How do I check a dental practice’s unscheduled treatment and overdue recall backlog?

First, agree on what the lists mean. Unscheduled treatment is care a dentist has proposed that the patient has not booked. Overdue recall is a patient who has missed their regular check-up. Ask how each list is built, how often it is cleaned and who contacts the patients on it.

Then test the lists. Pick a handful of names and look at their files. Did the patient move, change dentists, decline treatment, or simply forget? Phone numbers and emails that no longer work will turn a large list into a small one. Ask how many reminders the staff sent and what response they got.

Look at the reasons. If many patients stopped after a certain dentist left or after a price change, that tells you something about the practice itself. Patients who declined for cost or fear are different from patients who never heard from the office. Treat the backlog as a lead list, not a promise. Your accountant can help you decide how much weight it carries in your plan. Ask also how the practice treats patients who owe a balance or have declined the same treatment more than once. These files can inflate a list without offering real prospects. Keep the findings separate from your wider plan until you have tested the list yourself.

Key takeaways

• Ask for both lists and how the practice builds them.
• Sample files to learn why patients lapsed and whether contacts still work.
• Treat the backlog as a lead list, never a guarantee.