Starting a Dental Practice
When you get far enough into your dental career to master your clinical skills, you might think it’s time to step out and work independently. However, starting a dental practice involves numerous responsibilities and things to consider. These range from local building and zoning permits to ensuring federal and state laws compliance. It would be best if you made many crucial business decisions to improve your odds of successfully starting your own business. There is a lot involved regarding a dental practice and what any new business might face. Learning some of what’s ahead can guide you to the right start and help ensure that your practice is successful and sustainable.
3 Important Questions to Ask Yourself First
Starting any new business involves asking many questions and getting answers. While there are numerous things to consider, there are three major questions you need to ask yourself to make sure you are ready for this.
1. Do You Enjoy Working Independently?
If you plan to start your dental practice, you must be comfortable working independently and feel confident about it. Working as someone else’s employee in an existing practice likely means you get a salary in exchange for working fixed hours. You may even have evenings and weekends all to yourself, but your responsibilities as a practice owner will involve much more work. Your income will likely be variable, and your schedule freedom will differ from what it once was. The exchange for all this is the satisfaction and rewards that come with establishing a practice the way you want, establishing an environment that patients find welcoming, and eventually earning far more money working for yourself than somebody else. If you are comfortable with working without a net and investing the time and energy necessary to start a dental practice from scratch, then you might be in a good position to try.
2. What’s Your Workload Tolerance?
Even the most prepared and enthusiastic new dental office leaders frequently need to pay more attention to the level of work necessary to start their practice. The amount of work involved with the paperwork is considerable, and you might be exhausted before you even open the doors or schedule your first appointment. Keeping yourself consistently motivated is going to be necessary in the early stages of your new business, and attracting new patients while developing office success can take serious creativity. You need to level with yourself about your overall personal investment and know that you’re at a stage where you can tackle the challenges you’re aiming for.
3. Do You Have Enough Working Capital?
Starting any business usually involves some level of working capital, and a dental practice might involve up to $500,000. That could be cash you have on hand, but you might also need good credit or the collateral to sign a line of credit or qualify for a loan. Money is necessary to get office space, whether you buy or rent. After that, you must invest in supplies and equipment and hire employees. You’ll need to start paying their wages and benefits. At the same time, you advertise for new patients before any income starts. If you can’t corral these resources together or finance the dental office venture, you might want to pause your plans until this is all lined up.
Improving Your Chances of Start-Up Success
Four out of five startups survive the first year, but it’s never a sure thing. Making your practice more likely to be successful than not starts with doing your homework. There were many decades when you could open a practice and be flooded with potential patients, but the modern economy is hypercompetitive in many industries. Exploring the unknowns before stepping into them would be best, which means talking to current practice owners about their own stories and experiences. Learning from those who have already been successful will make you more likely to emulate what they did. They’re likely to tell you about many of the following steps.
Create a Team of Advisers You Trust
As you start your practice, you’ll meet many people and probably already know quite a few in your industry. As you deal with other professionals, start seeking relationships you might use as sources of advice. Starting your dental practice and learning many skills, you’ll wear many hats. However, having a team of contacts you can turn to for information on many different matters is useful. Your list of dental practice business advisers should include several different niches.
Certified Public Accountant
You know your way around the inside of a patient’s mouth, but what about doing the books for your business? A CPA is someone who can help organize tax matters for your business, among many other potential benefits. Many general CPAs would love to work for your business, but working with a specialized CPA with experience in your specific industry is a great idea. Try to find one with a minimum of 25 different dental clients.
Building Contractors
Building contractors is another class of professionals where you can find plenty of general contractors. Still, it’s better to find contractors with experience building dental facilities. Working with one of those will spare you plenty of frustration and cost overruns. Your schedule is also more likely to happen on track. Ask about practices you work at or practices you trust. You can also talk to your equipment specialist.
Dental Equipment Specialist
You might need a dental equipment specialist to source out the technology, tools, and hardware necessary to take care of your patients. Avoid anyone who tries to sell you the same volume of equipment as you can afford with your financing. Instead, find one that can identify your practice’s specific needs and fulfill them. Many dental practices wind up forming long-lasting relationships with equipment specialists they grow to trust. That can benefit your practice as you keep up with updated equipment and keep sourcing the latest technology.
Expanding Your Team
Your team of business advisers will help you make crucial decisions about your practice, and it should grow and change as you need other specialists to guide you. A dental-focused attorney can ensure your practice is on sound footing regarding staying compliant with business licensing in your area while navigating the world of liability insurance. Also, a practice management consultant can instill a culture of efficiency and growth while guiding personnel choices and internal control systems. It would help if you also considered internal or external solutions for IT matters, human resources, and more.
Expand Your Business Acumen
Many professionals who graduate from dental school bemoan how little business curriculum is taught there. However, you can learn about business all the time after you graduate. You can even take courses as an adult student while you’re a working professional. Learn about different business models to identify the practice philosophy you would like your office to utilize. Talk to your contacts about this; you’ll likely discover that you’re far from alone in wishing you knew more about the business side of dental practices. Converse with successful owners and those striving to create their practice.
Create a Business Plan
When your patients come in, formulate a comprehensive treatment plan unique to each individual and their oral healthcare needs. Your business also needs a comprehensive plan, and that would be your business plan. Forming a solid plan for your business is crucial to your practice’s success. Having one doesn’t guarantee a pathway to success, but not having one lowers your odds. Many different resources can provide you with general business plans you can start working with. Still, your state dental association might have versions specific to dental practices that let you dig deeper into your sector.
Set Goals
The business goals you set for your practice can fall into many different categories, as their timelines might be short-, medium-, or long-term durations. What they should all have in common is being measurable and achievable. Any realistic goal can be broken down into actionable steps to schedule and make happen. Objective measurements help you track your progress or lack thereof and know when to adjust or reset expectations. Specific examples for a dental practice include the number of hygiene appointments or how many new patients you recruit each month.
Keep Your Associate Position
This one is basically don’t quit your day job. While your fledgling practice will consume much of your time and energy, it can also cost money. You might still be paying off student loan debt while juggling a car loan and either rent or your home mortgage, and you have to deal with the debt involved with your practice. The numbers can add up fast and might be so big that you only want to look at them sometimes. Keeping an outside associate position several days each week can anchor your cash flow while your practice accumulates new patients. As your new practice starts taking off, you can correspondingly reduce your associate days or hours.
We Help Dental Practices
American Business Credit provides effective financing solutions and the best customer service to businesses looking to harness capital resources. We work with many healthcare and medical practices, including dental locations like yours. Whether you need facility upgrades, equipment, or staffing, we can help you enhance patient care delivery. We have years of knowledge and experience in connecting businesses with financing solutions you can use to fund expansion or just daily expenses. Please complete our no-risk application without affecting your credit score and use our extensive lender network. Some of our loans are available within just one week. Get started by calling us at 800.549.2744 or visiting our application page.
