
“If you can’t measure it, then don’t tell me about it.”
That’s one of the favorite sayings by Dr. Charles Ward, who ran the largest and most successful chiropractic practice in the world at one point, and now shares his significant wisdom and resources so other DCs can thrive, too.
If you've ever attended one of Dr. Ward’s practice building sessions, enjoyed his coaching, or just had a conversation, you’ll know that he’s passionate about helping DCs grow their practices, and tracking worthwhile numbers is always a good start.
By tracking, documenting, and analyzing these important numbers that encompass office visits, new patients, overhead, collections, insurance payments, etc., you can not only measure the true health and profitability of your practice butset a baseline for growth.
Tracking these numbers are at the core of any practice’s self-evaluation!
Common statistics to track include:
Number of office visits, New Patients, Collections, and Services over a certain time period.
Office visits:
How many patients walk through your practice front door.
New Patients:
Of all your patients this week, month, and year, how many of them are new to your practice and services?
Collections:
How much money are you bringing into the practice, whether payment comes as cash, checks, credit card payments, or from insurance companies and third-party or private sources?
Services:
How much do you charge for each of your chiropractic services?
(Note: These numbers allow you to calculate important metrics like collections/visit and services/visit.)
Ratios and formulas to compute:
Cost per patient visit:
It’s also crucial to dig deeper with the Cost Per Visit, which comes from your overhead divided by the number of patient visits. With this, you’ll have the real cost to serve a single patient in your office, each time they visit.
Case Average:
The statistic calculates something interesting and useful – the value of every new patient that comes to your practice over the course of their lifetime. We can figure it out by taking the amount you collect and then dividing it by the number of new patients.
Overhead Percentage:
If we simply divide our sum for monthly overhead by our monthly collections, we find the percentage of gross income that your practice is operating at. Of course, we can also measure Overhead Percentage on a weekly, quarterly, or yearly basis.
This is also a great statistic to track if you do something to that reduces your office expenses or overhead and want to see how it affects your bottom line.
Cost per Visit:
If we take our Total Practice Overhead and divide it by the Total Number of Office Visits, we obtain the Cost Per Visit every time a patient walks through the front door. If you’re giving away sessions, offering discounts or running promotions, this will help you see the true financial impact.
Stick Rate:
Stick Rate is a measurement of how long your patients stay with you, and what proportion stay under your care long enough to reach certain parameters. For instance, you can measure the Stick Rate of how many patients make it to 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days with treatment and visitations, or even extend out to three years or a whole decade.
You can also measure the Stick Rate for the percentage of patients who make it to their first PE, or come in for an annual re-exam.
PVA:
Of course, every chiropractor knows this statistics very well, as PVA is the important Patient Visit Average. By taking the total number of office visits (for a defined period, like one year) and dividing that by the number of new patients who started care during that same period, you can essentially track how many of your patients are new.
Why is PVA so important? It gives you an understanding of the influx of new patients to your office every week, month, year, etc. – which is a clear indicator of a vital and healthy practice that's always growing.
That’s one of the favorite sayings by Dr. Charles Ward, who ran the largest and most successful chiropractic practice in the world at one point, and now shares his significant wisdom and resources so other DCs can thrive, too.
If you've ever attended one of Dr. Ward’s practice building sessions, enjoyed his coaching, or just had a conversation, you’ll know that he’s passionate about helping DCs grow their practices, and tracking worthwhile numbers is always a good start.
By tracking, documenting, and analyzing these important numbers that encompass office visits, new patients, overhead, collections, insurance payments, etc., you can not only measure the true health and profitability of your practice butset a baseline for growth.
Tracking these numbers are at the core of any practice’s self-evaluation!
Common statistics to track include:
Number of office visits, New Patients, Collections, and Services over a certain time period.
Office visits:
How many patients walk through your practice front door.
New Patients:
Of all your patients this week, month, and year, how many of them are new to your practice and services?
Collections:
How much money are you bringing into the practice, whether payment comes as cash, checks, credit card payments, or from insurance companies and third-party or private sources?
Services:
How much do you charge for each of your chiropractic services?
(Note: These numbers allow you to calculate important metrics like collections/visit and services/visit.)
Ratios and formulas to compute:
Cost per patient visit:
It’s also crucial to dig deeper with the Cost Per Visit, which comes from your overhead divided by the number of patient visits. With this, you’ll have the real cost to serve a single patient in your office, each time they visit.
Case Average:
The statistic calculates something interesting and useful – the value of every new patient that comes to your practice over the course of their lifetime. We can figure it out by taking the amount you collect and then dividing it by the number of new patients.
Overhead Percentage:
If we simply divide our sum for monthly overhead by our monthly collections, we find the percentage of gross income that your practice is operating at. Of course, we can also measure Overhead Percentage on a weekly, quarterly, or yearly basis.
This is also a great statistic to track if you do something to that reduces your office expenses or overhead and want to see how it affects your bottom line.
Cost per Visit:
If we take our Total Practice Overhead and divide it by the Total Number of Office Visits, we obtain the Cost Per Visit every time a patient walks through the front door. If you’re giving away sessions, offering discounts or running promotions, this will help you see the true financial impact.
Stick Rate:
Stick Rate is a measurement of how long your patients stay with you, and what proportion stay under your care long enough to reach certain parameters. For instance, you can measure the Stick Rate of how many patients make it to 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days with treatment and visitations, or even extend out to three years or a whole decade.
You can also measure the Stick Rate for the percentage of patients who make it to their first PE, or come in for an annual re-exam.
PVA:
Of course, every chiropractor knows this statistics very well, as PVA is the important Patient Visit Average. By taking the total number of office visits (for a defined period, like one year) and dividing that by the number of new patients who started care during that same period, you can essentially track how many of your patients are new.
Why is PVA so important? It gives you an understanding of the influx of new patients to your office every week, month, year, etc. – which is a clear indicator of a vital and healthy practice that's always growing.