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Running a dental practice comes with a fair share of costs that can impact the bottom-line growth of the business. In fact, a report based on data from the American Dental Association and the Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown that despite dental practices having robust revenues, incomes have reduced on account of overheads.
Fortunately, there are many aspects that you can watch out for to keep the costs under control. From buying the right dental equipment and dental office supplies to digitizing patient records, here are some handy ways to help you save money:
Dental supplies, be it dental equipment or dental office supplies make up a significant part of your costs. It is imperative, therefore, that you look for a professional supplier who offers you quality products that stand the test of time. Buying low quality, inexpensive products can lead to cost savings in the short run but can go a long way in causing costly errors.
While ordering dental supplies you also need to ensure that as far as possible you order reusable supplies as disposable supplies can add to the cost. Also while bulk discounts are welcome, do ensure that you do not land up over ordering the supplies. The quantity that you order of course needs to be adequate for your monthly needs, however, stocking your shelves with too many supplies is not a great idea from the cost perspective.
Digitizing patient records is helpful in more ways than one. From the cost perspective, you tend to save on recurring costs such as paper, ink, clerical cost and more, that is required in case you maintain paper records. You also tend to gain in terms of efficiency as well as perception, which are priceless for the business.
There is no denying the fact that every business needs marketing support to grow. Done correctly, however, your dental practice may not need a huge budget. Instead, you could use social media channels and a well-written blog to reach out to prospective customers. A lot of business, when it comes to your dental practice also comes through word-of-mouth of satisfied clients. Video testimonials of clients, is, therefore, one aspect that works exceedingly well without being too cost-intensive. Local SEO is another great way of enhancing business. Above everything, it will help to track your customer acquisition costs on a regular basis. It is important to understand which marketing channels are working best for your practice in some detail. Not only do you need to look at the leads being generated by a particular channel but also its conversion rate and value generated to ascertain its efficacy.
Ever so often, a number of costs in our P&L account do not get the requisite attention. Interest charges are one of them. While paying through a credit card is convenient, do watch out to see if interest charges are adding substantially to your costs.
While it is great to look at the rising revenue graph, delayed collections can be a great disadvantage as it can throw your cash flows off gear. Remember, therefore, to give collections the importance they deserve. Efforts made towards timely collections will prove to be even more effective than a cost-cutting effort.
Ensure that you have the right insurance plans and that you have the plans checked from time to time. With the right insurance company, you will be kept abreast of the depth of coverage and also of any offers or long-term discounts.
While it is prudent to look at areas where you can control costs, a mistake often made is to cut costs in key business areas. Now that can cost a business dearly. In your dental practice, for example, replacing the reassuring voice of a receptionist with an automatic phone answering machine may work in terms of cost but not in terms of customer comfort. Similarly opting for low priced dental tools without looking at its quality can be a big deterrent.
This does not, however, mean that you should not automate wherever possible. If there are tasks such as sending reminders to patients that are consuming a lot of employee time, it will be prudent to automate them so that employee time can be used for more productive tasks and that their ROI is significantly enhanced.
With a little effort, therefore, dental practices can gain significantly from optimizing costs and thereby giving the profit margin the much-needed push. While overhead costs cannot be reduced beyond a point, it is important to remember that even a 1% reduction in overhead is known to boost income by $7,700, for mid-sized practices.
Prime Dental Supply offer a large selection of dental supplies and dental equipment with a great pricing and customer service & also provide quarterly dental promotions and discount dental supplies.
Contact us for more information on how we can help your practice to grow! If you have questions related to our products or service, Please Feel Free to E-mail us at info@primedentalsupply.com or Call us at 800-624-4975.
