Healthcare marketers rely on call tracking to measure which campaigns drive appointments and new patients. But how do you know those numbers are actually accurate?
We asked five practices across dental, behavioral health, and medical aesthetics whether they have confidence in the reporting they get from CallRail's Call Tracking to understand which marketing is actually driving ROI — not just calls, but new patients. Each one reported consistent, accurate results, giving them confidence in how their marketing dollars are performing.
How 5 practices check their CallRail reporting
Dental, behavioral health, and medical aesthetics each use CallRail differently, but every practice below checks the data against what happened on the call, not just what the report says.
Dental
Douglas Shaw, who manages Google Ads for Cape Vista Dental through PPC Builders, runs ad hoc reviews of bookings against the practice's schedule. "I have done this, and while it is not my job, the ad hoc reviews are helpful," he said.
He adds that CallRail allows him to separate new patients from returning ones and identify what it costs to land a new patient, which is "the best thing about all call tracking".
At LandMark Dentistry, a multi-location practice, Krystle Watson, Accounts and Operations, checks booking classifications against the schedule by listening to call recordings.* Landmark has evaluated dental-specific platforms and stayed with CallRail because it connects call outcomes across locations, channels, and campaigns — not because it was built for one specialty. She hasn't found the errors that case study describes.
Having access to both the call recordings and the reporting gives us greater confidence in the data we use to evaluate campaign performance and make marketing decisions.
– Krystle Watson, LandMark Dentistry
Behavioral health
Behavioral health adds a layer of sensitivity around patient data that goes beyond the HIPAA requirements that apply across all these practices. Brandon Christensen, Executive Director at Modern Therapy, says, “CallRail is very reliable in identifying which calls have resulted in an appointment,” and that losing that visibility would leave his team “less educated and effective” about where budget should go.
Arthur Blikian, Co-Founder and Director of Marketing at Quest Wellness Center, says it separates intake conversations from general inquiries. That visibility tells him which campaigns are actually driving admissions, not just raw call volume. Both treat HIPAA as something their counsel signs off on. CallRail supports HIPAA compliance through its Healthcare Plan, which includes a signed BAA.
What I'd tell another behavioral health marketing director is to do their own diligence rather than rely on any vendor's marketing. Sign your own agreements, have your own counsel review how a tool touches patient data, and configure it for your environment.
– Arthur Blikian, Quest Wellness Center
Medical aesthetics
At Sarah Hitchcox Aesthetics, CTO Zane Hitchcox separates new client calls from existing ones by cross-checking phone numbers against internal records, so a returning client isn't miscounted as a new lead.
For booking detection, the practice relies on its own AI system, Retell, which marks calls booked automatically. CallRail attributes each call to its source, with visitor-level tracking across the practice's website.
Without CallRail, we would not have user-level tracking on our website and unified attribution data across our marketing channels. At another company, we implemented this ourselves, and it was very difficult.
– Zane Hitchcox, Sarah Hitchcox Aesthetics
3 ways the numbers hold up
The accuracy claim breaks into three testable pieces: error rate, telling new patients from returning ones, and return on ad spend.
1. Accuracy
Across dental and behavioral health, the practices doing their own spot-checks aren't finding those error rates. Brandon says the call summaries give his team a stronger first call with new clients.
2. New patients vs. returning ones
Cape Vista Dental's Douglas calls it "the best thing about all call tracking," since it gives a clearer sense of what it costs to land a new patient. None of the dental or med spa practices we asked called this a gap.
3. Return on ad spend
That case study measured its 62% drop against a system it says couldn't be trusted. Sarah Hitchcox Aesthetics ran the opposite experiment — trusting the numbers enough to spend more, not switch.
The reporting held up well enough that Zane recently doubled ad spend, backed by data and an account manager watching it daily.
Between April and June, the practice spent about $14,900 on Google Ads for roughly $392 per booking. That's a 2.1x first-visit return, or about $2.10 back for every dollar spent. Cost per new client is now roughly half what it was, and the reporting shows exactly why. The top sources driving calls are all Google Business Profile listings, each generating 38 to 52 calls a month, well ahead of the practice's paid campaigns, which brought in 12 to 20. Paid search still plays a role. It just isn't the one driving most of the volume.
The answer is in your own account
Five practices checked their own numbers, and it paid off — not just in cleaner reporting, but in the confidence to spend with it. Switching means rebuilding integrations and workflows that already work, so it's worth doing the same before you tear anything out.
Try CallRail free for 14 days.
*Consent laws for call recording vary by jurisdiction.
