Chairs were standing empty at Camp Hill in early 2023 and practice owner Dr Kathy Perry was eager to fill them and optimise their online bookings. But the first and best business decision she made was getting Melanie on her team, who brought Healthengine on board to help put a dental marketing strategy in place, give the practice some visibility, get appointments up online and chairs filled. In just six months, theyāve seen a steep 545% rise in online bookings*, 595% in new patients*, and a record 22.6% increase in revenue^.
Stats snapshotĀ
- Bookings – 545% increase in online bookings (from an average of 7.75 to 50 per month)*
- New patients – 592% increase (from an average of 4.5 to 31.2 per month)*
- Practice growth – 16.6% growth in dental team, plus a 7.7% increase in opening hours^^
- Revenue – Up by 22.6%^
- Reviews – 100% would recommend this practice – from 46 patient reviews*
- Love – The online visibility for our practice and the one-on-one timely support for our team.
* From stats over 12 months (Feb 2023 – Jan 2024)
^ Percentage increase compared to same period in previous year (July- Jan 2022/23)
^^ From stats over 3 months (Nov 2023 – Jan 2024)
Camp Hill Dental is a family-owned Brisbane-based dental surgery established in 1988 in Queensland. Practice founder and owner Dr Kathryn Perry has been in the industry for over four decades and now treats the grandchildren of her original patients. Fast-forward to early 2023, and growth at Camp Hill was at a standstill. Thatās when Melanie came on board, in April 2023, to move some mountains.
āWhen I joined Camp Hill as a full-time treatment coordinator there was no presence online and no online bookings. A lot of staff here were casual and we had just onboarded two new graduates getting only one or two patients a day. I thought, āHow can I fix this?ā I had to do something,ā says Melanie.
āWithin two months, I got Healthengine on board and was promoted to Practice Manager to get on the case.ā
”āOur first six months with Healthengine have been so successful. Our five chairs are now fully booked through to April. Some dentists are even booked through to August."
Melanie HambletonPractice Manager, Camp Hill Dental, QLD
Why Healthengine?
āThey had Healthengine at the first practice I worked at when I began my career in dentistry in 2007. Back then, I was working closely with Nathan who is still my customer success manager today, would you believe it?
āCamp Hill also had a Healthengine account when I joined but, just like my previous practice, they werenāt utilising it for practice growth. There were no plugins on the website. No visibility and very few online bookings. That’s when I got back in touch with Nathan at Healthengine. I knew I could count on him to help me get to work on developing a dental marketing strategy.
āI think Healthengineās got the best online booking platform in Australia. Itās good functionality thatās not hard to navigate. Even the reports from the back end make it easy to get an at-a-glance update on our key stats to review and tweak our strategy.ā
The problem was plain to see. No visibility. No dental marketing strategy.
When Melanie started diving a little deeper, she jumped on the practice website and noticed the online booking system wasnāt visible or accessible and wasnāt even working.
āAvailable bookings werenāt showing. The data on there was not streamlined and neither were the profiles. We needed to set up the integration so that when patients clicked to book an appointment it would sync with our calendar and show what was available. We also needed to set up our recall system for patients for their six monthly reminders.ā
Dotting the iās and crossing the tās in accessibility and visibility.
With support from customer success manager Nathan, Melanie worked on setting up the online booking platform and making it visible and accessible from as many places as possible, starting with the website plug-in: getting it up on every page on the website; adding the Bitly link to emails and automated text messages and a QR code too so patients could quickly and easily book online right in that moment, while it was still front of mind.
āIād never set up the website plug-in before, but Nathan walked me through all the steps, gave me some great suggestions for where else I could put the booking link – like our Google profile – and helped me improve the visibility of our practice online as well,ā says Melanie.
āI also looked at the trends to find out what the most popular spots were and made sure weād got those times available for patients to book when they go looking for dental appointments online. And Healthengine made it possible to do that.ā
Scaling back and scaling up in record time.
Camp Hill scaled back its opening hours while Melanie and Nathan got to work on formulating and implementing a dental marketing strategy to get the practice and bookings visible online and the books filled and ready to drive growth.
āThe impact of Healthengine was almost instant. Our online bookings lept from just 7 in May to 53 in August and new patients from 5 to 38. Weāre now averaging 50 to 60 online bookings and 30 to 50 new patients per month via the Healthengine plug-in and Healthengine network,ā says Melanie. āJanuary is usually a quiet month, but this year weāve got 41 new patients already and weāre not even at the end of the month yet!
āWeāre so busy, I just put a job ad up online for new dentists. And weāre planning to open another evening soon and put all those extra appointments up on Healthengine too.ā
The more bookings published, the better for everyone.
Now that appointments are getting booked so fast and up to three months in advance, Camp Hill has received a lot of feedback from existing patients asking them to put more appointments up online so they can book ahead for later in the year.
āI used to only put up appointments for one or two months ahead. Now weāre releasing online bookings for three months ahead and itās better for our practice because weāre keeping existing patients happy and returning,ā says Melanie.
More opportunities to drive growth.
For those first six months, Melanie has taken it one step at a time to make sure theyāre keeping up with demand and keeping patients happy and returning to the practice. Now, sheās looking to step and scale up her dental marketing strategy, at Camp Hill Dental Practice.
āI’m looking to utilise Healthengine even more by proactively seeking patient reviews and encouraging patients to add us to My Care Team on the Healthengine app. Iām also going to test putting appointments up even further in advance.”
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