Consult to start rate
Consult to start rate is the share of shown consultations that become started cases.
This is the single highest leverage number in full arch, and it belongs entirely to the practice rather than the agency. A swing from roughly 15 percent to 35 or 40 percent changes cost per seated arch by about 2.5 times with zero change to the media.
It is also the number most often quoted without a denominator. 40 percent on ten consultations and 40 percent on two hundred are different businesses, and both get written the same way by everybody else in this category.
The formula
Divide the number of cases that reached Started, meaning signed and deposited or financing funded, by the number of consultations the patient attended.
consult to start rate = cases started / consultations showed
What is included and what is excluded
Counts
- Attended consultations as the denominator
- Cases that signed and paid a deposit
- Cases where financing was approved and funded
Does not count
- No shows, which never reached a consultation
- Treatment planned cases with no money committed
- Cases counted per arch rather than per patient, which is a different ratio
A worked example
A practice trains its coordinator to lead with financing and compares two quarters.
- 01Consultations shown per month: 12.75
- 02Before, at 15 percent: 12.75 x 0.15 = 1.91 cases
- 03After, at 38 percent: 12.75 x 0.38 = 4.85 cases
- 04On $15,000 of spend: $15,000 / 1.91 = $7,843 per case
- 05On the same spend: $15,000 / 4.85 = $3,096 per case
Cost per case falls by roughly 2.5 times with no change at all to the media.
How this differs from
- Presented
Presented is the plan and fee. This rate measures what happened after it.
- Started
Started is the numerator of this rate.
- Treatment coordinator
The coordinator is the role this rate is mostly measuring.
These definitions come from our published measurement standard. Read The Arch Standard for the reporting rules they sit inside, or see every term.
Want this measured in your practice? A consult walks through how we track it, if that is useful.
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