New Dental Office

Do I Have A Business Plan?

The only way to be successful with a new venture is to create a roadmap. A business plan is a template that helps entrepreneurs to navigate the challenges associated with their venture. Before you can get started, you need to know how you intend to tackle the problems you will face.

Your plan should include details of:

• Your budget
• Services you intend to offer
• Your fees for each service
• Payment policies
• Which insurance plans you will accept
• Who your competitors are
• Marketing strategies and plans

Your plan will make it easier for you to achieve your goals and can also help you attract financing if you need it.

Get Trained To Be A Great Business Owner

You are officially an owner of a business when you open or buy a dental practice. Although you are a dentist and provide healthcare services, it is still considered a business. And I guarantee you that 90% of the stress you'll experience is related to the business side of things and not the clinical side.

This is what I will be focusing on in my article. You need to know how to organize and manage your practice. These include personnel, finance, marketing, legal issues and statistical analysis. It requires some training, for you and your team. Our clients always say the exact same thing to me: "I wish we had done this training before opening our first office." Then we never would have had all those problems in the first place!"

To learn more about Maxident, give us a shout or complete the Contact Us form.

You can also sign up to our online platform www.maxidentsoftware.com if you are looking for a jump start. It gives you unlimited access to our entire course library, which provides systems you need for every aspect of your practice, including training your employees, and new content is added every month. If you are opening a dental practice, it is a simple decision.

All this makes you wonder if maybe it's time to buy an established practice. Here are my recommendations:

Get all-in on video marketing

There is one fact above all others that you need to know to attract new patients - Video rules. Consumers can't get enough video online. Every day, thousands of people watch videos of dentists telling their stories. If you don't create videos of your patients you might be missing out.

Here are some ways you can leverage video for your dental office:

• Video welcome to website: Make a video welcoming a visitor to your site. Introduce the facility, the staff and begin to establish a rapport. Use the video to let them see your human side.
• Physician profile videos: Let new patients build confidence in the dentists by sharing a their profile in video form. Patients will gain confidence in the dentist and their abilities, and the video will build trust in the staff.
• Video reviews from patients: Give your patients the opportunity to review their experience before they leave. Video reviews are easy to watch for prospective patients, create a more nuanced view of the practice than a simple written review.
• Procedure and treatment videos: Walk a viewer through what an actual procedure could look like. How does it look in the room? What is the role of each member? What happens during the procedure. Show off your expertise.
• Educational videos: Take your blog content and turn them into videos. Educational videos perform exceptionally well in search and patients will appreciate the long form content.

Complete the Starting A New Dentist Practice Checklist

These are the most crucial decisions you need to make in opening a dental office. However, they may not always be completed in the order presented. You might have to delay financing approval by waiting for certain steps.

Keep in mind that nothing should be overlooked. There is no such thing as too much information when opening a new business.

Once you have plotted out and executed the above 10 steps, you can complete your final pre-opening checklist, which includes some smaller details and many final pre-opening tasks. Keep reading to find a refined checklist with all of the smaller steps in between, as well as the final pre-opening tasks.

Keep Your Team And Patients Needs In Mind

As you choose a location, keep the flow of patients and team members in mind. Do you desire a location on the first floor where patients have direct access from your garage? Are you looking for easy-to-navigate corridors? By making the location easy to navigate and the flow from the waiting room to the exam room to check out simple, your team will be able to do a better job.

Your team won't have to walk long distances just to get supplies or to bring patients. If your office has good ergonomics and flow, it will be easier for them to work efficiently. To answer these questions, you will need to understand how your basic workflow will go.

Putting Dental Marketing Ideas Into Action

We've given you a lot of great information on how to market your dental practice and grow. Executing on a digital marketing strategy isn't easy. It takes knowledge, timing, luck, and consistency. Many dentists make the mistake of trying it for a month and then giving up because they don't see the right results.

The mistake that is easy to make is not understanding the time commitment and expertise required to perform at a very high level in digital marketing.

If you don't have a significant amount of time to dedicate to your marketing, you'll need to designate some to do it for you or hire a professional dental marketing firm.

The best dental marketing companies will be able to take the pressure off of marketing, and make it fun for the entire team. After all, they didn't teach digital marketing in dental school.

Do you have space? Layout requirements?

Before beginning your search for office space, determine how much actual square footage you need. What size space are you looking for to house your reception, exam, waiting area and bathroom? Will you also need an x-ray room, storage space, and a break room? These are things to figure out before you start looking for an office.

Depending on your preferences, you may also want to include a private office, a consultation room, or even a sterilization area. Although the exact number of rooms and types will differ from practice to practice, it is a good idea research similar layouts so that you can start to imagine how your office might look.

Once you have envisioned your perfect practice layout (keeping things on the conservative side, unless you're in the position to build a palace), make a list of the number of rooms you need, and come up with approximate square footage for each room. When you total the figures, you will have a general idea of how much space you require.

You want to attract the highest quality patients possible with the smallest marketing budget.

Following these tips can help - although in many cases you won't be able to get lucky with every single one of them, so there can be some flexibility if necessary:

• Don't open up in an oversaturated area (i.e. There are 10 dentists in the same area.
• Visibility is important. Putting it in an office building where there is no foot traffic, passersby can't see it, etc., makes life more difficult. It'd be ideal to place it in an area where it is easily visible from busy roads, pedestrians can see it, or next to a landmark everyone knows about (such as large supermarkets, restaurants, Home Depot, Starbucks etc.). Strip mall locations are usually easier than office buildings.
• Make sure you have visible signage. You may not be able to clearly show your logo and that you are a dentist in certain areas or cities. Small lettering on a window or a tiny black-and-white rectangle on a sign with 20 other businesses isn't good enough.
• Research the demographics. Do your homework here. Look at things like income level, family size, homeowners vs renters, etc.
• Online bill pay
• Online prescription renewal
• Instant messaging capabilities (Live Chat)
• Profiles of each dentist
• Videos, videos, and more videos
• Content that helps, and informs your patients to keep their mouths healthy

When you put these features into your web design you will have made great progress towards improving your ability to attract new patients. You don't just need to focus on the features. It's also necessary to address technical issues.

• Website speed - Website visitors have zero patience. If a page loads slow they leave and they won't come back. An impression will have been made, and it's not a good one. Three seconds are allotted for pages to load before users hit the Back button.
• Website security - Security is a no brainer in the healthcare space. If your website is not secure, you are exposing the practice to a major future headache.
• Mobile-friendly web design is a must - 80 per cent of patients search on smartphones for new medical facilities. Mobile search web design is a must. Mobile search web design is a must for new patients.
• Correctly coded for SEO. The most effective dentist websites have been properly coded to provide SEO value. Because they are properly set up for SEO, these websites can be found easier.

Wordpress is an extremely popular CMS used by dentists. However, it's not open-source and has many technical issues that we find lacking. This is why we prefer to build dentist websites on the HubSpot CMS. HubSpot CMS can't be beat for safety, security and speed.

Find out the Area's Personal and Professional Desirability

What is the economic potential of the area and the desirability of another dental practice? Is the area you are considering a fit for your goals as a dentist? Does the region feel like a place you want to live and raise a family? Also, consider professional desirability. Is it easy to practice in that region, and would you have access to continuing education and personnel to help run your practice?

Before you open a dental office, make sure that you are happy to settle down in the area. You will need to invest a lot of money and time into this endeavor.

Match Your Personality Needs

You will not be able to do everything on your own, so you should start thinking about your staffing needs sooner rather than later. You will still need to employ a secretary, billing specialist, or manager, even if another dentist is not needed immediately. You may not be able to hire a full-time IT person, but you should look for a contractor to have on call when the need arises.

Now you can decide on how many employees you want to run your dental practice. It can be difficult to find employees for your dental practice. Plan ahead and you will have success.

Then, determine an average salary for each position. To create your personal budget, you should first know the average salary in your region. This information goes into your final business plan and helps you determine your financial projections.

As it gets closer to the time when you will open your office, you can start to put your personnel plan into place and hire the staff you need.

First things first - Make lots of notes

Before you start putting too much thought into each of these items, you should start taking notes and keep them in a centralized place. Keep organized with a notebook that you have set aside only for notes on opening your practice. To keep your thoughts organized, you can use an app or a Google Doc.

It is easy to overlook one or two steps when all the information is in your head. Use a word processing program to jot down your step-by-step plan and any additional thoughts that you think might be important down the road.

Let's get started on your "Starting a New Dental Practice" checklist. You must prepare before you start a business. You should take the time to research all options available for every item listed below.

Some of the action items below involve financial planning. You should conduct thorough research to ensure that your financial plan includes all relevant information. These include your rent, salary, equipment, licensing fees and website creation costs.

Keep in mind that your progress through these steps may be fluid and non-linear. You may complete them out of order. It is possible to start one step, but need to put it aside for a time before you return to it later. You might also complete some of these steps concurrently. You will be prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead if you complete all the steps.

Existing Dental Practices that Want to Grow

Many newly developed dental offices want to expand but have difficulty attracting enough patients each month to reach their goals. Their current digital marketing or website isn't performing as well as their competitors. Their goal is to increase their revenue to at least one to two million dollars. Potentially, they may be open to the idea of adding associates. These people recognize the importance of being available online for anyone searching and that this is necessary to bring in 20-50 more patients each month.

To fix the issues and start achieving satisfactory results, these practices should look at spending 5-10% of the gross revenue they are aiming for. If the SEO program is sustainable and produces long-lasting, effective results, it will take 6-12 months for traction. It's often important to redesign your site to modern standards that will improve your SEO and the promotion and positioning of your practice. It's important to make use of Google Pay Per Click Ads to get new patients as quickly and efficiently as possible while waiting for the SEO results.

You can also break down the revenue growth you'd like to see in your practice. If you want to grow your practice by $120,000 in revenue for the year, you'll need to acquire 120 new patients who bring in $1000 per year. That means 10 extra new patients per month. An average new patient costs between $100 and $300. If you want 10 extra new patients per month, be prepared to spend an additional $1000 to $3000 to acquire them. Dental practice managers assume they can spend only a few hundred dollars per month in order to acquire 10 additional patients. This would give them a 500% return on investment. Although it's common knowledge, you must spend money in order to make money. The long-term payoff is worth it.

Artificial Intelligence Aids In Diagnostics

Dentistry Today reports that AI tools have become more reliable than dentists at diagnosing decay in teeth from peripheral and bitewing radiographs. This is because AI algorithms use billions upon billions of data points in order to identify specific conditions.

Lappage says that AI can be used to discover abnormal structures and suggest treatments. Dentists are still human at the end of it all. Artificial intelligence acts as an additional pair of eyes that validates their findings.

Lappage says privacy issues could be a problem. The biggest challenge with AI is the need to feed it real patient data. A lot of healthcare AI applications struggle with complete de-identification of data: By reinserting data, it may be possible to re-identify people. Practices need to make sure people can't be identified in AI tools."

Still, Lappage sees an expanding use case for AI in both clinical decision-making and dental education. These tools, which are based on anonymized dental data can improve accuracy in clinical treatment plans and create templates that students can use for dental treatment analysis.

News

GUIDELINES TO PROVIDING DENTAL CARE IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

• Before accurate testing can be done, pre-screen all patients for COVID-19 risks factors.
• Telephone triage, as well as other remote methods to resolve specific patient issues, can reduce the need for in-person visits.
• Schedule patients ensuring that sufficient time is allocated for appropriate disinfection between patients as recommended in the ADA toolkit.
• Patients should come alone for appointments (except where necessary for interpreters, guardians of minors, and others needing assistance).
• When patients arrive at their appointment, take a note of the temperature.
• Dentists should secure COVID-19 test reports where available for patients and staff.
• Every staff member should take their temperature upon arrival at work. A record must also be kept at the dentist.
• Staff members who report or exhibit any COVID-19 symptoms should self-quarantine and contact their primary care physician immediately and follow their advice. If found to be positive, the dental office should follow the Ohio Department of Health protocol.
• Every dental staff must use the appropriate PPE according to the procedures performed. This includes masks, liquid-resistant gowns, and hair covers if necessary.
• Dental providers should use high volume evacuators and isolation strategies including rubber dams when appropriate to limit exposure to aerosols.
• It is recommended that patients use a pre-procedure mouth rinse immediately before beginning a procedure
• All surfaces must be disinfected between patients in accordance with the ADA guidelines.
• Special care should be taken for patients with higher risk (pre-existing comorbidities) or immunocompromised individuals.
• It is encouraged for dentists to collaborate with the local health departments regarding reporting and screening requirements.
• These guidelines will continue to be updated as needed.

Links:

https://www.ada.org/en

https://success.ada.org/~/media/CPS/Files/COVID/ADA_Interim_Mask_and_Face_Shield_Guidelines.pdf?_ga=2.85786970.292816939.1588022482-293093398.1556047110

https://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/infectioncontrol/faqs/personal-protective-equipment.html

Innovative Technology for Dental Care

Maxident uses the latest technology to diagnose and treat your problems. We use non-invasive, painless equipment to instantly produce high-resolution dental images that allow our dentist to identify problems such as tooth decay, worn enamel, gum disease, or micro-fractures that would normally remain undetectable and untreated.

Offer A Membership Plan

Your office can solve the problem of insurance by offering a membership program that allows patients to stay on the schedule, even though they would normally have had to cancel due lack of insurance. Patients feel they can't come to the dentist if they don't have insurance and assume there's no way they could afford out-of-pocket costs for dental work. Patients can join the membership program to see how much they can afford monthly for the services they require. This allows them the freedom and security of not having to worry about expensive appointments.

Marketing

• Practice website
• Digital listing of practice info wherever applicable
• Review site pages
• Social media pages
• Direct mail
• Logo
• Branded Merchandise

Countdown To Grand Opening Checklist

Are you unsure when to complete each of these tasks? This timeline shows when each step should be completed. It also includes the smaller tasks that you can complete between and any final tasks before the Grand Opening.

10--12 Months before Opening - Steps 1 & 3

• Develop your practice philosophy and detailed business plan.
• Create a budget to determine the major expenses.
• Decide if you want a partner.
• A practice broker is available for hire.
• Choose a broad area to focus your practice.
• Discuss potential areas with your broker.

7-9 Months Before Opening - Steps 4-5

• Determine your exact space and layout needs.
• Narrow your site search down to 1-3 locations.
• For any remodeling project, get estimates from contractors.
• Make a list with equipment that you need and any major expenses.
• Start reviewing software systems for your practice.
• Evaluate different lending institutions.
• Put together a preliminary loan package with your lender.
• Get bids on leasehold improvements from contractors.

Planning For Success

Expert and trustworthy advisors can be a key part of your success. When you need the expertise of professionals, from accounting help to marketing, choose wisely. After all, the success of your business may ultimately be on the line.

SEO Optimization for Your Website and Blog Pages

If you've not spent much time working on the back end of a website, SEO can feel a bit like voodoo. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of editing your websites code and content so the search engines can read it better. An SEO optimized website will show up higher in the search results and generate far more new patient leads than a website that is not optimized.

SEO is complicated because the Google algorithm is complex. This complex algorithm makes them very good at reading websites and creating search listings.

Learn about your geography

The speed at which you build is affected by your geography. If you live in a place with a cold winter, you may not be able to dig during the winter months. Construction may be slower if there is a lot of rain.

Facebook Ads

Future Facebook ads will be greatly influenced by your blog content. In fact, Facebook Ads for dentists is one of the most affordable ways to reach a large audience of potential new patients. By promoting your blog content in an ad you show your industry expertise and your ability to build a healthy, holistic partnership with patients.