Raleigh Dental Office Managers

The average practice loses $40,000 a year to patients who simply don't come back.

It's not because the care was bad. It's because the connection breaks the moment patients leave the chair. We call this the care gap, and it's costing your practice more than you think.

17–25% Average annual patient attrition rate

~50% Actual treatment acceptance rate (practices estimate 90%)

$12–15K Lifetime value of every patient who walks away

01 / The Attrition Gap

Patients don't leave because care was bad. They leave because they forgot why they should stay.

Nearly 1 in 5 patients disappears from your practice every year. Not because they had a bad experience, but because the connection breaks after checkout. The follow-up is a robocall or a postcard. What was discussed in the chair fades within hours.

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A practice with 1,500 patients and a 20% attrition rate loses ~300 patients annually. That's 25+ new patients every month just to stay flat, before any growth.

Acquiring a new patient costs $150–$300 in marketing and staff time. Retaining an existing one costs a fraction of that. Yet most practices spend disproportionately on acquisition while patients quietly leak out the back door.

02 / The Acceptance Gap

Two-thirds of practices have acceptance rates between 20% and 50%. The industry target is 90%.

When you ask dentists to estimate their case acceptance, the typical answer is "about 90%." But after tracking thousands of practices, the actual rate for treatments over $1,500 is often 30 points below that estimate.

Patients don't say no to treatment. They say "let me think about it" and never schedule.

The number one reason patients decline treatment isn't fear or cost. It's that they don't understand what they were told. Clinical jargon without explanation. Treatment plans without context. Recommendations that feel rushed.

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New patients accept treatment only 25–35% of the time. The gap between what's recommended and what's scheduled represents the largest untapped revenue opportunity in most practices.

03 / The Hygienist Gap

The person patients trust most spends a third of every appointment on paperwork.

Hygienists are the real relationship in a dental practice. They see patients more often, spend more time with them, and are the ones patients actually trust. Yet they're buried in documentation: charting, coding, SOAP notes, medical history updates, often without an assistant.

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A comprehensive perio chart takes 5 to 8 minutes in a 60-minute appointment where charting, instrumentation, and patient education share a 20-minute window. When time runs short, charting is the first thing that gets skipped.

This isn't just a satisfaction problem. Under-charting leads to under-diagnosis, which creates liability exposure and missed revenue. Meanwhile, 44% of dental professionals report burnout symptoms, with administrative burden growing every year.

Patients don't remember what was charted. They remember how they felt when they left.

These three gaps share a root cause.

The systems dental teams rely on weren't designed to support the relationship between hygienist and patient. They were designed for billing, charting, and compliance. The care gap is what happens in between: care ends at the chair, but the patient relationship doesn't.

What if care didn't end at checkout? What if patients left every visit with clarity, confidence, and a reason to come back?

The average practice loses $40,000 a year to patients who simply don't come back.

Patients don't leave because care was bad. They leave because they forgot why they should stay.

Two-thirds of practices have acceptance rates between 20% and 50%. The industry target is 90%.

The person patients trust most spends a third of every appointment on paperwork.

These three gaps share a root cause.

Help us understand your care gap.

Thank you!