How to Reduce the Overhead Cost of Your Dental Practice
Every six months about half of America’s adult population goes to the dentist. We’ve seen that number crawl upwards over the years as more people become increasingly aware of the importance dental hygiene plays in their overall health.
With demand for dentistry on the rise, you’d think that private dental practice owners would have an easy time opening an office and turning a profit, right? As it turns out, given the costs associated with running a dental practice, staying in the green can be harder than meets the eye.
If you own a dental practice and are looking for tips on how you can slash expenses and make profits, keep reading. Below, our team shares five tips that can make your business run better.
1. Audit Your Supply Costs
Your dentist supply list could be eating up well over 20% of your revenue. Fortunately, dental supply costs are also among the most simple things to cut back on.
Our advice is to go through the supplies you use regularly. This can be anything from gloves to souvenir toothbrushes. With your itemized list in place, try finding a competing product that you can get for cheaper.
You may find that by shaving a small percentage off of each of your supplies costs, you can walk away with thousands of additional dollars by year’s end.
2. Opt for Organic Marketing
Marketing is a costly necessity in today’s increasingly crowded dental space. If you’re spending hundreds of dollars each month on PPC, local advertising and more, consider switching to organic marketing.
Organic marketing can be executed by prompting customers to spread the word about your practice. You can also tackle organic marketing by learning about search engine optimization and tuning up your website accordingly.
3. Reward Loyalty
Customer acquisition costs are a constant expense that dental practices incur during the operating year. By enticing your customers to come back time and again, you can reduce your acquisition expenditures and invest that money back in your business.
Offering discounts for repeat services or gift cards for loyalty are examples of ways you can entice repeat business.
4. Join a Buying Group
If you’re a small dental practice it can be hard to negotiate low costs on larger pieces of dental equipment. By pooling together with other local dentists, you can flex more buying power, purchase in larger quantities and get bulk-buy deals from manufactures.
5. Consider Switching Dental Labs
Dental labs can easily cost you $.10 on every dollar you make in revenue. You can slash that number almost in half by moving away from the small, local dental lab you work with and instead, doing business with a national lab.
National dental labs are cropping up all across the country and tend to offer much better per-unit rates than you can get regionally.
Maximize Your Dental Practice by Slashing Your Operating Expenses Today
Your dental practice likely lives and dies by how much you spend on operating costs. By taking small steps like the ones we’ve outlined above, you could save 10% or more on your costs which will make your practice more viable for years to come.
If you’re looking for additional cost-cutting inspiration, we welcome you to read more of the business content our team has up on our blog!
