Ellos dicen
«Open Dental already records the referral source.»
Nosotros decimos
It does, and it rarely gets read against revenue. That reading is what this produces.
Para Open Dental
The referral field has been filled in for years. Nobody has ever totalled it.
Export collections from Open Dental, bring the referral source and your other lead files with them, and rank every source on what it collected.
Sin clave de API Nada que instalar en Open DentalNada que instalar Sin tarjeta de créditoSin tarjeta
CloseRev reads an Open Dental export of collected payments — the patient's phone or email, the amount and the date — and matches it against the calls, ads and referrals that produced the first appointment. The practice's own database already records a referral source for many patients, and reading it against collected revenue is often the first time that field has been used for anything. Collections with no traceable lead are reported as Direct / Unknown.
Comprobado por última vez con la documentación del propio Open Dental el 25 de septiembre de 2026.
La brecha
Front desk staff ask every new patient how they heard about the practice. The answers sit in a field no report has ever read.
Open Dental ve
Qué se vendió, a quién y por cuánto.
ninguna fila en común
Su cuenta publicitaria ve
El clic, la palabra clave, la llamada y cuánto costó cada uno.
El archivo
Qué debe contener la exportación.
Tres cosas sostienen la coincidencia: quién, cuánto y cuándo. Todo lo demás es opcional y solo cambia cómo se puede desglosar el informe.
- Necesaria
Patient phone or email
On the patient record. The mobile number is usually the most reliable key.
- Necesaria
Amount collected
Payments received from the patient and the insurer together. Production is a forecast of this, not the same thing.
- Necesaria
Payment date and first visit date
Both. The first visit is when the patient was acquired; payments follow for years.
- Opcional
Referral source and clinic
The referral recorded on the patient and, for a group, which location. Both are what make the report actionable.
Paso a paso
Cómo sacar el archivo de Open Dental.
Escrito para quien tiene Open Dental abierto en la pestaña de al lado. Los nombres de los informes varían según la edición, así que cada paso indica qué buscar.
-
Export collections with the patient's contact detail
One row per payment with a contact detail, the amount and the date.
-
Bring the referral source with it
If your practice records who referred each patient, include it. It becomes one source among several rather than the only one.
-
Export your other lead files
Call tracking, online booking, paid search and anything else that captures a contact before the first visit.
-
Take a year or more
Treatment plans take months to complete, and the second year of a patient is where recall revenue lives.
-
Upload both
The join runs on the phone and the email, normalised, with the recorded referral source kept beside the matched one.
Lo que recibe
La página que Open Dental no puede mostrarle.
Ingresos por canal, el número de ventas detrás de cada cifra y un grupo honesto para las que nadie pudo rastrear. Cifras de ejemplo, del caso práctico de la página Clínicas dentales, no de una cuenta de Open Dental.
Atribuidos a un canal$207,00068% de $304,400
Ventas coincidentes83 de 129solo alta confianza
Ticket medio$2,340por venta pagada
| Canal | Proporción | Ventas | Ingresos |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | 38 | $124,800 | |
| Meta Ads | 31 | $54,800 | |
| Email marketing | 14 | $27,400 | |
| Directo / Desconocido | 46 | $97,400 |
Las ventas sin coincidencia quedan en Directo / Desconocido. Nunca se reparten entre los canales pagados para que el total se vea mejor.
El argumento
Qué cambia cuando cada patient y el anuncio comparten una fila.
A referral field is a survey, and it deserves to be read as one
Many practices ask new patients how they heard about the practice and record the answer. Over years, that field fills with thousands of responses.
It is self-reported, so it has the usual weaknesses: patients misremember, front desks pick the first option on a list, and the most recent thing a patient saw is not always what brought them.
Read against collected revenue, it is still one of the most useful fields a practice has, because it is the only record of the channels no tracking can see — the neighbour, the school newsletter, the other patient.
The report keeps the recorded referral beside any tracked source rather than merging them, so where the two agree there is evidence, and where they disagree there is a question worth asking.
Practices that do this for the first time usually find one referral answer carrying a far larger share of collections than anybody had assumed.
Other dentists are a channel for specialists
For endodontists, orthodontists, oral surgeons and periodontists, a large share of new patients arrives because a general dentist sent them.
Those referring practices are not an advertising line, and they are rarely ranked, yet they are frequently the specialist's most valuable source by a wide margin.
Where the referral source names the referring practice, the report ranks referring practices on what their patients collected, which is the list a specialist's relationship-building should follow.
It also shows referrers whose volume has quietly fallen, which is the half nobody notices because nothing arrives to be noticed.
A group needs the answer per clinic
Dental groups share a database across locations and often share marketing. Their local markets differ, and a channel that fills one clinic's diary can do little for another.
Where the export carries the clinic, the report splits every figure by location, which turns a group-wide number into decisions each clinic can act on.
It also stops one busy clinic's results flattering a channel that the other clinics are paying for and getting little from.
For groups that are growing by adding locations, the per-clinic view is also the earliest signal of which new locations are finding patients.
Collections, not production, and grouped by when the patient arrived
Production is what was scheduled or completed at the practice's fee. Collections are what arrived after insurance adjustments and patient payments.
The two differ by payer mix and write-offs, and those differ by source, so ranking on production flatters the channels whose patients carry the largest adjustments.
Grouping collections by each patient's first visit, rather than by payment date, attributes a patient to the channel that produced them rather than to whatever ran in the month they paid.
It also makes the report stable month to month, because a patient's source does not change when their insurer pays late.
Preguntas justas
«Open Dental ya hace eso». No exactamente.
Ellos dicen
«Our referral data is messy.»
Nosotros decimos
Most is. The report keeps it beside tracked sources rather than trusting it alone, so the mess is visible rather than hidden.
Ellos dicen
«We are a single practice.»
Nosotros decimos
Then the clinic split does not apply and the rest does.
No. It reads a file you exported, so your database, charts and schedule stay where they are.
Collected payments with a patient contact detail, the amount and the date, plus the referral source where you record one.
It is self-reported, so partly. The report keeps it beside tracked sources and shows where they agree and where they do not.
Because adjustments and write-offs differ by payer mix, and payer mix differs by source.
A year or more, so treatment plans complete and recall revenue appears.
Yes, where the referral source names the referring practice, on what their patients collected.
Yes, where the export carries the clinic.
No. It is grouped under the patient's first visit and reported as retention.
They stay in the file. A channel's value includes the patients who did not continue.
Any collection with no traceable source and no recorded referral.
A contact detail, an amount and a date, plus a referral source or clinic if you include them. No charts, no procedure codes, no insurance identifiers, no images. Encrypted in transit and at rest and deleted with the import.
Collections per acquired patient by source and by clinic, recorded referral beside tracked source, and everything unmatched kept visible.
Por sector
Sectores que usan Open Dental.
Cómo se ve el informe una vez cargada la exportación, escrito para cada uno.
- Clínicas dentales¿Qué anuncios llenaron realmente el sillón?
- Ortodoncistas¿Qué anuncios iniciaron tratamientos?
- Clínicas médicas¿Qué anuncios produjeron pacientes que realmente acudieron?
- Grupos de franquicias¿Qué canales generaron ingresos, unidad por unidad?
- Retail multisede¿Qué canales generaron ingresos en tienda y en línea?
Otros sistemas
También vale la pena leer.
¿Usa más de un sistema o está comparando? El método es el mismo; las columnas, no.
Archivo de ventas cerradas Dentrix Clínicas dentales Archivo de ventas cerradas Qué exportar Archivo de ventas cerradas Curve Dental Dental practices Archivo de ventas cerradas Qué exportar Archivo de ventas cerradas ezyVet Veterinary practices and hospitals Archivo de ventas cerradas Qué exportar
Los 119 sistemas 
Open Dental y los demás nombres de productos y logotipos de esta página pertenecen a sus propietarios y se muestran para identificar el software del que procede un archivo. CloseRev no está afiliada a ellos ni cuenta con su respaldo, y no se conecta a ninguno: lee un archivo que usted exporta.
Empiece hoy
Dos exportaciones y lo sabrá.
Nada que instalar en Open Dental, sin clave de API y sin necesidad de haber rastreado nada hasta ahora. El año pasado funciona igual de bien que este mes.