What Missed Calls Are Actually Costing Your Practice

Most practices don’t track missed calls closely.

They know it happens.

The team is busy.
Someone’s with a patient.
The phone rings… it goes to voicemail.

It doesn’t feel like a big deal. After all, your front office will give them a call back.

But let’s look at it differently.

A simple scenario

Let’s say your office gets 40 new patient calls a month.

That’s not unusual.

Now assume 20–30% of those calls go to voicemail during the day.

That’s also not unusual.

That means:

👉 8–12 potential patients didn’t get an answer

Now ask yourself…

How many of those people are leaving a message?

From what I’ve seen:

👉 maybe half

So now you’re down to:

👉 4–6 real opportunities that just disappeared

No message.
No follow-up.
No second chance.

They just called somewhere else.

Now let's put a number to it

Let’s be conservative.

Say one new patient is worth $1,200 in the first year.

(For many practices, it’s more.)

That means:

👉 $4,800 to $7,200 per month
👉 walking out the door… to never be heard from again.

That’s:

👉 $57,600 to $86,400 per year, at minimum.

From something most practices don’t even track.

And this is just new patient calls

This doesn’t include:

• existing patients trying to schedule

• treatment follow-ups

• high-value cases

Those numbers can be a lot higher.

Here’s what actually happens in real life

A patient finally decides to call.

They’ve been putting it off.

They’re ready.

The phone rings.

No answer.

It goes to voicemail.

They hang up.

And within 30 seconds…they’re calling another office.

That office answers. That’s where they go.

And here’s the part most dentists miss

You already paid for that call.

Whether it came from:

• Google or other search

• your website

• ads

• reviews

• referrals

There was effort or money behind it.

And when it goes to voicemail…you don’t just miss the call.

You fund your competitor’s next patient.

It’s hard to know this because

You don’t see:

• who didn’t leave a message

• who called somewhere else

• how much revenue was lost

But, you may just feel like:

“We should be a little busier than this.”

What I’d look at

One thing:

How many calls go to voicemail during business hours?

Not after hours. During the day.

Track that for a week.

The number will tell you more than you expect.

Most practices don’t need more calls. They need to stop losing the ones they already have.

Schedule a quiet conversation here.