Production per visit

Production per visit is total production for a period divided by the number of patient visits in that period, and it is the single figure that turns a schedule into a forecast. Know it and you can answer a practical question in seconds: at $1,150 average production per visit, how many appointments does the schedule need this week to hit a target, or to clear the break-even number the practice runs on.

It is also a diagnostic. A production-per-visit number that has drifted down over a year usually means one of a few things: more hygiene-only visits relative to restorative ones, softer case acceptance leaving treatment unscheduled, or a fee schedule increasingly dominated by low-paying plans. None of those show up clearly in a raw production total, but all three move this average.

Calculate it separately for hygiene visits and doctor visits, since blending them hides which side of the schedule is driving the number. A practice trying to grow production without adding chair hours usually has more room in raising production per visit (through case acceptance, treatment planning thoroughness, and same-day dentistry) than in simply booking more appointments into an already full day.