Life Time Value of a Patient
Most dentists I’ve consulted with are always looking for the next patient. They forget about the patients they’ve already got. And that’s a big mistake.
You see, it costs you eight times more to get a new patient than it does to get an old patient to come back to your practice. That’s the bare bone maths of the situation.
So there’s no point flooding your practice with a ton of new patients unless you’ve got systems in place to maximize their value.
Once you work out Patient The Lifetime Value (LTV) of each new patient, this concept will really sink in. To work out your lifetime value, just multiply the number of times per year a patient uses your service, times the number of visits, times the number of years they stick with you.
Average it all out and you’ve got your LTV.
Here’s a rough example to illustrate my point…
Patient Tom Smith sees you twice a year at an average cost of $250 per visit. He sticks with you for 6 years, and he refers just 1 new patient to you.
So Tom’s LTV to you would be…
($250 x 2) x (6 years) x (1+1) = $6000.00
Now that’s a rough ballpark figure. Many patients will be worth less, some patients a heck of a lot more.
The point is to find the average LTV of a patient in your practice. Once you have that number, you’ll know exactly how much you can spend to get a new one.
But to really make this work, you’ve got to build a strong rapport with each and every patient you see. This way, you maximise the amount of times they see you each year, and you maximise the number of years they stick with you.
And by following just a few of the techniques that we’ll cover in future posts, you could easily double the LTV of all of your patients.
