Patient retention: the practice management challenge under managed care.

The increasingly competitive environment of practice management has become more complicated with the growing penetration of managed care and capitation. Although successful growing practices have always focused on attracting new patients into the office, future efforts must also be directed at retaining the current patient. Additionally, capitation will require that a practice redefine the profile of a patient valuable to the practice. This article provides a perspective on the valuable patient in a capitated setting as well as some strategies to build better relationships with patients to retain their loyalty. Finally, this article proposes a system to monitor the ongoing satisfaction of patients to retain loyalty.