10 Proven Ways to Attract and Retain More Dental Patients
- Scheduling
- 10/20/2025
- BY Leah Crites
Running a busy dental practice is no small feat.
Between keeping schedules full, patients happy, and your team on track, it can feel like there’s never enough time in the day, let alone time to think about growth.
But increasing patient volume doesn’t have to mean working harder or spending more. With the right systems and a few smart tweaks, you can fill your schedule, strengthen your connection with patients, and create a smoother experience overall.
Here are ten proven strategies to help you increase patient volume without adding stress to your team.
1. Make it easy to book an appointment
Did you know that 80% of your revenue comes directly from your existing patients?
When you make it easy for your patients to book an appointment, you’re protecting against revenue lost due to a non-intuitive (or non-existent) online appointment booking system. Additionally, you create a better user experience for the patient, giving them the flexibility to book 24/7, even outside of office hours.
Ensure your online booking is easy to find on your website and works on both desktop and mobile platforms. The experience should work equally well for both new and existing patients and, ideally, save your team time as well.
Some office managers are reluctant to allow patients to book their own appointments online, fearing it could create mayhem with the schedule. However, the right system will empower you to be in full control of what’s available and how appointments are booked and confirmed. Your online scheduler should allow you to customize appointment types, providers, and availability to fit your practice’s needs.
2. Send a friendly welcome email with an intake form
Pair those new bookings with a friendly and informative welcome email that includes an intake form to save your patients time when they arrive at the practice.
Ideally, your welcome email reflects the culture and personality of your dental practice, allowing you to build a strong relationship with your patient from that earliest point of contact.
3. Set up a Google Business Profile
Do you know what happens when someone Googles your business? Do they see your competition? Do they find a slew of review websites that have outdated information about your practice? Obviously, neither of those results is ideal.
A free Google Business Profile can do a lot of heavy lifting for you when it comes to driving patients directly to key information about your practice, including your phone number, location, hours, reviews, and website.
This is a free service from Google that allows you to appear prominently when people search for your business on Google or in Google Maps.
4. Custom Recall Reminders to Increase Patient Volume
Not all recall reminders are created equal. A customized, scheduled patient appointment reminder reaches your customers exactly as they’d like to be reached: via text message, email, or a phone call.
We’ve found that 82% of dentists’ revenue comes from their recall system. If your reminders aren’t working, or if you don’t have an automated system in place, you might be losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue annually.
5. Build meaningful relationships with patients
Once you’ve acquired a new patient, one of the most important things you can do to retain them and convince them to tell their friends about you is to build a meaningful relationship.
What this relationship looks like will be unique to your practice, your staff, and your personality, but overall, it should be authentic, warm, welcoming, and professional.
Build your relationship with both tangible and intangible actions. For example:
- Welcome your new patient by name and with a smile, and build rapport with them as you build their medical history.
- Do your very best to be on time and don’t overlook the impact of being even a few minutes late.
- Offer extra comforts during their appointment, like the option to watch streaming TV with noise-cancelling headphones during their procedure.
- Consider sending a gift, especially following costly procedures that typically leave a patient feeling discomfort for a few days afterward. A thoughtfully timed pint of locally churned ice cream or a bright bouquet of flowers can go a long way toward a patient mentioning you to everyone they see for the next two weeks.
6. Establish yourself as an expert
While your patients assume you know what you’re doing when it comes to dentistry, establishing yourself as an expert in niche areas can increase their confidence in your work, plus attract new patients.
Consider filming brief videos for your website on dentistry trends, emerging science, and other topics, particularly those you think your ideal patient might be searching for online.
For example, if you’re an expert in family dentistry, you might choose to speak about things a mom or dad may be Googling, like:
- The right timing for orthodontics
- Hacks for teaching kids to brush and floss effectively
- The best healthy, kid-friendly snacks for supporting strong teeth
- The science of fluoride
Done right, these videos reach beyond your current patients to attract new people on the search for a great dentist.
That’s because Google highly values websites that showcase expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. If it determines you’ve got this, you’re more likely to rank highly in Google search results, which means more people can find you more easily.
7. Read and respond to all online reviews
Your online reputation is essential to whether people who come across your practice decide to book an appointment. In fact, 90% of consumers say they’ll choose a product or service based on positive reviews alone.
But don’t just allow the reviews to live out there on the internet. Consumers say they consider businesses that respond to reviews to be 1.7x more trustworthy than those that don’t.
Ensure you’re aware of all online reviews about your business and respond to them promptly. Google reviews are a great place to start since they’re likely to show up prominently when someone searches for your business.
Reply to both positive and negative reviews so that people reading them know that you value feedback. Keep your response HIPAA compliant by following these best practices:
- Never confirm the reviewer is a patient or discuss any aspect of their treatment.
- Thank the individual for taking the time to share their feedback.
- Focus on office policies and avoid specifics that might be tied to their experience.
- Keep it brief and positive.
- If there is a complaint, try to take the conversation offline by offering a way to contact you directly, via phone or email.
8. Invest in email marketing
Effective marketing brings new clients into your chair, but diving into the world of marketing can be overwhelming.
One of the highest-impact marketing efforts is email marketing. Great email marketing can produce a return on investment of up to $44 for every dollar you spend.
If you’re not already using email marketing, now is the perfect time to talk to your marketing team about integrating it into your strategy. As soon as possible, ensure you’re collecting email addresses (and permission) from all of your current patients.
9. Highlight your unique services
Don’t take for granted that all your patients know about your investment in top technology, your expertise, or your specialty services.
Beyond your excellence in standard dentistry offerings, be sure to make clear on your website and in conversations with patients anything you do that sets you apart from your competition. They may need a specialty service in the future, and you want to be their first thought.
10. Implement an exceptional recall system
Ultimately, the most effective and quickest way to increase patient volume in your dental practice is to use MaxAssist.
MaxAssist isn’t just appointment reminders and automated messaging (though we do that very well).
How we’re different: MaxAssist captures all of the patients who aren’t responding to automated messaging, which is a staggering ~90% of the scheduling opportunities currently sitting in your practice management software.
Beyond that, MaxAssist also has an online booking system with integrated patient forms, a reputation management engine, timely cancellation recovery, patient surveys, welcome emails, call scripts, and more. It’s all designed to help you grow a more efficient and profitable dental practice.
Make it happen in your practice
We’ve seen firsthand that practices that introduce MaxAssist typically see a 15-20% increase in revenue – in the first year alone.
If you’re ready to start capitalizing on the full potential of your practice, book a demo today.
