Study shows strong correlation between revenue and annual visits per patient

The number of times a patient visits in a year correlates more strongly with practice revenue than the more commonly used metric of average client transaction, according to new research.

Data and analytics company VetSuccess conducted the study, which compared the number of visits per patient over a 12-month period with the average client transaction at 1,894 mostly general practice, companion animal hospitals in 47 states in 2019.

The study found that practices with lower costs at each visit tend to have more visits. This finding, together with the one that high visit numbers correlate more strongly with high yearly revenue, suggest that having patients visit more often makes up for any small decrease in revenue from each visit.

“The study sample shows that there is a clear decline in visits per year when [average client transaction] hits roughly $300,” Esther Fraser, data analyst for VetSuccess, told the AVMA. “We can’t say anything about how sensitive to a price a customer might be for any given service, but it does seem that customers are more attuned to the amount they are asked to spend in a single visit than the amount they spend across an entire year.”

More information is available from the AVMA.