Increasing Your Profitability

With low profitability, the business of dentistry conflicts with the practice of dentistry. In essence the business doesn’t fairly compensate you and your team for the services you provide. This unbalanced state of affairs creates frustration and a sense of failure.

The solution is simple, though achieving it takes some effort. Reducing overhead by working smarter not harder is the key. Make more money (i.e. increase production) while working fewer hours by emphasizing quality over quantity. Stop filling up time, creating the illusion of being busy, or spending time on marginal patients who are not a fit for your practice or aligned with your philosophy of dentistry. If the treatment is valuable enough to do, then it’s valuable enough to collect on. Never bill patients. Run a zero balance office where no patient leaves the office, or has treatment completed without payment in full. Avoid dependency on insurance, especially managed care plans, and aim to achieve a more fee-for- service practice. You can honor your patients’ insurance by helping them submit their claims for re-imbursement, but you get paid at the time of services rendered. Educate them as to why it’s to their benefit to do it this way. Don’t allow insurance companies to make you the bad guy or dictate how you should care for your patients. Finally, and most importantly, with a well-trained staff that you manage with strong policies and that you’ve provided with systems for them to manage patients and the business in general, overhead will be kept low and profits will be enhanced.

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