Business management for dentists is as important as patient care.
Like every business, a dental practice needs strategic planning, measurable results, and an effective team committed to both.
Until dental schools can revamp their curriculum to better prepare students for the business side of dentistry, it’s imperative for dentists to seek out information about “non-dental” areas such as business and leadership.
After spending more than seven years working closely with professionals in the dental industry, I have acknowledged that dentists should primarily focus on three sound business fundamentals: education, people, and processes.
Let’s explore each of these key factors and see how they contribute to your practice's success.
Table of contents:
1. Education
Young practitioners and top-performing dentists should not only expose themselves to clinical education and training courses, but also to resources that enable them to have a good grasp of the business skills they need to run a successful practice.
Instead of working at a slower pace due to a lack of business knowledge, all dentists should have easy access to education that helps them develop systems and read practice management reports.
As a dentist, becoming a self-taught entrepreneur is possible - as long as you create a learning environment that is fun and rewarding.
However, the quick and easy way to transition from dentist to dental entrepreneur is by having someone you trust by your side. Someone who can show you the ropes and help you implement the right systems to streamline your practice for tangible results.
There are many dental business coaching programs out there (The Savvy Dentist created by Dr Jesse Green is just one of many examples).
These programs can immensely benefit your practice by providing the right education and guidance on how to develop financial intelligence and create high-performance teams.
The expertise of a dental business coach will enable you to quickly understand the key drivers of your business and remove any obstacles to profitability and success.
Long story short, here’s my first tip for running a successful practice: invest in education and high-quality coaching to turn your dental practice into a successful business.
2. People
Along with essential business skills, people are another key critical success factor for a dental practice.
There are a handful of reasons why you may want to invest in your staff.
Investing in employees means investing in the future of your dental practice.
When you put an emphasis on professional growth and development and foster an employee-focused workplace, your staff members feel happier and become more productive.
What they produce for your dental practice is higher quality as a result.
As dentistry is a high-stress career with high rates of anxiety, it is also a good idea to invest in mental health training workshops and provide your team with the right tools to reduce stress and communicate authentically.
The workshops provided by the team at BeingTogether are only one example of how workplace mentoring is supporting dental practices in helping staff members with their mental health.
Last but not least, investing in staff development also creates opportunities for you to reduce employee turnover - which is critical to your practice’s bottom line, as the cost of replacing staff members can be at least double the price of their salaries.
So here’s tip no 2: make the investment in your staff now, and you’ll reap the rewards in the future.
3. Processes
Processes reflect how fast and efficient operations are in a dental practice. They are the third and last factor that influences the success of a dental practice.
Effective processes are extremely important as they contribute to improving overall operations. This, in turn, helps you minimise expenditures, pinpoint operational deficiencies, improve workflows, and, ultimately, increase productivity and profitability.
This is because automating admin tasks enables your team to spend more time on what matters most - that is, focusing on delivering an outstanding experience to patients.
Luckily, there are several Australian cloud-based systems that can be used to simplify a myriad of processes.
For example, we have created Invedent to help dental practices streamline manual, time-consuming processes for ordering, receiving, and managing stock.
However, you should also consider highly-secured, cloud-based platforms for practice management, such as LevelUp and Principle.
Level Up is an Australian cloud platform that practices can benefit from. It’s an online software for building your own systems and processes in a way that’s easily trainable. It brings structure to the training process for new hires and makes staff onboarding and upskilling both reliable and scalable.
At the same time, Principle is great for practice management. It is a digital platform that comes with advanced features designed for customer service, patient retention, treatment planning, and staff accountability.
No matter what system you think is right for your dental business, modern technology is sure to help you experience practice management at its best.
Finally yet importantly, here’s tip no 3 for running a profitable practice: embrace technology to streamline processes and grow your dental business while successfully managing your staff.
Conclusion: While you may find it difficult to think of yourself as an entrepreneur, if you run a dental business and manage a team, that’s exactly what you are.
Stay on top of these 3 major areas, and you’ll surely become a formidable business leader able to build a successful, profitable, and competitive dental practice.
Do you have any questions for us? Contact Invedent today to learn more and see how our dental ordering and stock management system can help you stay on top of your inventory and reduce your practice’s administrative burden.
