What Is Case Acceptance Rate? Definition and Formula
Case acceptance rate is the share of new patients who say yes to the recommended plan of care, calculated as patients who start the plan divided by patients who received a plan recommendation.
Case acceptance rate tells you how often new patients say yes to the plan you recommend. If a chiropractor gives 30 reports of findings in a month and 21 patients start the recommended plan, case acceptance is 70%. In a cash practice this is where revenue is made or lost, because the evaluation is cheap and the plan of care is the real sale.
How do you calculate case acceptance rate?
Case acceptance rate = patients who start the recommended plan / patients who received a plan recommendation, over the same period. The bottom number is patients who got a recommendation, not everyone who came in. If someone only needed one visit and was told so, leave them out. Worked example: 30 recommendations, 21 started, 21 / 30 = 70%. Track it by provider and by offer. A clinic running a $49 first-visit ad and a free discovery call will often see different acceptance from each, and that difference tells you which offer brings in buyers.
What causes a low case acceptance rate?
Low case acceptance usually comes from a weak report of findings, a price that shows up as a surprise, or an offer that attracted bargain hunters. If the patient does not understand what is wrong, what the plan will do and what it costs until the very end, they hesitate, and hesitation in a cash clinic means no. Patients drawn by a heavily discounted first visit may never have planned to buy a package. Fixes: rehearse the report of findings, show the price in a simple package, and match the ad to the plan. Our cash-based PT pricing guide covers package structure.
How does case acceptance affect your ad costs?
Case acceptance turns cost per new patient into cost per paying patient. Example arithmetic: if a new patient costs $150 in ads and 70% accept the plan, each paying patient costs $150 / 0.70 = $214. Drop acceptance to 50% and it is $300, with the same ads. Owners often blame the ads for a problem that lives in the treatment room. See cost per new patient for the ad side of the math.
Questions owners ask
What counts as accepting the case?
Define it as a commitment you can see in the books: a package paid, a plan of care booked out, or a first payment on a payment plan. A verbal yes with no visits booked is not acceptance.
Is case acceptance the same as conversion rate?
It is one specific conversion: from evaluation to paid plan. Clinics also track conversion from lead to booked visit and from booked visit to arrival, which are different numbers.
Should I track case acceptance by provider?
Yes. Differences between providers are often the clearest signal of who needs help with the report of findings, and they are easy to miss in a clinic-wide average.