The ten numbers, one line each
- Calls answered and missed, by hour. The leak every practice has and few measure.
- Bookings by source: phone, web, DM, text, walk-in, referral. Where the calendar comes from.
- No-shows and late cancellations, as a count and against the deposit policy.
- New versus returning patients this week.
- Reactivated patients: anyone past their interval who booked after a comeback message.
- Revenue by provider and by treatment, this week against the same week last month.
- Open chairs this week: the hours on the calendar with nobody in them, by provider.
- Reviews this month, the rating, and the ones still unanswered.
- Lead response time: minutes from a new inquiry to the first reply, by channel.
- Membership count, with joins and cancellations this month.
Six of the ten: where each lives and what a bad week looks like
| The number | Where it comes from | A bad week looks like | The first question to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calls missed | The phone system's call log | Misses stacked at lunch and after five | Who was at the desk, and what rang through? |
| Bookings by source | The booking system, with a source field filled on every booking | One source carrying the week and the rest flat | Which channel went quiet, and did anyone reply there? |
| No-shows | The calendar, marked by the front desk the same day | A cluster on one provider or one treatment | Were deposits taken, and were reminders sent? |
| Reactivated patients | The record system's last-visit date against the comeback log | Zero, or only the patients who would have come anyway | Did the comeback messages go out on time this week? |
| Revenue by provider | The point of sale, by provider and treatment | One provider down with the calendar full | Is it the mix, the price or the chair time? |
| Lead response time | The inbox, the DM log and the text log, timestamped | Hours, with the slowest at night and on weekends | Who owns the first reply after hours? |
Build it from exports before you buy anything
- Export the call log, the bookings, the point of sale and the patient list for the last four weeks. Every system you run has an export button.
- Put one week per row in a spreadsheet, one column per number above. Fill in four weeks by hand. This takes a morning and tells you which numbers you do not have yet.
- Add the source field to the booking process today: the front desk asks every patient how they found you and writes it in.
- Write, next to each number, what a bad week looks like for your practice, in your own figures.
- Fill the row every Monday for a month. If the sheet earns its five minutes, automate it; if it does not, no software was going to help.
Five minutes every morning, one question
Five minutes, coffee in hand, before the first patient. Read the page top to bottom. Find the one number outside its normal range. Ask the first question in the table for that number, to the person who owns it, before the day starts. Then close the page. The dashboard does not run the practice; it tells you which one conversation to have today. An owner who finds that conversation every morning for 90 days is running a different practice by the end of it.
What the dashboard should never become
- A monthly report from the agency. By then the week is gone.
- Twenty charts. Ten numbers, one page, read in five minutes.
- A tool the front desk feeds by hand forever. Build it from exports first, then automate what proved useful.
- A substitute for walking the floor. It tells you where to walk.
How to do this on Monday
- Pull the four exports and fill one row for last week.
- Decide the bad-week line for each number, in your own figures.
- Add the source question at the desk.
- Read the row Tuesday morning and ask one question.
What to do next
NorthCore's Know your numbers solution connects the phone, booking, record and review systems, puts the ten numbers on one page that updates itself, and flags the one outside its range. Scoped in writing and covered by the promise on this site: results in 90 days, or we keep working until you have them.
