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Case acceptance rate calculator for dental practices

Calculate your dental case acceptance rate two ways, by dollars and by procedure count, from your treatment plan report. Formula stated, worked example.

2 min readUpdated 2026-10-13

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A printed treatment plan on a desk with a pen and a calculator beside it

The plan was presented on Tuesday for $3,400. Three weeks later the only thing booked is the filling. Whether that counts as accepted depends on how you measure, and most offices measure two ways without noticing.

How case acceptance is calculated

By dollars: the value of treatment the patient scheduled or completed, divided by the value of treatment presented in the same period, times 100.

By count: the number of procedures scheduled or completed, divided by the number presented, times 100.

Worked example: in September, $84,000 of treatment was presented across 120 procedures. $46,200 was scheduled or completed, covering 81 procedures. Dollar acceptance is 46,200 divided by 84,000, which is 55 percent. Count acceptance is 81 divided by 120, which is 67.5 percent. The gap tells you the expensive items are the ones not being booked.

The calculator

Where the numbers come from

Presented means the plan was created and shown to the patient, with a date. Accepted means the procedure moved to scheduled or completed. Decide the period first (a month works) and keep it the same for both halves.

Open Dental stores every planned procedure in procedurelog with a status of TP (treatment planned), and completed work moves to C. The Treatment Finder and the unscheduled treatment report give you the presented side. Dentrix has the Unscheduled Treatment Plans report, and Eaglesoft lists planned work under the treatment plan reports.

Two traps. Plans that were never actually discussed with the patient inflate the presented side, so only count plans with a presented date or a signed estimate. And the same month’s presented and accepted figures are not the same plans; some of September’s acceptance belongs to August’s presentations. Over three months it evens out.

What a reasonable number looks like

There is no reliable public benchmark that uses one agreed definition, so treat any figure you read as that author’s definition. The better comparison is your own practice, month over month, with the same method. The case acceptance rate guide covers the levers that move it: same-day scheduling, a written estimate, and a follow-up call inside a week.

Calibic’s Treatment list (LIVE) shows planned and not booked treatment by patient and dollar value, sorted so the highest value and most recent presentations sit at the top. It only counts a plan as recovered once your practice software shows it booked, completed and paid; everything before that is found. The connection is read-only. See case acceptance and treatment follow-up, or try the practice health check.

Useful? Send it to the person who runs your front desk.

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Questions people ask

What is the formula for acceptance rate?

Accepted treatment divided by presented treatment, for the same period, times 100. Use dollars for the money view and procedure counts for the behaviour view. The two can differ a lot in the same month.

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See it on your own data

Read-only toward Open Dental, Dentrix and Eaglesoft. A Business Associate Agreement is sent with every sign up.