How To Achieve Success In Your Dental Practice

Success is the result of a person’s hard work, discipline, and perseverance. For aspiring dentists, they have to go through the step-by-step processes such as establishing their own dental practice. It is like starting a new professional business. The sad truth is that there are several dentists go through this process without fully understanding the significant roles and responsibilities to thrive. In other words, they overlook the most crucial aspects they need to set a strong foundation for a long-lasting success. They need to exert a lot of effort and time even before they face new patients in their daily encounters. The key ingredients are right team and right resources to develop a concrete plan.

Create a Great Team Of Experts

In these modern years, dentists have various resources used to lower the chances of committing mistakes and dentistshorten their learning curve. As an aspiring dentist, you should be brave enough to consider all these helpful resources. The first thing to do is to research and develop a practice start-up team that has the necessary insights, expertise, and experience in this industry. The team can be composed of businesses and individuals who will guide you in making wise decisions and practical choices. Moreover, you can consider including a transition coach who can manage changes on your behalf. He can help and can be as your lender, equipment specialist, and finance company.

On the other hand, you should not underestimate the power of a local practitioner. He can act as your mentor. He can give effective pieces of advice regarding the actions you take during the process of building your dental practice. Make sure that every member of the squad performs his responsibilities within the department.

Create a Good Business Plan for Your Lenders

business-planAfter gathering your team, let them work together. At the end of the day, you should come up with great insights that can contribute to the development of a strategic business plan. You do not have to provide sets of formula. You can stick to a simple approach despite the perceptions of having a difficult and complex project. Consider using this acronym: C.R.E.P.T which stands for Capacity, Revenue, Expense management, Patient service, and Team.

These are the 5 engines present in dental practices. Here are further explanations of each concept to let you understand each:

The first letter “C” means the capacity of the facility. Ask yourself how many treatment rooms you can establish, the number of hours of daily operation, how you can manage cancellations, and how to retain patients.

Next, “R” is for revenue which focuses on the rates per hour, collection success, new patient growth, and a number of patients. You must consider the financial policies to see what must be expected from your dental practice.

“E” is all about expense management. This stands for predicting the break-even point. Consider this dental practice engine to obtain a healthy flow of cash to easily pay your debts and bills.

The fourth engine “P” stands for patient service. It tells about the demography where you are going to serve and periodontal programs to implement prior to hiring your hygienist. This aspect also covers the type of technology you want to use.

Lastly, “T” refers to the team. This is simply your team of expert dental professionals. How are you going to look for your prospects? Enlist the types of personalities you must see in each candidate to help you in the dental practice you are trying to build.

When creating a business plan or considering cash flow projects and financial analysis, you should think about every aspect that they are involved.

Basically, you will need sufficient budget and a 3-year cash projection for your startup business. Make sure you start your vision and goals clearly. Your research should include demographics, market potential, equipment costs, and locations.

Leadership Skill

As the dentist, you are a leader of your dental practice. You set the vision, pace, tone, and culture for your entire team. Every decision you make and action you take reflects the outcome of your project. Although you have brilliant skills in this field, you should always ask for guidance or suggestions regarding your how you manage the business. Fortunately, leadership skills can be learned.

Begin with understanding and envisioning what type of leader you will be. Know your weaknesses and strengths. Constantly look for reliable resources and utilize them accordingly. As a dentist, you have to discover a vast range of learning opportunities to be a good leader. Attend various courses and training related to leadership development. Consult a leadership coach and ask about everything being a good leader.

Keep Written Records of Your Goals

As part of developing your leadership skills, you should make it a habit to create a set of goals towards your dental practice. Unfortunately, many dental practitioners tend to overlook this vital aspect. What makes it extremely important is that it serves as the starting point of a successful and predictable practice. Your future actions and decisions will be based on the list of goals you want to achieve. The secret is to spend time with yourself and reflect. There are some tough questions you can ask yourself to know what you really want. Who do you want to serve? How much is your target earnings? You have to be specific.

goal-setting

This is a critical step, so you must be very careful. Do not hurry. Your initial decisions will affect the condition of your practice in the years to come. To make your plans more effective, write everything that comes into your mind. For fee-for-service management, establish your dental practice in a community with patients who can help you attain the goals.

Work with High-Performing Professionals

You will not ever make it without the presence and guidance of your high-performing team. In fact, about 85 percent of the successful dental practices have been brought by a good and its special ability to meet and provide the needs of the patients. Only 15 percent is left for the technical ability of the dentist. Do not forget to utilize industry benchmarks with helpful resources. You can find them online or from a group or an individual. See to it that they are experts in personnel policies and labor laws for the stats.

There are 3 characteristics you need to when interviewing and recruiting potential employees. These include experience in their specific roles and duties, passion to communicate with everyone, and assessment of their attitude and of course, the outlook in life.

Work with Effective, Efficient Revenue Drivers

Consider the effects of having an efficient revenue driver to help you attract more potential patients. Forget about what type of facility you have at the moment. You should not be conscious of how excellent you are in clinical performance. If you aim to drive in active patients, you must be willing to exert 50 to 60 percent of your energy. At the same time, you should be ready to spend 5 to 7 percent of your first three years of collections in both external and internal marketing. Furthermore, your financial policies will play a crucial role in this step.

marketing-blastIf you want to ensure that you are doing it right, just stick to dentistry and keep yourself away from any banking business. In other words, there will be no accounts receivable, particularly when establishing your new dental practice. Your cash flow will completely affect your success to meet payroll on time. It is advised to seek a financing partner who will serve as your advocate in optimizing all your resources. He is responsible for protecting you from financial risks such as non-paying patients. The new patient flow is another essential revenue driver. You should aim to have at least 50 new patients in each month to achieve optimal growth.

Most importantly, careful planning is of great significance in every aspect of your new dental practice. Failure in your plans means failure of your entire business. As a startup business, you must win over the challenges you face along the way. Prepare yourself for the future endeavors by using the five engines mentioned earlier. There is also a lot of available system software available. Visit https://www.cda-adc.ca/en/services/cdanet/certified_vendors.asp to read more on that. Every metric in each practice engine needs to be set up as soon as you develop a team of experts. Then, you are ready to go. System and structured methods and organized approach will be highly essential in the overall management of your startup dental care business.

In the next part of this series, you are going to learn about the first crucial years of your practice. It will cover patient experience and understanding marketing.

Starting a Professional Business Practice in Canada

Critical Business Decisions to Consider

Some Do’s and Don’ts

If you are anything like many people in Canada, you have probably considered being your own boss. You should keep in mind that this is one of those things that are much easier said than done. Before you get started, make sure that you consider each of the following points.

DO make sure that this is something you are ready to give all of your time and energy. Some people believe professional business decisionsthat being a business owner is all about making money and not having to listen to others, but there is far more to it than that. There will be long hours, mishaps and plenty of blood, sweat and tears. If you are not prepared to invest all of that, it means you are probably not equipped to run a business.

DON’T forget to research more about paying business taxes. There are some people who start companies and they are immediately overwhelmed by the amount of money they owe in taxes. Getting in touch with a financial analyst will ensure that you are clear about what your responsibilities are.

business blueprintDO create a solid business plan. Even if you have the best ideas in the world, having a terrible plan is just as bad as not having one at all. You need to sit down and create a checklist of all of the things that need to be done, why they are important and the order in which they should be completed. This will prevent you from forgetting any crucial steps along the way. Here’s a business plan template you can use.

DON’T forget to apply for federal funding. This applies to people who are interested in starting small businesses. There are programs in place that can be of assistance to you, but they are not going to hunt you down in order to fill your wallet. It is your duty to do your homework and figure out what steps will be needed to secure financing.

DO make it a point to create a solid privacy policy. This may seem like the furthest thing from your mind in the beginning, but it shows people that you are running a business that can be trusted. Privacy and security breaches are so common these days that it makes it hard for companies to establish a trusting relationship with consumers. This will be your first step toward creating this bond.

DON’T forget to obtain a license. Depending on the nature of the company you are establishing, it may be necessary for you to apply for permits and/or licenses. Failing to do so could land you in legal hot water. DO not make the mistake of ignoring this piece of advice since the future of your business weighs heavily on this.

DO go online to register for a Canadian business number. The great thing about starting a company in this day and age is the fact that everything is much more convenient. You can sit in the comforts of your own home or office and do all of the tasks you once had to stand in long lines to complete. In order to ensure you are properly registered in your chosen province and there is a way to easily identify you for tax purposes, you will need to have one of these numbers assigned to you.

As you can probably tell, there is plenty of work that goes into starting a new business. If this is a goal of yours, it will be a long road to the end. With that said, make sure that you remember each of these points while you are trying to get things off the ground.