for dentists to collect and analyze data, leading to data-driven decisions that improve financial performance and the quality of care.
The Role of Data for Dental Practices
In healthcare, data is one of the most powerful resources for improving care. Data analytics can also be used to connect care metrics to areas like financial performance and operational efficiency. While analytics might seem like an overly complicated process for small business owners, modern medical software provides plenty of built-in opportunities for easily working with data.
Experience and intuition are valuable assets, but there’s a growing emphasis on data-driven decision-making in healthcare. Embracing this shift helps practitioners adopt policies rooted in measurable insights that offer a predictable path toward improving operations.
The data categories that matter most for dentists include:
- Clinical data regarding a practice’s treatment outcomes and the treatment histories of patients
- Financial data that summarizes revenue, expenses, profitability, and patient payment patterns
- Operational data on areas like appointment metrics, staff productivity, and equipment use
- Patient experience data that shed light on patient satisfaction
These categories cover the entire patient journey, from finding a provider to receiving care to providing post-treatment feedback. Data analysis connects these patient-centered concerns with areas like staffing, resource allocation, and financial performance.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Dental Analytics
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurements business owners use to compare essential performance areas against targets or against peers. Indicators can be used to examine past performance (lagging indicators) or to project future performance (leading indicators).
Financial KPIs: Driving Revenue and Reducing Costs
Financial KPIs for dentists include:
- Production vs. collection: comparing patient visits and other productivity metrics against collections
- Overhead costs: total costs or costs as a percentage of revenue
- Average treatment value: revenue per patient visit and per specific treatments
- Accounts receivable aging: categorizing accounts receivable based on the length of time spent as outstanding invoices
These metrics can be used to compare current financial performance against past performance and against industry standards. KPI tracking helps dentists maintain an informed and goal-oriented approach to growth and financial management.
Clinical KPIs: Ensuring Quality Care
Clinical KPIs explore areas such as:
- Treatment acceptance rate (how often patients agree to recommended treatments)
- Retreatment rates for procedures
- Procedure completion time compared to industry benchmarks
- Average wait time before appointments
These indicators help dentists ensure that their quality of care matches industry standards and provides great value for patients.
Operational KPIs: Streamlining Practice Management
Operational KPIs explore the nuts and bolts of a dental practice’s daily activity. These include metrics like:
- Appointment fill rate (ratio of filled appointments vs. total appointment slots)
- Cancellation and no-show rates
- Staff productivity (e.g. task completion times or revenue per worker hour)
- Inventory management (e.g. rate of supply use or supply costs per month)
It’s easy to assume that what’s normal at your practice is typical throughout the dental industry. However, that’s not always the case. Operational KPIs create useful data for making comparisons and identifying areas that need improvement.
Patient Experience KPIs: Building Trust and Loyalty
Patient experience KPIs explore the patient’s point of view. Indicators in this category include:
- Patient retention rate: how many first-time patients return for a second visit?
- Patient feedback: collecting and quantifying patient feedback from surveys and reviews
- Patient net promoter score (NPS): survey-generated measurement of how likely a patient is to recommend your practice
- Time to first appointment: the average time it takes for a new patient to complete their first appointment
By creating and comparing these data points, patient experience KPIs bring objectivity to your patient satisfaction analysis.
Integrating Analytics into Daily Practice
These days, you don’t have to be an actuary or a statistician to incorporate data analytics into business ownership. As a dentist, each major software system you use for running your practice offers data storage and some level of automated analysis functionality.
To benefit from data, practice consistent KPI tracking and maintain a goal-oriented approach to the metrics you use. Follow industry benchmarks and set achievable targets that ensure continuous improvement for your practice.
Get More Insights For Optimizing Your Dental Practice
Duckett Ladd is an expert team of dental industry CPAs and advisors. Contact our team today to discuss accounting services and more for your growing dental practice.
Disclaimer
Duckett Ladd, LLP does not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. This content has been prepared for informational purposes only and should not be relied on for, tax, legal, or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction. Also, tax law is ever-changing, and every effort should be made to seek out the most current information. Make sure to check the date of published content to ensure the most current information.
