New Patients Now

How to Turn New Patients Into Lifetime Patients

What if the biggest reason your practice isn't growing isn't your marketing but what happens after the new patient walks in the door?
In this episode of the New Patients Now Podcast, Flint breaks down why most new patients never come back, and the simple shift that turns a one-time visit into a lifetime patient relationship.
From a restaurant's red napkin rule to the real math behind patient retention, this episode unpacks how small, intentional moments create patients who pay, stay, and refer.
You'll learn:
Why most new patients never return and the number that should stop you in your tracks
The red napkin rule and what it teaches us about the new patient experience
Why the second visit is the most overlooked moment in your practice
What to do right now at the midpoint of the year to make the second half count
This week, podcast listeners can also grab a free copy of the New Patients Now book — fast read, perfect for the beach.
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The Goal Setting Shift That Led to a Record Month

He was out of the country for 10 clinic days. His practice still doubled its new patient goal.
Flint sits down with Dr. Brice Gilliam of Elevation Orthodontics to find out what changed when he stopped setting goals alone and finally brought his whole team into the process, and why pre planning his calendar became one of the most important things he did all year.   
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45 Practices, 5 Cities, One Costly Blind Spot

This week Flint shares a conversation recorded in the field with Bobbie-Jo Van Ruskenveld of Patterson Dental British Columbia and Machelle Williams from his team, hosted by Dental Bytes' Marc Wagner. They traveled through Western Canada visiting practices firsthand, and what they found was the same problem showing up in every room.  
You'll hear what nearly 45 mystery calls revealed about practices across Western Canada, the one step that 90% of practices skip on every new patient call, why the fix is simpler than most doctors think, and what exceptional practices do consistently that good ones don't. 

From Startup to Success

This week Flint sits down with Dr. Mike Jin, a practice owner who spent three years inside 16 different offices, from Beverly Hills cosmetic practices to community clinics, figuring out exactly what he wanted to build and why. He opened his own practice at the end of 2019, got hit by a pandemic a few months later, and still built something that now runs at more than three times the productivity of the average dental office in America. 
In this episode, Flint and Dr. Jin get into what he found, what he built, and what every practice owner can take from it. 

Operational Lessons From a $15 Million Practice

In this episode, Flint Geier sits down with Danielle Haase, Call Center Team Leader at a thriving multi-specialty dental practice in Terre Haute, Indiana, to pull back the curtain on what a $15 million practice is actually built on. 
What makes Danielle's story remarkable is where it started. She was hired as a chart puller, literally pulling paper files off the wall, and grew into leading a six-person call center team that serves three practices simultaneously. Today, her team converts 96.4% of new patient calls into patients in the chair! 
This episode is a masterclass in what consistency, ownership, and a culture of feedback produce over time, and a direct challenge to every doctor and team member who wonders what's really possible inside their practice. 
 
In this episode, you'll hear: 
How one team member went from pulling paper charts to leading a 6-person call center across three practices 
What it actually takes to hit a 96.4% new patient call-to-show conversion rate 
Why most practices are losing new patients at the phone and don't know it 
The operational shift that happens when one person truly owns the new patient statistic 
What a real accountability and feedback culture looks like inside a high-performing team 
The one piece of advice Danielle would give any doctor or team member who wants results like this 

Building a Practice on People, Standards, and No Excuses

In this episode, Flint sits down with Dr. Brad Hughes, owner of Vision Dental Partners and a Scheduling Institute alumni, to talk about what it actually takes to grow from a single-chair practice in Leo, Indiana to ten locations and what most doctors get wrong before they ever get started. 
 
Brad is a great example of what happens when a doctor doesn't just go through the program but actually executes on it.  The new patient experience, case acceptance, and team standards.  He took each piece, ran it at a high level, and built Vision Dental Partners into what it is today.  
 
In this episode, you’ll hear: 
What it looks like when a doctor fully commits to the program and executes on the fundamentals at a high level, and what that compounds into over time 
The self-awareness shift that changed his trajectory in 2013 and why he says it took six years to get there 
The hard truth about team members who won’t get on board and why keeping them is actually the bigger risk 

The Truth About Dental Membership Plans

In this episode, Flint Geier sits down with Ryan Corby, CEO of Smile Advantage, to explore how dental membership plans can become one of the most powerful tools for growth in private practice when implemented with intention. They break down the most common misconceptions around membership models and highlight what separates the practices that fully leverage them from those that only scratch the surface. 
From how you name the plan to how your entire team communicates it, Ryan shares what it takes to turn a membership into a true practice system, not just a line item or add-on. What becomes clear is this: the strongest results come when the membership is fully aligned with the patient experience and supported by consistent messaging at every level. 
In this episode, you’ll hear: 
Why dental membership plans can drive stronger case acceptance and patient loyalty when fully implemented 
How language and positioning can instantly change perceived value 
What it looks like when membership becomes integrated into the entire practice system 
How top teams align messaging across every patient touchpoint 
The biggest misconception about recurring revenue in fee-for-service practices 

How a Fee for Service Practice Increased New Patients by 281% and Spent Less on Marketing

For most of 2025, this North Carolina dentist was telling herself the same stories every practice owner falls back on: it’s the economy, my market is saturated, we’re fee-for-service so growth is hard.  She was averaging 11 new patients a month.  She had taught her team everything she knew, and the numbers had stalled out.
Five months later (without spending one extra dollar on marketing) her practice booked 42 new patients in a single month.
Dr. Sarah Myers and her office manager Shannon join Flint for one of the most no-fluff growth stories we’ve shared on the show. They walk through how training the team changed the trajectory of the practice in Cary, NC, what almost held them back, and the moment they realized roughly 30 of those 42 new patients came from existing patient referrals — not paid ads.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
How the practice grew new patients from 11 a month to 42 a month — with the marketing budget actually trending slightly down
The mindset shift from “I’m the doctor” to “I’m the bottleneck” — and why owning that unlocked everything else
How a 6-person team built accountability around new patient calls without losing a single team member
Why the patient experience went up at the same time the volume went up — and how Google reviews tell the story
The specific advice Dr. Myers would give a practice owner two years into ownership: “Don’t try to figure it out alone”

What I Learned from 100 Days Alcohol Free

Most of us have made a commitment and immediately started looking for the out. The diet that "doesn't count on weekends."  The 90-day challenge with a Mexico wedding exemption built in. If you've ever done that—congratulations, you're human. But it's also exactly the pattern that keeps practices plateaued. 
In this episode, Flint Geier shares what happened when he committed to 100 days without alcohol—no caveats, no exceptions—and why the hardest moment was the very first urge to make the exception. What started as a personal reset quickly became one of the clearest illustrations he's found of what separates thriving practice owners from the ones wondering why nothing changes. 
The answer isn't in what you add. It's in what you subtract. 
  
In this episode, you'll hear: 
Why the urge to give yourself an "out" early in a commitment is the exact moment it matters most to hold the line 
How cutting one habit quietly unlocked 100+ more productive hours in a single quarter 
The two-doctor comparison that explains why some practice owners always feel behind on time 
Why the most successful leaders subtract responsibilities rather than add more to their plate 
A simple 30-day challenge you can start this week — and what it might reveal about your own practice 

17 Years of Unfiltered Truth About What’s Really Holding Your Practice Back

What happens when someone has listened to more new patient phone calls than almost anyone on the planet — and then retires? You sit her down and ask her to tell you everything she knows. 
Ginger Foretich spent 17 years at The Scheduling Institute, starting as an auditor making mystery calls to dental and orthodontic practices across the country. Over time, she evaluated thousands of practices and hundreds of thousands of front desk interactions. On her final day with the company, she shared the patterns, the misconceptions, and the hard truths that separate practices that grow from ones that stay stuck. 
What she's seen is clarifying: most practices lose new patients before anyone ever walks through the door — not because of marketing, not because of clinical skill, but because of what happens in the first 60 seconds of a phone call.  The fix isn't complicated.  It's just rarely implemented correctly. 
 
In this episode, you'll hear: 
The #1 mistake front desk teams make on new patient calls — and why it costs you appointments 
Why individual accountability changes behavior when group training doesn't 
What doctors almost always get wrong when trying to improve their front desk teams 
How the best practices build a culture where certification becomes a way of life — not a stressor 
The one thing Ginger says she’d tell a struggling practice owner on her way out the door