Glossary

A

Appointment confirmation: Contacting the patient before the visit to make sure they will attend at the booked time. Done by phone or message, it helps cut no-shows and empty slots in the diary.
Average transaction value: The average amount a clinic collects per paid visit or per paying patient over a period. It is revenue divided by the number of payments, and it shows how fully patients go ahead with the treatment they were recommended.

C

Call recording: Call recording means automatically saving phone conversations between the front desk and patients. It shows how receptionists really answer, where bookings are lost and which questions come up most.
Call tracking: Call tracking shows which advertising channel a phone call to the clinic came from. Each source gets its own number, and calls are automatically attributed to the right channel.
Call-back: A call the clinic makes to a patient after a missed call, a website enquiry, or when the patient asked to be contacted later. The result depends on how quickly and how well prepared the front desk is when it calls.
Cancellations and rescheduling: When a patient cancels a visit in advance or asks to move it to another time. Unlike a no-show, the clinic finds out before the appointment and can still fill the freed-up slot.
Chair utilisation: The share of a chair's or treatment room's working time taken up by paid appointments. It is the hours actually occupied divided by the hours available over a period, and it shows how much of the clinic's capacity sits idle.
Clinic sales funnel: The patient’s path from first enquiry to paying for treatment, split into stages: enquiry, booking, visit, consultation, treatment plan, payment. Some people drop out at every stage.
Conversion rate: The share of enquiries that reach the next step: a booking, a visit or payment for treatment. In a clinic it is measured stage by stage, so you can see exactly where patients drop off.
CRM: A CRM is the system where a clinic keeps every enquiry and patient record: where the person came from, what they were told, which stage they are at and what the next step is.

D

Declined treatment: When a patient, after the consultation and treatment plan, does not go ahead with treatment at the clinic, either by saying no or by going silent. Reception needs to tell a final no apart from a postponed decision.

E

Enquiry: Any contact a prospective patient starts with the clinic: a call, a message on social media or a messenger app, a website form, a walk-in. It is the first stage of the funnel and the base for calculating conversion.

F

First response time: The time between a patient getting in touch — by call, message or website form — and the clinic's first meaningful reply. One of the key measures of how well a front desk performs.
Front-desk administrator: The clinic employee who handles calls and messages, books patients, confirms appointments and greets people on arrival. Whether someone who got in touch actually reaches the doctor depends largely on this role.
Front-desk audit: A diagnostic review of a clinic’s front desk: a month of calls and chats, the enquiry → booking → visit → payment funnel and a review of each administrator. The result is a report with a plan of fixes.
Front-desk KPIs: The set of measurable indicators used to assess a clinic’s front-desk administrator: the share of enquiries that become bookings, speed of first reply, callbacks on missed calls and the attendance rate of booked patients.
Front-desk operating procedures: A document setting out how a clinic’s front desk works: response times for enquiries, how to book, confirm and call back, and how to handle cancellations and the CRM. It makes the way patients are treated independent of any one person.
Front-desk script: A written guide to the conversation between a clinic’s front desk and a patient: how to greet them, find out what they need, offer a specific appointment time and answer common questions until the enquiry becomes a booking.

I

Initial consultation: A new patient's first visit to the doctor: examination, diagnostics and a discussion of the treatment plan. For the clinic, it is where an enquiry turns into a patient with a concrete offer.

L

Lead: A prospective patient’s contact that the clinic receives from advertising, the website, social media or a referral: a name and number, a form, a message. A lead is not yet a patient, just an opportunity to handle.

M

Medical tourism: Medical tourism is when patients travel to another city or country for treatment such as dentistry, aesthetic medicine or plastic surgery. For a clinic, it is a separate patient flow with its own sales cycle.
Missed call: An incoming call to the clinic that nobody answered: the line was busy, the receptionist was away or the call came outside opening hours. If nobody calls back, it is a lost enquiry.
Mystery patient: A way of testing a clinic in which a briefed person calls or messages as an ordinary patient to assess reply speed, the quality of the conversation and whether the front desk turns the enquiry into a booking.

N

New patient: A person coming to the clinic for the first time for a consultation or treatment. New patients show how well advertising and the front desk work, and future clinician workload depends on them.
No-show: When a patient has a booked appointment but neither turns up nor lets the clinic know. For the clinic it means wasted clinician time and an empty chair, and often a lost patient as well.
NPS: NPS (Net Promoter Score) measures how willing patients are to recommend the clinic. Patients answer one question about how likely they are to recommend it to friends or family, and the answers give a balance of promoters against detractors.

O

Online booking: Online booking lets patients choose a service, a doctor and a free slot on the website or in a messaging app without phoning reception. The booking goes straight into the clinic's schedule.

P

Patient acquisition cost: How much a clinic spends on marketing to gain one new patient who actually attends and pays. It is total acquisition spend for a period divided by the number of new paying patients in the same period.
Patient follow-up: A planned call or message to a patient after a consultation or first enquiry, while the decision is still open. The aim is to bring the conversation back to the next step, not just to check in.
Patient LTV: LTV (lifetime value) is all the revenue a patient brings the clinic over the whole relationship: the first treatment, return visits, routine check-ups. It shows what keeping a patient is really worth.
Patient objection: The reason a patient gives for not booking or not starting treatment: 'it's expensive', 'I need to think', 'I'll talk to my husband', 'it's cheaper elsewhere'. There is often a different, unspoken question behind the words.

R

Returning patient: A patient who has been to the clinic before and comes back: to continue treatment, for a check-up, a hygiene visit or a new service. Repeat visits need no ad spend and have a direct effect on LTV.
ROMI: ROMI (return on marketing investment) measures how far the income from patients brought in by marketing exceeds what that marketing cost. It shows which channels are worth growing and which should be cut back.

T

Treatment plan: The document in which the doctor sets out the stages, timing and cost of treatment after a consultation. For the clinic, it is the offer the patient has to accept and pay for.

U

UTM tags: UTM tags are parameters added to the end of a link that tell your analytics where a visitor came from: which advert, social network or newsletter. They show which channel brings in enquiries.

W

Waiting list: A list of patients who want to be seen sooner than the next free appointment. When someone cancels or reschedules, the freed time is offered to them so the slot isn't wasted.

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