Patient Churn Rate

Patient Churn Rate

What This Metric Shows

The Patient Churn Rate measures patient attrition — the effectiveness of your practice in retaining its patient base over time.

If your churn rate is increasing, it suggests that fewer patients are completing their care plans or returning for ongoing visits.

Why This KPI Matters

Patient churn is one of the most revealing indicators of practice health.

While new patient acquisition drives short-term growth, patient retention drives long-term profitability.

A low churn rate indicates consistent engagement, strong adherence to care plans, and effective patient education.

A high churn rate, however, highlights areas where patients may be disengaging — whether from scheduling gaps, inconsistent follow-ups, or unclear communication about the importance of ongoing care.

By tracking this metric regularly, practice owners can identify retention issues early, prevent revenue loss, and strengthen long-term patient relationships.

How to Use This Data

1. Identify Retention Weaknesses

Compare churn across time periods to see if there are spikes following specific events (e.g., seasonal drops, provider changes, or office transitions).
Look for patterns where patients stop returning after a certain number of visits or care plan milestones.

2. Improve Communication and Education

Ensure that patients understand the value of completing their care plan and the role of maintenance care in preventing relapse.
Use automated reminders, newsletters, and progress reports to keep engagement high.

3. Reactivate Lapsed Patients

Run monthly reports on inactive patients and use targeted reactivation campaigns to bring them back.
Personalized outreach — especially from the provider — often achieves the best results.

4. Align with Front Desk and Scheduling Goals

Empower your front desk team to track and follow up on missed appointments quickly.
The sooner patients are re-engaged, the less likely they are to churn permanently.

Best Practice Benchmarks

Top-performing chiropractic practices maintain a churn rate between 5% and 15% per month, depending on patient volume, visit frequency, and care model.

A rate below 10% indicates excellent patient retention, often achieved through structured care plans, automated follow-up systems, and proactive communication about long-term wellness.

Rates above 20% warrant immediate review of reactivation processes, follow-up timing, and patient education strategies.

Practices that combine automated tools with personalized engagement maintain healthier churn rates and achieve stronger lifetime patient value and more stable revenue over time.

Benefits to the Practice

  • Measures patient retention and engagement health

  • Identifies when and where patients are dropping off care

  • Supports proactive reactivation and outreach planning

  • Helps forecast patient base stability and growth trends

  • Links retention directly to revenue performance


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