---
title: "What Is Patient referral? Dental Practice Glossary"
description: "A patient referral happens when an existing patient, friend or colleague recommends a practice and a new patient makes a first appointment because of it."
url: https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/patient-referral
publisher: Copeland Consulting Services
email: drcopeland@joncopelanddds.com
contact: https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/contact
---

Practice management

# Patient referral

A patient referral happens when an existing patient, friend or colleague recommends a practice and a new patient makes a first appointment because of it.

The ADA's internal marketing guidance says practices that connect with patients have a strong marketing vehicle in positive word of mouth. It cites an ADA survey that reported nearly two-thirds (63.7 percent) of new patients in general dentistry practices are referred by existing patients. The page does not show the survey year, so treat the number as a dated example. A peer-reviewed paper in PMC also studies word of mouth among dental patients, noting that dental services are experiential and hard for patients to judge in advance. Tracking the referral source of each new patient shows what is working and feeds [new patient flow](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/new-patient-flow). See also [practice marketing](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/practice-marketing).

[Next stepPractice consulting with Dr. Copeland](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/contact?topic=consulting)

## Related terms

-   [New patient flow](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/new-patient-flow)
-   [Practice marketing](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/practice-marketing)
-   [Patient experience](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/patient-experience)
-   [Patient retention](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/patient-retention)

## Sources

1.  [ADA, Internal Marketing](https://www.ada.org/resources/practice/practice-management/05_marketing_internalmarketing)
2.  [PMC, Factors affecting use of word-of-mouth by dental patients](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9379001/)

## Talk with Dr. Copeland

[Contact Dr. Copeland](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/contact)[Email](mailto:drcopeland@joncopelanddds.com)