What "reactivation" means, and how to count it honestly
“We reactivated 40 patients last quarter” is not a fact until you know what the speaker counts as a reactivated patient.
This is not pedantry. The same campaign, measured two ways, can honestly produce a number that differs by a factor of three. If you are paying against that number, or holding a guarantee against it, you need the definitions nailed down in advance.
The four definitions in circulation
Contacted. Someone sent the patient something. The weakest version, and the one that produces the biggest numbers.
Responded. The patient replied, scanned a code, or called back. Better, but a reply is not revenue.
Booked. An appointment exists on the schedule. This is the one most practices mean.
Seen. The patient turned up and was treated. The strictest, and the only one that definitely produced production.
A vendor reporting “contacted” and a vendor reporting “seen” are describing different universes. Neither is lying.
Which one to use
Booked, with an honest treatment of what happens next.
“Seen” sounds more rigorous, and it is, but it makes the vendor responsible for your cancellation rate, your reminder process and whether your front desk confirms appointments. Those are your systems. A vendor who is accountable for them will either price for the risk or start pressuring your team.
“Booked” puts the vendor on the hook for the part they control: getting a lapsed patient to commit to a date. Then you can track your own kept-appointment rate separately, which is a useful number in its own right and one you can actually act on.
Our guarantee uses booked for exactly this reason, and defines it on the terms page as an appointment created on the practice’s schedule.
The other definition that matters
What makes a patient “lapsed” in the first place?
Twelve months with no visit is the common line and a sensible one. But watch for three variations that quietly inflate results:
- Counting from last contact rather than last visit. A patient you emailed in March is not an active patient.
- Counting patients who were already booked. Someone with a scheduled appointment is not lapsed, and reaching out to them is not reactivation.
- Counting the same patient twice across quarters. A patient who comes back in Q1 and returns for hygiene in Q3 was reactivated once.
Agree all three in writing. They are not controversial, and a vendor who resists is telling you something.
How to audit it yourself
You do not need a reporting tool. You need a list.
Ask your vendor for the patients they are claiming, by name, at the end of the period. Then check three things in your own software:
- Was the last visit date genuinely more than twelve months before the campaign started?
- Is there an appointment on the schedule that was created after the campaign went out?
- Was that patient already booked before the campaign?
Twenty minutes with a list tells you more than any dashboard. Do it in the first quarter and you will probably never need to do it again, because the vendor will know you check.
Why this is worth the trouble
Recall is the cheapest growth available to most practices, which is why so many vendors sell it and why the measurement is so inconsistent.
The scale is real. The ADA’s Health Policy Institute found that in 2022, 40% of working-age adults had a dental visit in the past year, against 52% of children. A meaningful share of the people who did not go are already in your software.
Getting the definitions right is what turns that from a sales pitch into something you can manage. The four numbers worth watching weekly all depend on it.
If you want your own starting count, the free report asks for the two figures that matter and nothing about individual patients.