The New Patients metric captures the number of patients who have completed their first visit to the practice. They are counted as a New Patient the first time an ADA code is walked out on their ledger.
Note: This metric is calculated retroactively, meaning that Dental Intelligence uses historical data in order to determine the current outcomes.
Your Practice Management Software's definition of a New Patient might differ. The reports within your Practice Management Software may be identifying newly created Patient Profiles as New Patients. Dental Intelligence criteria captures the first completed appointment. Dental Intelligence is unable to recognize Custom Codes, which can affect the final report.
Watch this short video for a walkthrough of how to use this metric:
Why are New Patients important?
Without a consistent flow of new patients, the practice will begin to see a decline in production. The Active Patient size, Pre-Appointment and Hygiene Re-Appointment Percentages will determine the amount of New Patients a practice will need to schedule in order to maintain or grow the practice. Often times the number of New Patients required to achieve a healthy growth rate can be significantly reduced if the practice focuses on rescheduling existing patients immediately after they have completed their current appointment and recalling those that did not schedule.
New Patients Metric
Data Review Tools
Click on the bar icon to view year over year and 90 day trends for your practice.
Click on the magnifying glass icon to view the details of the source data included in this metric.
Click on the information icon for detailed definitions and written explanation about each metric.
Click on the reports icon to build a custom New Patients Report.
Included Data Points
New Patients is the number of patients who have had a first completed visit in the practice. They are counted as a New Patient the first time an ADA code is walked out on their ledger.
For Dentrix users: Please note that Dental Intelligence's new patient report may not always match the numbers generated from a new patient report on Dentrix. This is because Dentrix counts new patients solely by the "first visit date" and "last visit date" entered when creating a family file for that patient. If you notice any discrepancies between the two reports, it is highly likely that the information regarding first and last visit dates is not being entered consistently for all new patients in Dentrix.
Hyg Re-Appointment % is the number and percentage of New Patients that have scheduled a future hygiene appointment.
Case Acceptance % is the number of New Patients where treatment was presented in the Treatment Planner and the number of New Patients and percentage who have completed or scheduled the recommended treatment before the end of day.
Lost is the number of patients that have fallen into the category of not having a completed visit within the last 18 months or whose status in the Practice Management Software was changed from Active to Inactive. Note: This number is split into two additional categories when viewed in the Year Over Year chart. Here you will see Status Change & Inactivity.
Status Change represents the patients whose status in the Practice Management Software (Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental) was changed from Active to Inactive
Inactivity represents the patients who have not completed a visit within the last 18 months
Recaptured is the opposite of lost, this is the number of patients who have not completed a visit within the past 18 months, but have now completed a visit and are brought back into the practice.
Net Growth is the number of New Patients less the Lost patients. It is important to remember that New Patients is based on an individual completing his or her first appointment, not if this individual has scheduled a subsequent appointment. You may consider calculating your Net Growth using the Reappointed New Patients rather than New Patients.