If you’re anything like me, the words “key performance indicators” make your blood run cold. You can almost feel the stupor of the corporate world descending upon you — it’s often exactly the kind of thing people wanted to escape by becoming a healthcare practitioner. But look past the terminology for a moment, because these measurements can genuinely help your practice succeed.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are simply measurements of the things that matter most to you. And if you think about it, you’re already using them in your clinical work. Range of motion, visual analogue pain scales, health questionnaires — all of these give you data on which to make decisions about whether your treatment is working. Your practice is no different.

You Already Have KPIs

Whether you realise it or not, your practice has KPIs. They might be as basic as “do I have enough in the bank to pay staff this week?” or as detailed as statistics extracted from your practice management software. The question isn’t whether you have them — it’s whether you’re measuring the right things deliberately.

For example, you might decide to measure new patient numbers. That’s a good start. But new patients that cost a lot to acquire and stay for only one visit might mean you’re losing money per new patient. If you’re only watching the top line, you could miss a problem that eventually closes your practice.

Define What You Want to Track

Start by writing down what success looks like for your practice. These can be broad or specific:

  1. I want to help patients achieve the best health outcomes possible
  2. I want my practice to grow steadily year on year
  3. I want to reach a specific revenue target
  4. I want to receive a certain number of GP referrals per month

Then, for each goal, ask: how would I know if I was achieving this?

For goal one above — helping patients achieve great health — the indicators might include:

  • Cancellations and DNAs — high numbers often suggest patients aren’t being educated well enough about the importance of continuing care, or that the practice is attracting symptom-focused patients rather than health-focused ones
  • Patients who don’t rebook — again, high numbers suggest a symptom-first mindset rather than a wellness orientation
  • Patient Visit Average (PVA) — low numbers suggest patients are dropping out of care too early

From these three indicators you can assess how well you’re achieving your health promotion goals, without needing to track every individual patient in detail.

The Numbers You Should Know

At a minimum, every practice owner should be tracking:

  1. New patient numbers — your pipeline
  2. Total visit numbers — overall activity
  3. Patient Visit Average (PVA) — how long patients stay in care
  4. Average Visit Value — your revenue per appointment
  5. Total patient revenue — overall financial health
  6. Outstanding debit and credit balances — cash flow indicator
  7. Cancellations and DNAs — patient engagement indicator
  8. Patients who don’t follow up — retention indicator
  9. Marketing channel effectiveness, including:
    • Cost to acquire a new patient (overall and per channel)
    • PVA per channel
    • Average visit value and total revenue per channel

Breaking metrics down by new patient source is especially valuable. Referred patients often have a higher PVA and LTV (lifetime value) than patients acquired through advertising. Knowing this lets you make better decisions about where to invest your marketing spend.

Reviewing Your Data

Once you’ve defined what to track and set up a way to capture it (your practice management software should handle most of this), create a schedule for reviewing the data. Don’t review too frequently — short timeframes can produce misleading fluctuations that don’t represent real trends.

Larger practices with high patient volumes can review weekly. Smaller single or two-practitioner clinics will usually get more meaningful data from monthly reviews.

Track the numbers over time. If things are improving, do more of what’s working. If they’re getting worse, take action now — don’t wait to see if it corrects itself. Implement a change, then use your KPIs to measure whether it made a difference.

Measurement is the difference between running a practice reactively and running it with intention.