10 Steps To Starting A New Dental Practice
10 Steps To Starting A New Dental Practice
Before making any final decisions regarding your dental practice, take the time to review your options and obligations thoroughly. These are the essential tasks that you need to complete in order for your dental practice to be a success.
- Make a business plan
- Partner up
- Locate a dental office
- Decide what equipment you need and how much it will cost to buy or lease it
- Calculate your space needs
- Obtain financing
- Sign a lease
- Determine personnel needs
- Develop a dental marketing strategy
- Get necessary permits
These items are discussed in detail, along with the final tasks before opening. Although this doesn't include every factor involved in opening a dental office, the list should give you a clear outline of how to move forward towards your goals.
Do You Want To Open A Practice From Scratch (Startup) Or Purchase An Existing One?
It is often cheaper to purchase an existing office, even if it requires upgrades, than to start a new practice. Although some practices are overpriced, and other cases may be more common than others, this is generally the case.
It's not about the location. You don't want to think "I can buy this practice for $300k or build one for $300k and have it exactly the way I want to! So obviously a startup is better." A startup practice has no patients, so your marketing budget is going to be FAR greater for a longer period of time than an existing practice.
However, if you're passionate about starting your own new dental office from scratch, or you want to open up in an untapped area that doesn't have any practices for sale that fits the criteria I'll outline below, you may still opt for a startup.
Maxident will start by describing my principles for starting a practice. Next, let me discuss guidelines for buying an office.