The healthcare industry exhibits high profitability, and dentistry is no different as a whole. The dental industry has benefited from favorable demographic trends, technological advances and attention given to the importance in oral hygiene over the past five years.
But running a successful practice isn’t easy. It requires a lot of hard work, dedication by each member of your office staff, and maybe a few steps outside your comfort zone.
Nobody knows the dental industry like the professionals who move it forward every day. We’ve tapped into a pool of dental industry specialists with unique perspectives, to ask for their expert advice on four questions:
- What it the single biggest opportunity in dentistry today?
- For a Dentist with a typical practice, what is the one thing that they can do to make the practice more valuable?
- What separates the best operators from the average dental practice owners?
- What is the best advice you’ve ever given or been given?
As the last, in a four-part series of questions, we collected answers from a cross section of industry leaders on the question:
WHAT IS THE SINGLE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY IN DENTISTRY TODAY?
KATE: It’s an exciting time to build a unique, evolving business model. Right now, dentists have an opportunity to create the type of business they desire so that they can be competitive and to stay ahead of the profitability curve. Specifically, even general dentists have the ability to create a multi-specialty practice in his or her single business location.
Kate Willeford is the President of The Willeford Group, CPA, PC, an accountancy and consulting firm focused on helping dental practices shape retirement plans, practice transitions and personal financial plans.
MARGARET: Internal and external marketing – keeping the schedule filled to the daily goal and having a staff member responsible for scheduling and how their positions impacts everyone within the office. The correct use of Demand Force, Smile Reminder or Lighthouse 360 – to advise patients of openings on the schedule or the use of an in-office dental plan for those patients that no longer have dental coverage!
Margaret McIntyre is the founder of M. Mcintyre & Associates, the city’s premier dental management consulting firm.
JOHN: We’re seeing dentists opening more offices. They first get a sound system in place that works and they duplicate it. Once the system is perfected, the doctor can open multiple offices. Henry Schein has the business solutions to support these networks.
John Zengel has been a top producing dental equipment representative at Henry Schein for many of his 38 years of experience. John’s expertise goes beyond the typical in helping to update, open or equip a new dental office.
BRYANT: I think the single biggest opportunity in dentistry today are the valuations that can be achieved with scale. We’ve always been lucky that these practices are worth something—just try and sell an OBGYN or Primary Care practice. But it’s new that the market is paying a premium to dentists that can achieve a scale of 5+ offices.
Bryant Cornett, SIOR, LEED AP is the President at DTSpade. Bryant began working in real estate in Atlanta in 1999 and is one of 250 Office-focused SIORs in the United States.