A weekly dashboard for your dental clinic: the 7 numbers to watch
Most clinics are run on gut feel: "this month went well", "seems quieter lately". But a clinic is a business, and a business is run on a handful of numbers — not a hundred, a handful — reviewed consistently. This is the minimum dashboard: the seven indicators you should always have in front of you, each with its target range and how often to look at it.
What a dashboard is (and why a few numbers are enough)
A dashboard is the single view that gathers the few indicators that really measure how the clinic is doing, each next to its target range. Its point isn't to have lots of data — quite the opposite: to cut the noise down to the numbers that move the business and see them at a glance, green or drifted.
The key word is target. A number alone says nothing — is an average ticket of €180 good? — but a number next to its healthy range does. That's why a useful dashboard isn't a list of figures, but each figure against its reference. Here are the seven that matter.
The 7 numbers on the dashboard
- 1. Production against target. What's billed (or produced) in the week versus the period's goal. It's the pulse: it tells you whether you'll hit the month before the month is over.
- 2. Chair occupancy. How much of your capacity is being used. A healthy range is 75–80%; below that, you pay for an empty chair. It's the big multiplier of revenue per chair.
- 3. Average ticket. What each patient bills on average. A good reference is €600 per active patient per year; below €500 there is room to improve. It rises through treatment mix, not through raising prices. We cover it in average revenue per patient.
- 4. Treatment-plan acceptance rate. How much of what you quote gets accepted. The sector average is 35–50%; target above 70%. See acceptance rate.
- 5. Collection rate. How much of what you bill you actually collect. Healthy above 95%. Billed is not collected: below that, worked-for money gets lost along the way.
- 6. Margins and costs. Net margin (healthy 15–20%) and the weight of the big lines: staff 35–45%, lab 10–15%. This is the monthly number par excellence. See profit margin and costs.
- 7. Recall and patient base. How many patients are active, at risk or inactive. A clinic loses 15–25% of its base a year if it doesn't look after it. See recall and reactivation.
How often to look at each number
Not every indicator is reviewed at the same rhythm. Mixing them is what overwhelms and ends up meaning none get looked at.
Weekly — production vs. target, occupancy, treatment-plan acceptance and collection rate: they move fast and give you room to react within the month. Monthly — margins, cost lines and profitability per treatment: best read at close. Continuous — recall, because the window to recover a patient closes as the weeks pass.
Discipline matters more than exhaustiveness: the same few numbers, always at the same time, always against their range. That's where a pattern — an occupancy dropping three weeks running — shows up in time to do something about it.
The dashboard you don't have to build by hand
The problem isn't knowing what to look at — it's having it in front of you without spending half a day on it. Building this dashboard in Excel means exporting from the practice-management software, cross-referencing billing, schedule and costs, and repeating it every week. Almost no one keeps it up beyond a month.
Mola is that dashboard. It reads the activity from your practice-management software and shows you these indicators — and the rest of your financial metrics — already calculated, with their target range and an alert when something drifts, updated without you touching a spreadsheet. It's the analytics layer that connects on top of your management software, it doesn't replace it. Why it exists and how it fits is covered in why Mola.
Your free session with a dentist
20 minutes with Dr. Jaime Fernández Mercadé — dentist and owner of Clínica Dental Palacio — to build your clinic's dashboard on your real data and see what's green and what has drifted. It's not a sales demo: it's a conversation with someone who runs a clinic like yours.
Book your free sessionFrequently asked questions
About the dental clinic dashboard
What is a dashboard for a dental clinic?
It's the single view that gathers the few numbers that really measure how the clinic is doing — production, occupancy, average ticket, treatment-plan acceptance, collection rate, margins and recall — each next to its target range. Instead of digging through reports, you see at a glance what's green and what has drifted, so you decide with data rather than gut feel.
Which numbers should a dental clinic review every week?
Weekly, you want the indicators that move fast: production against target, chair occupancy (healthy 75–80%), average ticket, treatment-plan acceptance rate (average 35–50%) and collection rate (healthy above 95%). Margins and cost structure are better reviewed monthly, and patient recall continuously.
How often should I review my clinic's KPIs?
The operational ones — production, schedule, occupancy, collection — every week, because they give you room to react within the month. The profitability ones — net margin, cost lines, profitability per treatment — every month, at close. The point isn't to watch more numbers, but the same few consistently and always against their target range.
Do I need a dashboard if I already have practice-management software?
Yes, because they do different things. The practice-management software (like Gesden) runs the clinic: scheduling, records, billing. It isn't designed to tell you whether the business is profitable or to compare your numbers against a healthy range. The dashboard is the analytics layer that connects on top and translates that activity into management indicators.