The dental industry is more competitive now than ever. As a dentist, you're competing with other practices for patients and likely facing challenges in your schedules. This increased competition means standing out and effectively scaling your dental practice is essential for ensuring your success.You need practical solutions for overcoming the challenges that are keeping your dental practice from scaling efficiently and effectively. Fortunately, we've compiled some tips to scale your practice that will help you survive and thrive in the dental industry, attracting more patients and improving their experience.
Knowing how to scale your dental practice and how to become more profitable is essential for ensuring your success. Follow the tips below to scale your practice.
Your staff should regularly brush up on their skills. To ensure your employees are productive and happy, incorporate continuous dental staff training. By investing in training, you will show your staff you are investing in their careers. Ongoing training can also promote a healthy work environment. Try a weekly or daily morning meeting to keep your team members on track. You may also want to consider modifying your employee onboarding experience.
Focus on the details to ensure your dental practice is successful and scales with your growth. Every interaction between an employee and a patient is an opportunity to offer a positive patient experience. There are various instances in which employees can engage with patients to make sure their experience in the dental office is positive. As soon as a patient enters the room, employees can offer them a smile or put an uncomfortable patient at ease by making a quick joke.How your employees interact with patients depends on how you engage with your team daily. Interact with your team the same way you want them to connect with patients.
To give your dental practice a competitive edge, develop new lines of revenue, and better meet your patients' needs, you can expand your services. Keep in mind that if you expand your services, you want to avoid overextending your staff or making changes that could jeopardize your overall patient experience. Before you make this move, consider how you will carefully allocate the resources needed to make this change successful.
You can increase your dental practice's efficiency by improving productivity. Poor business systems like an unsatisfactory employee onboarding experience, outdated practice management software, and no continuing education plan can lead to low productivity. Consider the tips below to increase efficiency.
If your dental practice has been growing, it may be time to expand your team. Without an adequately staffed office, you won't be able to scale your dental practice. Hiring dental assistants and front desk staff may be key to preventing your current team from becoming overworked. To keep your dental practice operating efficiently, determine whether you are understaffed and need to add more team members to your office.
Your dental practice can become more efficient by implementing more automated and digitized solutions. Keeping up with the latest workforce management technology will keep your practice efficient and make your staff happy. Utilize digital solutions that simplify repetitive administrative tasks and reduce the risk of human error.Rather than fill out a patient registration form in person, a patient can fill out and submit a digital form through your website prior to their first appointment. With digital forms, you can avoid having a crowded waiting room and reduce reception waiting time. You can also automate appointment reminders and follow-up text messages or emails. By replacing this tedious, time-consuming task with automated technology, you will save your staff time and increase your efficiencies.
There are limited hours in the day, so capitalizing on your working hours is essential for increasing productivity and maximizing your bookings. Create policies that establish a fee schedule for missed appointments or 24-hour cancellation notices. You can also create more flexible hours to serve patients later in the evening or early in the morning to optimize your staff's time.
Patients have more options now than ever for dental care. A quick internet search or social media post can help an individual find their new dentist. For your dental practice, this means learning how to attract patients and how to run a successful practice that offers an excellent experience. To attract new patients to your dental practice, you need to identify what makes a dental office unique and how your practice can stand out.
Consider what makes your dental practice stand out from the competition. Can you easily define a few unique characteristics? If not, you may want to work on making your practice more unique or reviewing the best parts of your practice that you can start highlighting in your marketing efforts. If you have state-of-the-art imaging equipment, for example, you can market this to show you are investing in your patient care. For inspiration, look at your competition and determine whether you can identify their top unique characteristics.
If you have not yet established an online presence, now is the time. Your practice's branding and voice should be consistent across all your social media channels so you stay recognizable. Identify your unique selling proposition, then make sure your website is easy to navigate and user-friendly. Your website should include patient reviews, as these are powerful digital marketing resources.
One of the most effective ways to attract new patients is by asking for referrals. You can use a few methods to encourage or incentivize patient referrals. After an appointment, send an email asking your patient about their experience and implore them to provide a referral if their visit was positive. You can provide referral cards patients can give to friends and family and even establish a referral contest in which each referral increases the patient's chances of winning a prize.
Owning a dental practice involves constantly managing patient satisfaction. However, keeping the patient experience at your dental office excellent while also scaling your practice can be overwhelming, which is why we have listed some tips below.
Make communication between your dental office and your patients as convenient as possible. For example, allow patients to schedule an appointment on your website or via text message. Patients are much more likely to read their texts than their emails and will perceive the communication as much more personal, helping you to build your relationship with them.You can also offer different payment methods like cash, check, card, or installment payments. Money is a concern for many patients, so offering various payment options increases convenience and can make the costs of dental care more manageable for them.
Lead by example and ensure your dental practice's actions are guided by patient-centric values. Make sure your entire team shares the same values associated with workplace etiquette and patient interaction. When you prioritize your patients, you can improve their experience.
Establish a happy, healthy office culture that impacts the patient experience. As a dental practice owner, your mission is to provide the best patient care and employee experience possible. Employees want to enjoy their workspace, look forward to coming to work each day, and be proud of their work. Facilitating this will give your staff a feeling of belonging, which is essential for reducing employee turnover.Take a few steps to develop a vibrant culture, such as holding regular team-building exercises or outings and scheduling one-on-one meetings with key team members to inspire them through leadership and guide them toward their career goals.
At Method Procurement, we know how to make your dental practice stand out. Since being founded by a group of technology and dental industry veterans, we have been partnering with dentists like you to build better dental practices. We offer inventory management software for dental service organizations (DSOs) and dental practices that results from our combined passions for software and dentistry. Our solution is tailored to the unique challenges dental practices face every day.We understand how dental procurement works and deliver the expertise you can rely on. Request a personalized demo from Method Procurement that suits your dental practice's needs.
