Your KPIs Aren’t Moving Your Practice Forward

By ACG Practice Partners

A plastic surgeon recently told me their surgical conversion rate was 55%. My response was: “For which procedures?”

Many practices track KPIs, but few use them effectively. Measurement alone changes nothing.

When the surgeon shared that overall consult-to-surgery conversion rate, it didn’t immediately raise concern. Sure, there was room for improvement, but the number felt reasonable – until we drilled down by procedure. Then the story changed.

Mastopexy, breast reduction, and explant consultations were converting at strong rates. Abdominoplasty and gynecomastia consultations were converting dramatically lower, around 30%. The overall number was hiding the fact that something was off during those specific consultations, resulting in fewer patients moving forward with surgery.

The KPI itself didn’t provide the answer. It told us where to investigate.

The Shift

After reviewing every recent consultation, we identified two issues:

• Patients were arriving for consultations who were not appropriate candidates. In many cases, their BMI or other medical conditions excluded them from surgery based on the surgeon’s criteria.
• Many patients had unrealistic expectations around recovery, pricing, or outcomes before ever stepping into the office.

The solution was not more marketing. It was not replacing staff, redesigning the website, or changing prices. The practice implemented a structured preconsultation phone call (which they had previously been resistant to) to review health history and BMI, discuss recovery expectations, and establish realistic pricing ranges before scheduling.

Within a matter of months, conversion for those procedure categories improved significantly. The pre-consultation phone call set clearer expectations around recovery, pricing, and candidacy, which meant that patients who scheduled consultations were far more informed, more prepared, and more likely to move forward.

Most practices I work with are collecting data, but very few are acting on it. The value of a KPI is not in the number. The value is in the decisions and behavior changes that follow it.

Growth Work

Choose one KPI your practice reviews regularly. Now ask

• Is this metric too broad, the way an overall conversion rate can be?
• What might this number be hiding?
• Where should we drill down further?
• What operational behavior is actually driving this result?

Then identify one process change to test over the next 30 days. Because KPIs do not improve practices. Operational decisions do.

In Your Corner,

Amy