What are the five important things to keep in mind to develop a successful dental practice?

 There are a number of factors that contribute to developing a successful  dental practice. Dentists  need to  develop their clinical skills, leadership ability,  treatment planning ability and also  their salesmanship. In addition successful dental practices need  a sufficient number of active patients who continue to return for treatments year after year .

1. Obviously possessing clinical skills is very important to all dentists. No one wants to go to an incompetent dentist or even one who is just "good enough". Most patients want a highly skilled dentist who will be able to provide them with durable dental restorations that help preserve their dentition. In addition patients desire dentists who provide cosmetic restorations that will keep their smiles looking attractive.

2. Successful dental practices need a hardworking and loyal staff that enhance the delivery of dental care. After all most of a patients interactions are with our staff .  A dentist may perform excellent dentistry for them but if the staff treats them badly, that is what they will remember and certainly patients judge a practice in part by how the staff behaves. It never is a practice builder to employ rude or incompetent staff members.

3 . Treatment planning is at the heart of delivering good dental care since diagnosing dental problems and determining which problems the most urgently in need of treatment is crucial to  our efforts to maintain a patients dental health. Not only do we need to find all our patient's dental problems but we also need to develop the right plan, since dental treatment plans are definitely not "one size fits all". Each patient should participate in developing a properly customized treatment plan; one in which they are made aware of the significance of their problems and how they might be affected by a decision to treat them or not. Some ideal treatment for patients with extensive dental disease can be expensive and a plan should be developed that our patient not only desires but also one that they can afford. A patients finances should be considered and some treatment plans can be developed to be delivered over a period of years if needed. 

4. Successful dental practices need to have someone adept at "selling" our services. Sales should not be considered a 'dirty" word since helping patients see the benefits of our services and the downside of not having treatment is part of our job. This is not to imply that it is ok to recommend services that are not needed or to push hard for elective treatments that a patient may not need, but only that we need to help our patients understand the true value of our proposed treatment plans.

5. All dental practices need to  develop  a loyal patient base, one that feels good about returning year after year. Their patients should finish treatment satisfied and feeling that they were well cared for . In addition, it definitely helps if the patients feel that their dentists has their best interest at heart and that their dental treatments were competently performed in a careful and caring manner. 

Obviously, there are many other factors that a dentist needs to consider, such as which, if any, insurance plans to participate with, practice location, monthly expenses and equipment purchases that need to be considered, but those maybe better considered in a separate blog post.  That being said the five topics mentioned in this post are the things that I think are most important to consider by a dentist who wants to establish a successful and well respected dental practice.