After years of toil to get your dental degree, you are now ready to take on the role of owning a practice. It can be an exciting yet overwhelming time in your life. Opening up any type of business is no easy feat, and starting up a new dental clinic is in no way one of the easiest things to do. When you are ready to take this leap, consider these five steps to making your startup a success. With a little hard work and passion for your profession, you can be on your way to a rewarding and fulfilling career.
1. Choose the Right Dental Software
Technology in your dental office is arguably one of the most important decisions you will make. You must choose the right practice management software and decide if you want it to be based on a server or the cloud. You need to choose a management system such as CRM apps that will help you keep up with your client relations. You may need additional software to process payments if that service is not automatically integrated into your practice management software. There are many decisions to be made on this front, and you should spend plenty of time researching what works well in the typical dental office.
2. Hire the Right Employees
It is better to start looking for employees sooner rather than later, but you do not want to start looking too soon. You need to have a plan for opening before you officially hire anyone, but you will likely want to be fully staffed before opening your doors on the first day. You will need someone to manage the front desk as well as hygienists and assistants to care for patients.
3. Find a Reliable Supplier
You will likely need to order supplies weekly or at least monthly, so having a relationship with a reliable dental supplier is a must from the start. There are many big-brand dental suppliers, and you can talk to different representatives from these companies to see who can offer you the best customer service. Your supplier relationship is one of the most important ones you will make in your dental practice, so make sure that you get off to a good start.
4. Choose a Good Location
There are so many possibilities for where to open your dental practice. You can choose to rent or lease a building, you can build from the ground up or you can even convert a house into a clinic. Whatever you decide to do, make sure that you are prepared for construction and maintenance costs. You do not want to get halfway through the renovations and find that you cannot afford to move forward. Make sure that you can get ample financing before starting your project so that you will be able to complete it in a timely manner.
5. Decide on Your Status as an In-Network or Out-of-Network Provider
Insurance companies can often be difficult to deal with, and this part of dentistry causes more stress than many others. You must decide what your plan will be for accepting insurance coverage. You will need to decide if you will be an in-network or out-of-network provider. There are advantages and disadvantages to both strategies, so be sure that you do extensive research before making your decision. You can also choose to be in-network with certain carriers and out-of-network with others if you want a more hybrid approach.
Opening your own practice takes a lot of hard work but can be one of the most rewarding aspects of your life. Building a practice that is focused on serving the oral health needs of people in the community is an admirable thing. You will not do everything perfectly at first, and remember that each mistake is a learning experience. When you go in with this attitude, you can enjoy the art of building a practice for many years.