Every orthodontic practice owner asks some version of the same question: are we ahead of the curve, or behind it?
To help answer that question, we analyzed performance data from 13 Ohio orthodontic practices that have been running on OrthoFi for two or more years. The numbers below compare January through June 2026 to the same period in 2025, giving practice leaders across the state a real benchmark instead of a national average that may not reflect what’s happening close to home.
When you know where you stand, you can make confident decisions to improve your case acceptance rates, production, and profitability.
Ohio Orthodontic Performance Snapshot
| Metric | H1 2026 | Year-Over-Year Change |
| Average Practice Size | 248 starts | — |
| Case Acceptance Rate (30 days) | 85.5% | +7.2 pts |
| Case Acceptance Rate (360 days) | 77.6% | +2.8 pts |
| Net Production per Start | $5,665 | +1.7% |
| Write-Off Percentage | 2.4% of production | -148.1% |
Based on aggregated performance data from 13 OrthoFi-powered orthodontic practices in Ohio, January-June 2026 compared to the same period in 2025.
Ohio Practices Are Well Ahead of the National Curve
Nationally, orthodontic case acceptance rates for practices tend to land somewhere in the 60-70% range, with the strongest performers pushing into the 80% territory.
Ohio’s OrthoFi-powered practices are clearing that top-performer bar by a wide margin, converting new patients into starts at a 30-day rate in the mid-80s, up more than 7 points from where they stood a year earlier.
Growth Is Coming From Performance, Not Just Traffic
You could reasonably assume rising case acceptance rates are the result of discounts or simply a function of more patients walking through the door, but that’s not what the data shows.
Net production per start climbed year-over-year, which points to something more sustainable: practices holding their fee schedules and payment plans steady rather than discounting to win business.
When production per start rises alongside case acceptance, it usually means a practice is getting more disciplined about how it presents treatment and what it charges for it, not just getting lucky with volume. For practice leaders, the useful question isn’t “how many new patients did we see this month,” but “how much are we actually keeping from each patient who says yes.”
Bad Debt Is Moving Sharply in the Right Direction
Write-offs among Ohio’s OrthoFi practices sit at a small share of total production, and that number moved substantially in the right direction compared to the prior year, down 148%.
Every dollar written off is revenue a practice already earned and will never collect. A practice that tightens up its accounts receivable process without changing anything else about patient volume or fees can see a meaningful lift in what actually lands in the bank.
The Hidden Leak Most Practices Haven’t Plugged: Insurance Discounts
Here’s where the story gets more interesting, and where most Ohio practices likely have room to improve. Nearly 43% of starts among Ohio’s OrthoFi practices came from patients with in-network insurance. That’s a substantial share of production running through negotiated fee schedules, which makes disciplined discount management critical.
In-network agreements can quietly eat into margins through contracted discounts, and many practices aren’t aware that these discounts don’t need to be applied across the board.
OrthoFi can help practices separate billable line items, carrier by carrier, so contracted discounts aren’t absorbed entirely by a single comprehensive code.
Only two of the 13 practices in this analysis used insurance fee optimization to reclaim some of that lost revenue, and the results were substantial. Just those two practices saw $20,662 in rescued production, or roughly $544 recovered per start in H1 2026.
That’s real money that the other 11 practices in the group likely left on the table simply because they didn’t have visibility into which line items needed to be discounted and which didn’t.
If nearly half your production runs through insurance, and you’ve never itemized what you’re giving away in contract discounts, there’s a good chance you’re sitting on unclaimed revenue too.
Three Orthodontic KPIs Every Ohio Practice Leader Should Be Watching
With Ohio practices performing well above the national average, the data points to a major opportunity to build a healthy, growing practice without discounting your fees.
As you adjust your strategy for the rest of 2026, these are the three numbers worth tracking closely:
- Net production per start, a better indicator of financial health than starts alone
- Case acceptance rate, both at 30 days and 360 days, to catch both early conversion and long-term follow-through
- In-network discount recovery, especially for practices where insurance makes up a large share of starts
None of these numbers tell the full story on their own. Together, they paint a much clearer picture of whether your practice is reaching its potential.
How Does Your Practice Compare?
Benchmarking against a national average is useful, but benchmarking against practices in your own state, working in the same insurance and labor market, tells you a lot more.
If you’re not sure how your case acceptance, production per start, or insurance recovery stacks up against other Ohio practices, a quick look at your data can usually surface an answer fast.
Book a free discovery call to see where your practice stands.
