Patient retention rate & no-show calculator

The patients you already have, counted properly. Work out retention rate and churn for any period, separate the patients who finished care from the ones who drifted, and see what no-shows add up to over a year.

Patient retention rate is the share of patients active at the start of a period who are still active at the end: patients at the end, minus new patients, divided by patients at the start. Churn is the rest. No-show rate is missed appointments divided by booked appointments. The calculator runs in your browser and doesn't save or send your figures.

Example figures, not benchmarks. Replace them with yours.

Patients over a period

A quarter works well. Count active the same way at both ends, for example seen in the last 90 days.

No-shows in a typical week
Rebooking at checkout

Your numbers

Retention rate
75%
Churn rate
25%
Churn before finishing care
15%
Patients lost
50
No-show rate
7.5%
Visits not held a year
276
Booked revenue not collected
$49,680
Rebooking rate
60.8%

You kept 150 of 200 patients (75%). Of the 50 who left, 20 completed their care, so 30 left before finishing. No-shows and late cancellations add up to about 276 visits a year that weren't held, or $49,680 in booked revenue.

How the numbers are worked out.

Patient retention rate

(active patients at end − new patients during the period) ÷ active patients at start × 100

Churn rate

100% − retention rate

Churn before finishing care

(patients lost − patients who completed care) ÷ active patients at start × 100

No-show rate

missed appointments ÷ booked appointments × 100

Visits not held a year

missed appointments a week × weeks open a year

Rebooking rate

visits that ended with the next appointment booked ÷ visits × 100

A worked example

A hypothetical practice starts a quarter with 200 active patients, takes on 40 new ones, and ends with 190. Of the 190, 40 are new, so 150 of the original 200 stayed: a retention rate of 75% and churn of 25%.

Of the 50 who left, 20 finished their course of care. Only 30, or 15% of the starting list, left before finishing, and those 30 are the retention problem worth working on. These are the calculator's example figures, not typical ones.

What the calculator leaves out

  • Why people left. The count tells you how many; a short call or message to a few of them tells you why.
  • Seasonality. Compare a quarter with the same quarter last year before reading too much into a dip.
  • Who is affected. Run it per clinician and per service. A practice-wide rate hides where the leak is.
  • Refilled slots. A no-show whose slot was refilled from a waitlist cost less than one that sat empty.

Then work out what a patient is worth.

Retention is what turns one first visit into a lifetime value. The companion calculator puts that next to what each new patient costs to win.

Patient acquisition cost & LTV calculator Glossary: patient retention rate Glossary: no-show rate Guide: patient retention strategies Patient reactivation

Embed this calculator on your site

Associations, consultants and practice-management writers are welcome to put this calculator on their own pages. The figures people type stay in their browser, and the embedded version carries no analytics or advertising tags. Copy the code below, or preview the embed.

<iframe src="https://fillthelobby.com/embed/patient-retention-calculator" title="Patient retention calculator" width="100%" height="1500" style="border:0;max-width:980px" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p>Calculator by <a href="https://fillthelobby.com/patient-retention-calculator">Fill The Lobby</a></p>

Questions

Patient retention rate: common questions.

Take the patients active at the end of a period, subtract the new patients who started during it, divide by the patients active at the start, and multiply by 100. Count active the same way at both ends, for example seen in the last 90 days.

They are two sides of the same count. Retention rate is the share of starting patients still active at the end of the period; churn rate is the share who stopped. For the same period they add up to 100%.

Not if you want the number to mean anything. A patient who completes a course of care and is discharged is a good outcome. The calculator shows churn both ways: everyone who left, and only those who left before finishing.

Divide the appointments that were missed or cancelled inside your notice window by the appointments booked, then multiply by 100. Track it by clinician and appointment type, because it is rarely spread evenly.

There isn't one figure that fits every specialty. A therapy practice that discharges people who have finished care should look different from a concierge panel built on long memberships. Compare against yourself, quarter on quarter, by clinician and by service.

Reviewed September 2026.

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