Patient Recurrence in HOF: What It Is and How to Measure It

Recurrence is the clinic's ability to bring the patient back: for maintenance, for a new stage of the plan or for another procedure. Because many orofacial harmonization (HOF) treatments have limited duration, such as botulinum toxin and hyaluronic acid, returning is part of the nature of the work.

How do you measure recurrence?

A simple way is the return rate over a period:

Recurrence rate = (patients who returned in the period ÷ patients seen in the previous period) × 100

Choose a window that makes sense for your procedures, such as 6 or 12 months, and keep the same window across comparisons.

Hypothetical example: in the first half of the year, the clinic saw 80 patients. Of these, 36 came back in the second half. The recurrence rate was (36 ÷ 80) × 100 = 45%.

Why does recurrence matter?

Winning a new patient usually takes more effort and investment than keeping someone who already trusts your work. Together with the average ticket and the acceptance rate, it makes up a fuller picture of the clinic's health.

What tends to encourage patients to return?

• Well-guided aftercare and a scheduled follow-up visit.
• Photo documentation that lets you show the progress.
• Contact at the time of maintenance, without pressure and respecting the patient's preference.
• A staged plan explained from the start.

The guide follow-up and loyalty goes deeper into the topic.

In Harmy

History stores the sessions for each patient, and "Add actual result" lets you compare the projection with the result obtained, which helps in the follow-up conversation.

Also called: return rate, patient retention.