6 Easy Steps to a Solid Dental Practice Foundation

Financial freedom for dentist

Take the stress out of running a dental practice with these tips for success.

Running a dental practice can be stressful, particularly when your cash flow and income are far from stable. The best route to financial freedom for dentists is to not only operate a great practice, but also to look for ways to diversify and expand your services. Whether it’s finding the best orthodontic courses for general dentists looking to build new skills, or fine-tuning your marketing efforts, the following tips can help you on the path to financial freedom.

1. Have a Solid Team in Place

Your team is the heart of your dental practice. With a solid team in place, you can be sure that your practice delivers great services. A solid team consists of not only highly skilled dentists, but also employees who can manage accounts and marketing. Ensure that every aspect of your business is covered by the skills in your team.

It pays to put a lot of effort into sourcing new talent for your dental practice. A new team member who is the perfect fit for your business can be infinitely valuable. Take your time to find the right people to support your dental office and take its services to the next level.

One of the ways in which you can be sure to attract and retain the team you need is to invest in your work culture. Put yourself in your team’s shoes and consider what is valuable to them and how you can create an environment that fosters a happy team. Team-building, recognition of loyalty and performance, making your team members feel heard and valued—these are only a few of the many ways you can achieve this. There are inexpensive ways to create the culture you need.

2. Implement Systems to Keep Your Office Running Smoothly

Efficiency is the key to generating income within your dental practice. The best way to keep everything in the office running smoothly is to implement systems that define how every process should be carried out. Everyone should be familiar with these systems, so there is no uncertainty causing delays or disrupting processes.

Talk to your team to find out where the biggest headaches are. The next step is to work together to find solutions to tackle them. Often, a dental coach or consultant can be an invaluable resource in objectively evaluating your systems and processes. A coach or consultant who has worked with other dental practices will have the knowledge and experience to guide you through options that will accommodate everyone’s needs and streamline your processes to ensure efficiency, patient retention, and, ultimately, increased production.

3. Set Accurate Projections and Goals

Every dental business should have a projected income and outflow with definite goals. To succeed in business, you need to know where your money is going, where it’s coming from, and a reasonably accurate idea of how much your income and costs will evolve over time. Keeping a careful eye on the money, which includes regularly comparing cash flow against your projections, is an essential part of working towards financial freedom for dentists.

Cost-tracking is a great first step in understanding where you’re at so you can begin planning.

4. Target Marketing Efforts

To maintain the income generated by your dental practice, it is essential to keep bringing in new patients, as well as maintaining your current patient base. For this reason, you need to make sure you are reaching the right audience with your marketing efforts.

The first step in targeting your marketing campaigns is to understand your current patient base. What demographic groups do they fall into? Which ones are most interested in a new service, such as orthodontics, that your practice can offer? How did they hear about your dental practice? Once you have this information, you can target your marketing campaigns precisely and efficiently.

That said, it will always be more cost-efficient to make sure you’re keeping your current patient base. If you have to choose where to prioritize your budget, look at marketing and initiatives to keep your patient base engaged and returning. 

5. Maintain a Happy Patient Base

It’s worth saying again: it will always be more cost-efficient to keep your current patients happy! Customer satisfaction is essential in any industry. In healthcare, it is particularly important that your patients trust you. Use surveys and ask for feedback regularly to find out whether your patients are happy. Listen to the issues they raise and discuss what you can do to address them. Negative reviews do not have such a bad effect on your reputation if people can see that you always take steps to put things right.

When your patients feel safe in your dentist chair, they will not only keep returning, but also recommend your practice to their friends and family. Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most reliable ways of building your business and securing stable income streams.

6. Offer More Services

A good way to generate more income is to branch out into more comprehensive care. Traditionally, dentists have referred patients to orthodontists for all orthodontic treatments. However, in many general dentist practices today, orthodontics are now taking off as an in-demand specialty. Patients love being able to get their braces in-house, rather than having to be referred to another facility. Getting treatment from their usual dentist can help avoid unnecessary appointments and ensure that treatment is not delayed, which can result in more complex and lengthy treatment being needed.

Synergy Orthodontic Seminars can give you access to some of the best orthodontic courses for general dentists. Our orthodontic courses will make it possible for you to treat the majority of orthodontic cases, rather than having to refer them out to an orthodontist. That’s better for the patient, who can receive treatment in a familiar environment, and better for you as it adds another income stream to your business.

Synergy Orthodontic Seminars can expand your skills into orthodontics.

If you are thinking of adding orthodontics to your general or pediatric dental practice, please get in touch with us today. We can help you take the first steps toward greater financial freedom by helping you gain the orthodontic skills you need to diversify your practice.

Synergy Orthodontic Seminars

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