February, 2025

What Should You Do About Patient Leakage? How to Keep Patients Coming Back

Introduction to Patient Leakage

Owners and managers of healthcare practices in the United States are dealing with the problem of patient leakage, which results in patients leaving them for other healthcare organizations or systems altogether. As patients exit, providers experience challenges in meeting their goals to strengthen their flow of revenue and improve patient engagement.

If you’re working to reduce patient leakage, you’re not alone.

Consider that 94% of respondents to an ABOUT Healthcare survey indicated they have a priority to reduce patient leakage. About 78% said addressing this issue has become more crucial since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Health system executives estimate they can increase revenue by 17% if they can reduce patient leakage. Some 65% of health system leaders said that they’re stymied in reaching their financial goals because of it.

When looking at the reasons behind patient leakage, about 45% of patients left due to competition from other health systems. Around 35% of respondents cited a lack of talent, while 32% pointed to insufficient patient-appropriate services as the cause.

With that in mind, here is additional insight into reasons for patient leakage, and solutions to help practices address it.

Types of Patient Leakage

What is patient leakage? Industry analysts refer to two types of patient leakage—involuntary and voluntary:

Involuntary Leakage

Involuntary leakage occurs when patients experience factors beyond their control, such as a lack of access or inadequate service from their current healthcare provider. Sometimes, they may also be forced to leave because providers are not in their network.

Voluntary Leakage

In contrast, voluntary leakage happens when patients leave of their own accord because they want a better experience. This may be driven by the desire to obtain more amenities, reduce costs, or improve the quality of their care.

Common Reasons for Patient Leakage

Here are some of the more common reasons contributing to patient leakage today:

Need for convenience

Busy patients want convenience in accessing healthcare services. They may be inclined to leave you because they want to use a provider closer to their home and job. Or, their tight schedules may demand that they find a provider with more flexible appointment scheduling options that align with best practices.

Easier bill paying

Patients also want a convenient and transparent way to receive, manage, and pay their bills for healthcare services. If another healthcare organization makes remitting payments easier, it could push patients to leave your practice.

Desire for better service

Patients become frustrated by a lack of healthcare professionals to help them address their particular condition as waiting rooms grow more crowded and people have to wait longer to see their providers.

Beyond becoming irritated while waiting longer for service, patients may be discouraged if your practice doesn’t have access to the latest medical technology solutions.

Access to specialty care

If patients find that your organization lacks the specialists they need access to, they will feel it necessary to switch to a different healthcare organization or system. For example, a primary care provider (PCP) at an independent practice may notice that many of his patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, are seeking specialty care outside their network due to limited access to in-network specialists and a poor care coordination network.

The right combination of technology and guidance can retain patients and improve continuity of care.

Take the next steps toward a more connected practice.

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Solutions to Address Patient Leakage

Develop a strategic plan to reduce patient leakage by trying any or all of these solutions:

Competitive pricing

Offer patients more affordable options for care and with better transparency into costs. It’s a good idea to offer them flexibility in how they make payments, whether with a debit/credit card, check, or some type of online/electronic transfer.

Analyze your protocol for referral management

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recommends that practices map out their process for referrals as it actually works, and not just how you think it’s supposed to operate. As you work with your staff, you may discover inefficiencies in the process or workarounds that they have created.

Compare your current approach to the ideal process for patient referrals. CMS says, ideally, you will prepare your patients with a collaborative conversation about the need for specialty care and a referral. You will also want to verify that patients receive an appointment within a reasonable time frame that matches the urgency of their condition.

Make sure to follow-up with patients

Did your patients actually follow-up and keep their next appointment? It’s best to improve and have a strong follow-up protocol in place to optimize communication with patients. Your guidance helps them see through and continue with their care plans.

Check data analytics

Review the data analytics from your EHR software and practice management system to help determine the relationship between patients leaving your system and how it relates to pattern changes. You can view this on a granular level if you are aware of their reasoning, such as patients leaving because they want access to specific treatments, expertise dealing with their conditions, or more convenient healthcare interaction options.

Regularly update your care directory

You need to update provider data so you can manage your care coordination more effectively. It’s no use forwarding a patient to someone who is no longer at the location in your records. Double-check the spelling of names of healthcare organizations to avoid errors and delays in care.

Expand your services network

See if you can strengthen your networks and partnerships to cut down on out-of-network referrals.

You can look into purchasing other physician practices and physician groups, or implementing services in-house to complement your existing specialist capabilities to better hold onto current patients and acquire new patients.

You’ll want to avoid referring patients to specialists who are not members of the same coordinated care system. The idea is to prevent patient leakage when your patients need to access specialty care outside of what you provide.

Benchmark Solutions’ Software Can Help You Address Patient Leakage

At Benchmark Solutions, we’re proud of the reputation we’ve developed in the industry for helping practices retain patients, improve how they coordinate patient care, and reduce the risk of patient leakage.

We offer a referral management module in the Benchmark EHR system. Use this tool to assign referral coordinators to patients and document your attempts to contact referred patients. You can also see the status of each referred patient and generate reports to know the referral sources. It makes the referral process easier to manage, so you can reduce patient leakage, optimize follow-up encounters, and bolster each referral relationship.

We’ll support your requirement to create a systematic approach to encourage patient engagement and strengthen the relationships between staff and patients. Patient engagement tools include automated reminders, telehealth services, secure patient portals, and more for easier communication and connectivity.

Our software solutions are also built with interoperability in mind. For example, Benchmark EHR supports FHIR and HL7 for seamless communication between your systems. The EHR also integrates with lab and diagnostic systems to better centralize your care, including sharing crucial patient information during referrals.

To make things easier for patients who may be motivated to leave for a different healthcare system because of difficulties in receiving and paying bills, we offer BenchmarkPay. This transparent solution reduces friction in the payment process. It helps patients conveniently manage and keep track of payments, which is crucial when so many patients are responsible for more than half of every healthcare bill.