Quite possibly the largest investment of your life will be made on a new office and you want to do it right. There is a lot on the line!
First, before considering the best dental demographics for your practice, see if any of these questions have rattled around in your mind:
1.) Do you want the corner lot?
2.) Is that building the right size?
3.) What IS the right size?
4.) Do you need a big sign?
5.) Can I even have a sign in that location?
6.) Why do they say a concrete floor will increase the price?
7.) How close to the highway should you be?
8.) Is being located in your home community a good thing or a bad thing?
9.) Are there enough patients in that area?
10.) Are there too many dentists in that area?
11.) How many years can you safely invest into the space before you’re likely to outgrow it?
12.) What is the family household income level in that area? Is it too high or too low?
13.) What population level is too high or too low?
14.) What other dental demographics should be considered?
Those are 14 vital questions that need to be discussed in your planning stages and thereare proven ways to approach each of these. Some have exhaustingly long answers and others are a little simpler, but my hope with posting those 14 questions is to get your mind in a place of seeing a perspective in dental demographics that many miss.
The location of your new practice deserves the best chances of success and doing the right research up front will help you reach that level.
But here is the focus of this article:
Dental Demographics; 3 More Ways to Choose the Best Location
1.) DEMOGRAPHICS:
Demographics are crucial to the success of your new dental practice. With a strong understanding of the demographics information, you will have confidence in your choiceand have higher new patient flow.
We use a 12 point checklist for dental demographics reports but the mostimportant is the Patient to Doctor ratio. If you can determine you have at least a 2000:1 ratio, you will be well positioned.
For more detailed information on the 12 Point Checklist or other demographics concerns, download our Free Dentist’s Awareness Guide to Choosing the Right Location here:www.HowToOpenADentalOffice.com
2.) LEGAL:
One of the easiest and overlooked items in determining your best dental demographics is your current non-compete contract.
This is overlooked at the wrong time. The majority of associates will examine their non-compete (assuming its accessible) WHILE they’re working for the senior doctor, close to the time they want to build their own practice.
However, ideally, I like to suggest first-year associates to strategicallyonly consider associateship positions 10+ miles from their ideal location.
For example, if you want to build in Cherry Hill, NJ, I might suggest taking an associateship in Philadelphia for a few years. But if you’re already working in an associateship position, you need to make sure you fully understand your non-compete clause in your employment contract. Not doing this the right way could be crushing and it’s happened many times to the loss of the associate.
3.) OTHER START UPS:
There have been times when I’m visiting one of the local boroughs and I notice 3 or more new dental practices being built at the same time!
While that’s exciting for the advancement of dentistry and the availability of care for patients, it’s not so exciting for those 3 practice owners.
Even if you’re not completely concerned about this topic, it would be good for you to know that most new dental practice owners will send out large volumes of marketing. For better or for worse, the “mature” practices rarely send out marketing pieces like postcards and mailers which leaves a great opportunity for a new practiceIF it’s the only start-up in that area.
But if multiple practices are starting up simultaneously, local potential patients could feel bombarded by dental marketing and reach a point where they won’t respond to dental ads for treatment beyond emergencies.
It’s called the marketing saturation point.
The easiest way to make sure this doesn’t happen to you is to work closely with a “Practice Project Team” who has a deep understanding of these issues. Their knowledge and connections will have the inside track on the the current dental demographics and the future plans for your local dental community.
Another possible resource would be a strong relationship with the people in the local township building where you’re hoping to build and talk about commercial projects that are underway. They will have a record of all the projects (dental or not) that have been applied for and approved. If you can get a peek at the near-future competition of other start-ups, you’ll be in MUCH safer position when you start.
4.) AGE OPPORTUNITY:
This is different from the dental demographics report we discussed above. It’s also not at all related to your personal age! This refers to the age of the other doctors in that area.
Why?
Acquisition opportunity: Your chance to get a great price on patient records of retiring doctors.
One of our clients who recently built her new practice in a small town took this concept to a new level by building a strong relationship with one of the oldest and most-likely to retire doctors in the town – before she even started construction! Brilliant! She now has an agreement in place to have the first right of refusal on the purchase of the patient records when it comes time for the senior doctor to sell.
A second client who’s second practice we helped build, started his career in a particular high-income town and intentionally built with the plan to acquire 3 practices to build up his total number of patients. In 5 years, he had acquired 3 practices and his practice is doing very well. See if you can get some good information on the approximate age of the doctors in the town and you could be in a great spot to acquire patient records in future years.
Good luck taking the first steps forward and go in to your dental demographics search with confidence now that you have more tools under your belt!
By Jayme Amos
Jayme and his team have helped
hundreds of dental professionals pursue their goals. Now you can learn
from the best in the dental industry.
Click here to discover more
practice-defining tips for your new or existing practice:
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