How to Start a Dentist Business

Paid medicine is one of the fastest-growing and most profitable sectors of the business.

Private clinics have the best doctors, expensive equipment, and individual approach to the client. In addition, we can not ignore the fact that the rising standard of living increases the number of patients willing to spend more and more money to take care of their health. Along with drug treatment, gerontology and venereology, dentistry is one of the most promising areas of investment in medicine. Moreover, to open a dental clinic can be not only a good doctor but also an experienced businessman – a manager who has even more chances of success. After all, graduates of medical schools rarely turn out to be economists, managers or entrepreneurs.

How to set up a dental clinic

Consider an example of creating a small private dental clinic for 5 chairs. To open it will need a room of 180 – 200 square meters. m, corresponding to the requirements of SES, necessarily with five windows (a window for each dental chair).

The location of the clinic does not play a big role, it is not necessary to open it in a passable and central location, patients appreciate the quality of care and doctors’ skills and are willing to go anywhere, though on the other side of town, to get decent treatment.

The best option is to buy the property if finances allow it. After all, if the landlord asks to vacate rented space, then relocate to another place, you will lose a few months to settle in and get a new license. During this time you run the risk of losing not only your staff but also customers.

In case if the start-up money is not enough, you can start with a lease, but then you should pay increased attention to the contract with the landlord and the hire of a good lawyer to minimize your risks.

Renovating a dental clinic

Here beginners often make two critical mistakes. The first is that too much money is invested in the design of the room, and sometimes with such a sweep that there is a lack of funds for good equipment of worthy doctors. As a result, the quality of services suffers, which is unlikely to please patients. Secondly, the design is assigned to the most famous architecture bureau in the city, which, although it is able to design palaces, but has no experience in medical institutions, and therefore does not know the specifics of the process chain and the requirements of the Sanitary and Epidemiological Station. As a result, they turn out beautiful but ineffective, and then such projects are redone by specialist architects.

So, to invest in repair more than 700 euros per square meter makes no sense. A huge part of repair costs is spent on communications because each office must have water, sewerage, ventilation, and electricity.

Remember that supervisory authorities will need to provide copies of licenses of construction and design organizations, so you should hire professionals for repairs, rather than shabashnikov, and when decorating to use certified materials.

Documents for opening a dental clinic

Perhaps the most troublesome thing in opening a clinic is obtaining permits from the regulatory authorities.

First, considerable time and effort, and finances will require obtaining permits for redevelopment – from the Architecture Department, fire department, district administration, etc. Permission to use x-ray equipment will also require a lot of effort.

Secondly, the same costs will also require obtaining a medical license (and if you plan to open surgery and pediatric dentistry, you need several licenses). You can do everything yourself, or you can hire an intermediary, who will run through the instances instead of you. This is usually done by medics, retirees, students, or law firms.

Dental clinic equipment

Equipment is not easy to choose. For doctors, it is often a question of habit and subjective perception.

For businessmen, dental equipment is generally a “dark forest”. The range of prices for equipment is large, and to select the right one, you need a specialist well versed in professional equipment. And look for such a specialist should not be out of dentists, because they often work on one or two units, and they have nothing to compare with.

Dental clinic staff

The clinic for 5 chairs usually employs 10 doctors and 10 nurses, 2 administrators, a director, 2 nurses. Accountant most often coming, part-time. Doctors get 20-25% of proceeds, nurses get a rate of 300-400 euros (Moscow), and nurses get 200-250 euros.

Selection of staff is not an easy and fast process, so you should start at the time of repair, so that by the opening of the clinic the entire staff was already staffed.

It is necessary to immediately establish a clear control of materials, labor contributions of each employee, to establish a record of patients, etc. The easiest way to solve this problem is to use special computer programs, of which a specialist will help you choose the right one, removing you forever from the headache associated with theft, stealing customers, shirking the appointment of clients at the earliest and latest hours of the schedule, dislike to perform certain types of work and many other staff problems.

Promotion of the dental clinic

Promotion of dental clinic has its own specifics and is very different from, for example, promotion of a store or restaurant. The main channel to attract customers are the clinic’s own doctors – they usually bring their old customers. Advertising on the radio and in local newspapers yields a good return. The Internet attracts a certain number of patients, but in addition to the clinic’s own website, it is worth establishing cooperation with large well-known medical websites. Experts say that advertising in magazines and on television is not very effective. In addition, you can contact advertising firms that use tried and tested methods of promotion, aimed at attracting people from the surrounding neighborhood.

And finally, it is worth establishing cooperation with insurance companies that will supply clients for treatment under policies of voluntary health insurance.

The quality of care and service in your clinic should be at a high level. Each patient should leave happy, then he will bring for himself many more patients. It is in medicine that patients are most often guided by the recommendations of acquaintances when choosing a clinic.

The new clinic soon acquires a clientele, and if everything is done correctly, the number of patients in the clinic will only grow.

Advice from experts

Often in the creation of medical business entrepreneurs, newcomers look for an assistant doctor, which is fully entrusted with the creation of the clinic, the selection of equipment, staff, and worst of all – the development of price lists, building business processes, advertising and other inherent in the medical profession challenges. As a result, someone initially built primarily the clinic as a medical facility, not as a business, whose main objective is always to make a profit. To avoid this bias, the entrepreneur is better to establish and manage the business himself, trusting physicians only to build and support the healing process.

A beginner should first take a course in one of the specialized training centers to understand the specifics of the medical business. Then develop a business concept for the clinic, hire competent architects and specialists in the selection of medical equipment and choose an effective system of control and accounting. And, of course, to become acquainted with the work of several successful clinics in order to learn from the experience of building a business.