Far too often, providers and practice managers only look at new patient acquisitions as the barometer for growth. Although attracting new patients is a vital component for increasing your revenue, it would be impossible to sustain your desired growth if you also keep losing existing patients.

A study suggests that losing a patient to another provider could cost you upwards of $200,000 over your practice’s lifetime. That’s why improving your patient retention rate is a vital component of your success.

Employing effective patient retention strategies should go hand-in-hand with your acquisition efforts. Emphasizing one over the other diminishes your gains on either end, resulting in stunted business growth.

A Mutually Beneficial Endeavor

Increasing patient retention isn’t purely just a business strategy. It also has a positive impact on quality of care.

According to a BMJ Open study, continuity of care leads to lower mortality rates. Meaning, patients who stay with one doctor benefit from the consistency of having the same care team that looks after their healthcare needs. As a result, they are more likely to experience better care outcomes compared to those who change providers every so often.

Meanwhile, from a business perspective, improved patient retention rates translate to more return visits, referrals and recommendations, and life-long clients. Akin to hitting two birds with one stone, increasing your patient retention rate benefits both your practice and patients.

How to Keep Patients Satisfied

Effective patient retention ideas don’t have to be complicated. At the core, winning a patient’s loyalty often only boils down to providing a positive patient experience. In other words, if you want to increase your retention rate, you need to ensure that every patient walks out of your door satisfied.

Every stage of the patient journey, from appointment booking to the payment counter, is an opportunity to leave a positive impression on your patients. Here are ten steps you can take to keep your patients satisfied and make them loyal clients for a long time:

1. Send Appointment Reminders

Like you, your patients also have a lot on their plates. They have to juggle their time between work, family, and friends. So it’s not unlikely that they’d forget about their appointments.

Take it upon yourself to remind them of their scheduled visit a couple of times before their appointment. Doing so will help reduce no-show rates. Sending holiday and birthday greetings can also boost patient satisfaction. It sends the right signal to your patients that you care about them enough to remember important days in their lives.

It’s also equally important to consider their preferred messaging platform. Whether through text, email, or voicemail, sending patient reminders to their preferred channels will ensure that they receive and read your message.

Utilizing an automated appointment reminder system integrated with your practice management software allows you to preemptively set the time, date, and medium through which these messages go out, making the entire process a breeze.

2. Provide Straightforward Patient Statements

The way your patient statement looks may seem inconsequential to the overall patient experience, but it can actually affect patient satisfaction and your cash flow. It’s essential to make your statements and invoices as straightforward as possible to avoid confusion.

That means the design and information layout needs to make sense at first glance. Easily understandable statements help you get paid faster and in the right amount, reducing late or default payments.

You can also incorporate branding elements like practice logos and colors into your statements to make it more unique and visually pleasing while increasing brand awareness.

3. Get Patient Feedback

There’s no better way to gauge your patients’ level of satisfaction than getting their feedback. There are plenty of ways to effectively get honest feedback from your patients.

Perhaps the easiest and most cost-effective way is putting a dropbox in your clinic where patients can add their assessment of your services and facilities. This will also help avoid putting your patients in an awkward situation and ensure that the feedback you’re getting is honest.

Another efficient way of getting patient feedback is through email. Because patients can respond to your email survey at their convenience, you can still get feedback from those who don’t have the time to stick around after their consultation.

Email surveys aren’t too hard to accomplish either, especially since email information is one of the details you are probably already collecting. You can easily incorporate this into your patient engagement strategy.

4. Diversify Payment Options

Patients have varied payment preferences. Some prefer cash, while others prefer cards. Giving your patients as many convenient options as they need will not only ensure patient satisfaction, but it will also help you get paid faster and in the right amount.

Medical billing systems like billrMD allow you to process cash, credit card, debit card, ACH, and insurance payments from one platform. No need for separate systems for every payment method—just one well-rounded solution for all your billing needs.

billrMD is a cloud-based medical billing and practice management solution designed for all types of practices regardless of size and specialty. On top of its comprehensive set of tools and features, billrMD is HIPAA-compliant so you can be sure that your and your patients’ data are safe and secure.

5. Be Upfront With Costs

Along with providing convenient payment options, you should also be upfront with your patients about the potential costs of their visit and any corresponding treatment, medical equipment, or medication. This will help you build trust with your patients and avoid any surprise bills down the line.

Surprise medical bills are one of the most common reasons why patients lose trust in their provider, and it only takes one unexpected bill to erode that trust completely. So it’s vital to always break down the costs to patients in a manner that they can understand.

Contrary to popular belief, patient satisfaction doesn’t just revolve around quality of care alone. Although it is still a crucial part of what makes a patient stay with a provider, banking on it alone is no longer enough.

Increasing patient retention is a multi-faceted effort that involves every stage of the patient journey. It may seem like a grueling task, but the returns it offers your practice are immense. Satisfied patients not only provide you with a consistent revenue stream, but they are also likely to refer you to their friends and family, helping you grow your patient base further.