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Mapping the Patient Journey at a Dental or Medical Practice
Patients judge a practice on the whole two hours a visit takes, from the reminder text to the bill, and a patient journey map shows a dental or medical office where those hours go and which steps the front desk can make easier.
At a glance
- A patient journey map lays out every step a patient takes with a practice, from noticing they are due to booking the next visit, along with what they are doing and wondering at each one and the office work behind it.
- In a study of 3,927 U.S. medical visits, the average visit took 121 minutes of the patient's day, including 37 minutes of travel and 84 minutes at the clinic, while physicians in a separate national survey reported about 20 minutes face to face.
- The same study valued the patient's time at $43 per visit, more than the average out-of-pocket payment of $32.
- Map one journey, such as a new patient or a recall visit, and fix the step where the patient waits without knowing what happens next.
Part 1 | The visit is two hours, and the care is a sixth of it
A practice tends to think of the visit as the time in the chair or the exam room, because that is where the clinical work happens and where the schedule is built. Patients count everything, and a study in the American Journal of Managed Care, using 3,927 visits recorded in the American Time Use Survey between 2003 and 2010, found that the average medical visit took 121 minutes of a patient's day, of which 37 were travel and 84 were time at the clinic, waiting and being seen.
The researchers valued that time at $43 per visit, more than the $32 the average patient paid out of pocket, and the study did not cover dental care, though a cleaning or a filling is also a small share of the morning a patient gives up to get it. The office cannot shorten the drive, but it controls much of the rest, including how long the forms take, whether the insurance question is settled before arrival and whether the patient knows what to expect in the chair.
Part 2 | Map the journey in the practice's own steps
A patient journey map is a table or a wall of sticky notes with one column per step and one row each for what the patient does, what they are wondering and what the office does behind the scenes. Research published in Harvard Business Review found that performance across whole journeys was 30% to 40% more strongly correlated with customer satisfaction than performance at individual touchpoints, which is why the map starts before the appointment and ends after checkout.
| Step | What the patient does | What the patient is wondering | Back-stage work | Common fail point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notices a need | Feels a sensitive tooth or gets a recall reminder | "Is this urgent? Who takes my insurance?" | Recall list, website insurance page | Reminder never sent; insurance page out of date |
| Books | Calls or books online | "Can I get in this week?" | Schedule, new-patient slots | Call goes to voicemail at lunch |
| Prepares | Fills out forms | "Why are they asking this again?" | Digital intake, insurance verification | Forms repeated at the desk |
| Arrives and waits | Checks in, sits in the waiting room | "How long will this take?" | Room turnover, X-ray readiness | No update when the schedule runs late |
| Exam and treatment plan | Hears findings and options | "What will this cost me?" | Treatment plan, insurance estimate | Cost explained in codes, not dollars |
| Checks out and rebooks | Pays, books the next visit | "When do I need to come back?" | Billing, recall scheduling | Next visit not booked before leaving |
A medical practice follows the same columns with its own words: referral or symptom, scheduling, prior authorization and intake, rooming and vitals, the visit, after-visit summary and follow-up scheduling.
Part 3 | Fix the step where the patient waits without information
A pattern that shows up on many finished maps is a stretch of silence, such as the days between booking and the visit, the minutes in the waiting room when the schedule slips or the week after a treatment plan when nobody calls. A practice that fills those silences with one useful message, delivered by the person or system that already owns that step, changes the experience without adding chair time.
Checklist for the front desk, in the practice's own words
- Two days before: confirm the appointment, list what to bring (insurance card, medication list, X-rays from a prior dentist) and link the intake forms.
- At check-in: say how long the wait is likely to be, and if the schedule runs more than 15 minutes late, tell the patient before they ask.
- After the exam: give the treatment plan in dollars, with the insurance estimate and the patient's share, and say which items can wait.
- At checkout: book the next recall or follow-up before the patient leaves, and send the date by text.
- One week after an unscheduled treatment plan: call once, ask whether the patient has questions and offer two appointment times.
Script for the treatment-plan follow-up call (illustrative figures): "Hi, this is the front desk at the practice. When you were in last week, the doctor recommended a crown on the lower left. I wanted to see if you had any questions about the cost or the timing; your share after insurance was estimated at $420, and I have openings Tuesday at 10 or Thursday at 3."
How you compare
- Time per visit: the national average was 121 minutes for a medical visit; time one new patient in your office from arrival to departure and add a typical drive.
- Journey versus moment: if you survey patients only about the visit itself, you are measuring the part of the journey that research found less predictive of satisfaction.
- Your own baseline: count how many treatment plans presented last month were scheduled within two weeks; that share is a step the front desk can raise directly.
Questions to ask this week
Where does a new patient wait without information? Walk the journey from booking to checkout and mark each silence.
Is every treatment plan explained in dollars? Codes and percentages leave the patient to do the math at home.
Does every patient leave with the next visit booked? Recall that depends on a later phone call depends on someone remembering.
The first step is to walk one new patient's path through your office with a stopwatch and the table above, then fix the longest silence you find.
About this research: This article draws on a study in the American Journal of Managed Care using the American Time Use Survey and the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, and a Harvard Business Review study of customer journeys. The study covers medical visits; we found little published research measuring the dental patient journey step by step, so the dental map is illustrative.
Sources
- Ray, K. N., Chari, A. V., Engberg, J., Bertolet, M. and Mehrotra, A. Opportunity Costs of Ambulatory Medical Care in the United States. American Journal of Managed Care 21(8), 2015. 3,927 visits.
- Rawson, A., Duncan, E. and Jones, C. The Truth About Customer Experience. Harvard Business Review, September 2013.
Related reading: Service Design for Small Businesses: How Customers Actually Experience You · What Is a Customer Journey Map, and What Is a Service Blueprint? · Where Customers Drop Off, Step by Step, According to the Research · The Cost of Inaction (free live session)
Work with osNOVA on your patient journey
We map the path your patients take from the first reminder to the next booked visit, find the silences and repeated steps that cost the practice time and goodwill and set up the confirmations, estimates and follow-up calls that fix them, starting from what you want more of, whether that is more new patients, fewer no-shows, more treatment plans scheduled or fuller hygiene days.
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