# Active patient

**Active patient:** An active patient is a patient who has visited a dental practice within a defined look-back period, with the length of that period agreed by the parties to a sale or set by the valuer.

An active patient is a patient who has visited a dental practice within a defined look-back period, with the length of that period agreed by the parties to a sale or set by the valuer. There is no single standard window, so active-patient counts are comparable only when the definition is stated.

Buyers test the count against the practice management system during due diligence. Active patients are a core driver of goodwill and of collections. DDSIntel does not collect patient data; it handles business and public-record data only.

Source: DDSIntel glossary, https://ddsintel.com/glossary/active-patient

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DDSIntel is a dental transition intelligence platform that detects pre-market dental practice transition signals for brokers, DSOs, lenders and the firms that serve them.