At the beginning of the month, I read a post on Dentaltown titled “From Sucktember to Bestember.” As you probably have experienced, once the back to school rush is over, many dental practices see a dip in patients until Thanksgiving. To help you out of the fall funk and to prepare you for a HUGE spike in Q4, I’ve put together a step-by-step guide to help with recall and reactivation. My suggestion would be to send your first letter out in September or early October and the second letter in early November.

Let’s get started:

Step 1: Run Reports & Create Mailing Lists

Using your practice management software or your patient communication software, run the following reports:

Patients that were assigned a treatment planned but did not complete it and are overdue
Patients that have not been into the office for at least 6 months and do not have an appointment scheduled in the future.

If you don’t have a patient communication software but do have a scheduling system on your computer, you should contact me to see if we can integrate any of our partner softwares with your program. No matter what you decide, try to dig into your records to find patients that have not been to your practice in the last 12 months. You’ll need their name and email or their name and home address.

Step 2: Create a Strategy to Bring Them Back In

Your strategy either needs to tie back into insurance that is going to go unused or there needs to be a promotion or a value proposition, like financing, to help bring the patient back through the door. There are lots of reasons why patients do not come back to the dentist… Have you heard any of these excuses? It’s too expensive, my insurance doesn’t cover it, I’m afraid of the dentist, I don’t have time etc. etc. etc. These are all just complaints that your staff should have been trained on and should know how to overcome them (maybe I’ll write a post on how to overcome them next) - msg me if you think that would be useful...

Step 3: Write letters / Send Emails

If you’re open minded to writing letter and sending them to your patients, I’d encourage you to do that - it’s a great personal touch. If you’re too busy, emails are a decent alternative. I've prepped these emails so you can copy and paste them directly into your Connect the Doc account and run your email campaigns. You can also replace the "Merged Fields" and do it manually if you haven't yet signed up.

#1 Patient is Does Not Have Insurance... Letter/Postcard / Email

Dear {{=First Name}},

It’s been awhile since we last saw you here at {{=Practice Name}}. How are you doing?

I remember you were {{=Something Personal}} How did that go?

Just thinking of you since you’ve been overdue for a checkup for more than {{=Last Appointment Months}} months and wanted to check-in.

Keep Smiling,

[Your Name / Signature]

P.S. If you or any of your friends/family have any questions about insurance plans or coverage, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. My direct line is {{=Doctor Number}} and I’d love to hear from you!

#2 Patient Has Insurance... Letter / Email

Dear {{=First Name}},

It’s been awhile since we last saw you here at {{=Practice Name}}. How are you doing?

Wanted to check-in with you because you’re behind on your treatment plan and it’s nearing the end of the year.

Many of our patients forget that their dental insurance plans cover up to a certain dollar value and if it’s not used up by the end of the year, they lose it. I’d like to make sure that we are able to schedule you in for treatment that you need before your insurance runs out this year.

When you have a few moments, please call our treatment coordinator, {{=Treatment Coordinator}}, to review your pending treatment plan and benefits you have left with your insurance provider.

Since {{Slow Month}} is a notoriously slow month for our practice, we’re happy to provide you with {{Reactivation Incentive}}, on the patient portion for treatment, as a thank you for continuing your treatment plan before the end of the year. To get started call us at {{=Track Phone Number}} or visit [Insert trackable website URL] to book/request your appointment directly online.

Please don't hesitate to contact me directly if you have any questions or concerns!

Best,

[Your Name / Signature]

P.S. If you or any of your friends/family have any questions about insurance plans or coverage, my direct line is {{=Doctor Number}}.

Step 4: Make Scheduling & Communication Effortless

Since you’re going through so much trouble to bring patients back into the practice, it’s incredibly important to track your efforts. My suggestions are to use a different trackable phone number on each piece of outreach and trackable bit.ly links. I’d also encourage you to have 24/7 bookings, requests, or chats (see our new partnership with hipaachat.co) so you can increase conversions on your recall and re-activation outreach. If you need any help with tools to increase conversions, we have lots of great partner applications in our custom bundles.

Step 5: Ask for reviews and referrals

This is a no-brainer, regardless of whether or not it’s Sucktember. Every single patient that visits your practice should be asked to write reviews and refer their friends. It’s also the bread and butter of our platform, Connect the Doc. If you’re curious, check out this PDF to learn more about our review platform and thisPDF to learn more about our referral platform. You can also schedule a meeting with us to be our exclusive partner in your zip and I'll show you a demo after we've gone through your goals and challenges.

If you follow these steps and send letters in September and November with the focus on bringing patients in before their benefits expire, you’ll find that your schedule will fill up and you have a strong month of production in Q4.

If you have any questions about this article, Connect the Doc’s referral and review platform, or our partnership with Lighthouse 360, please do not hesitate to reach out. My direct number is 415-287-4999

5-Step Reactivation and Recall Strategy to Boost End of the Year Production