Patient retention is one of the clearest indicators of whether a practice is actually growing, yet many business owners still measure success primarily through new patients, volume, and collections. Dr. Stephen and Dr. Pete break down the numbers that expose what is really happening beneath those surface-level metrics, including churn rate, total active patients, net momentum, and retained revenue. They connect the clinical cost of patients dropping out with the economic cost of lost recurring revenue, while giving CEOs a more intelligent framework for defining active versus inactive patients and measuring sustainable growth. The takeaway is simple: attracting new patients matters, but the health of the business depends just as much on keeping the people already entrusted to the practice.
In this episode you will discover:
- The retention metric Dr. Stephen says belongs on a five-number business scorecard.
- What traditional practice stats can miss when determining whether the business is genuinely healthy.
- A clear definition of an active patient that gives the entire team a consistent standard for tracking retention.
- The calculation that reveals whether all the month’s new patients, reactivations, and dropouts actually produced growth.
- A second side of churn that exposes the financial consequences when patients leave the practice.
Episode Highlights
01:13 – The environments leaders intentionally put themselves in can accelerate growth by exposing blind spots and challenging the way the business is being run.
04:15 – Patient retention moves from an afterthought to a critical business priority as acquiring new customers becomes more expensive.
05:16 – The transition from launching to scaling changes which numbers deserve the CEO’s attention.
07:08 – One overlooked metric begins revealing what volume, collections, and new-patient numbers cannot show on their own.
08:29 – The two sides of churn give practice owners a way to measure both lost patient impact and lost business income.
13:06 – A five-part definition of an active patient creates a consistent standard for knowing who is truly engaged in care.
14:57 – Facing the inactive-patient list uncovers the “brutal facts” required to measure retention accurately instead of relying on assumptions.
16:31 – Clear definitions give the entire team a way to distinguish active, inactive, on-track, and off-track patients without guessing.
18:55 – New conversions, reactivations, and in-actives come together in a calculation that answers one essential question: did the practice actually grow?
20:57 – Net momentum provides a clearer picture of whether the patient base is expanding, contracting, or standing still.
22:47 – The conversation shifts from patient count to economics, revealing what happens to revenue when people leave care.
23:30 – Retained revenue adds another layer to the retention scorecard by quantifying the financial impact of churn.
24:54 – Our feet play a far greater role in nervous system function than most chiropractors realize. Dr. Malcolm Rudd sits down with Dr. Andrew Powell from Success Partner Better Balance Orthotics to explore how sensory-based orthotics support posture, balance, and adjustment retention while giving practices an easy-to-implement solution that benefits both patients and practice growth.
Resources Mentioned
Learn more about the TRP Remarkable Practice Immersion Oct 1 – 3, 2026 in National Harbor, MD and Nov 13 – 14, 2026 in Adelaide, AUS – https://theremarkablepractice.com/upcoming-events/
To learn more about the REM CEO Program, please visit: http://www.theremarkablepractice.com/rem-ceo
For more information about Better Balance please visit: https://betterbalanceorthotics.com/
Book a Strategy Session with Dr. Pete – https://go.oncehub.com/PodcastPC
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