Last time I checked, patients were simply patients - not magicians who specialised in the disappearing act. But why in the world are they so good at it? How happy and satisfied are your patients with your clinic? Do you have patients who come only a for a few physiotherapy or chiropractic visits only to disappear and not come back?
If your patients like what you offer, had an overall great experience, and they like YOU, they will keep coming back for more. Not only will they keep coming back - they'll bring along their friends and tell their doctor too! But how will you do that if you don’t know when or how many of your patients are disappearing? Don’t start pulling your hair out of frustration just yet... We’ll show you how to figure that out with a very simple and easy to understand metric that will make you thousands.
“What gets measured, gets managed.” When we really want to focus on something, we pay close attention to it. We want details that can help us make good decisions. The key to growing any healthcare business practice is the acquisition of new patients and the retention of established patients. The retention of the established patient is called PVA (patient visit average).
PVA = Total Visits / Total New Patients
When calculating the PVA, take the total number of patient visits (including new patient visits) and divide it by the number of new patients that have visited you. Both numbers must be from the same time frame (ie weeks, months, etc.). Most people think of PVA as just a number. I would like you to think of PVA as a relationship indicator. The higher the PVA, the better the relationship. When you measure this metric in weeks or months, it gives you a pretty good average and will account for any acute patients you may have.
Start measuring your PVA on a monthly basis with all your clinicians, you’ll notice that the PVA for your senior clinicians is always higher than your junior clinicians. Also, clinicians who are friendly and confident have a higher PVA than their colleagues. If you don't measure Patient Visit Average, you are LOSING MONEY on the table. So, pick out the highest PVA of all the clinicians and showcase their results. Show the low performing clincians the highest results as proof of what is possible and performance manage them to success.
Imagine your physiotherapy clinic has 60 new patients a month and a PVA of 6 but your most senior physiotherapist has a PVA of 12. Through proper coaching of the low performers, you'll be able to raise the entire clinics PVA to a solid 10 and increase your monthly by revenues by $12,000. In a year, that's like $144,000. Here is the math:
[60 New Patients/month x $50/visit x Increase in PVA (10 - 6) = $12,000]
Aright, so I know what a PVA is, why it’s important, and that why my senior chiropractors and physiotherapists are so good at retaining clients. But how can I increase the PVA my low performing clinicians? Good question! Read this article on how to boost patient retention and start measuring patient satisfaction so you can get real patient feedback. Your low PVA clinicians will have low patient satisfaction scores so here is your proof.
Instead of wasting thousand of dollars on marketing, start working on your PVA. This is easy money and is your low hanging fruit. Keep in mind, PVAs are definitely one of the most helpful tools you’ll use - but keeping track of scores can become a huge hassle. My suggestion is to setup a excel spreadsheet or a google sheets and track monthly or weekly.
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