A simple addition to a stat you’re almost certainly already tracking. In my experience, most practices know how many new patients are coming into the practice each month. If you’re not doing that, start now, it’s so simple in your software. You can literally run a report, and you should be tracking that at least every month to get an idea of the trend.
Is the trend going up?
Is it going down?
What’s driving it?
But there’s a little extra thing that I’d like you to do on your new patient form: ask the question, “Who do we thank for referring you to us?” Some people say, “How did you hear about us?” whatever you like, I prefer the referral one. But that’s the first part.
Here’s the second part. Add a “tick all that apply” option. Maybe a decade ago you could have said marketing was kind of single-channel, like a one-size-fits-all approach. But the reality in 2025 is that this is absolutely not the case. The reason a new patient comes to you today is often the result of multiple marketing efforts. It might be word of mouth, it might be signage, it might be Google, SEO, or it might be social media. So, say “Who do we thank for referring you to us?” and then provide checkboxes so that they can select multiple options. The second part of that is, once you’re capturing that data, you need to aggregate it and analyse it. This will identify areas that are working well and maybe lots of people are saying they found you on Google and areas where you’re spending on marketing that aren’t generating any interest. If that’s the case, it might be a good chance to refine your strategy.