Ambition is the essential driving force within each dental professional. It fuels people through years of education, the trials and tribulations of a first clinical role, and even opening a first practice of their own. Without it, a career can feel like it reaches a standstill.
It feels as though a discussion about growth and aspirations can’t be had without mentioning ‘leaps of faith’. These are the moments where clinicians plunge into the professional unknown, relying on their experience and intuition to find success.
One of the biggest and most terrifying jumps is the decision to expand into new areas, potentially with the opportunity to open another practice.
Embrace the jump
There is so much to consider when looking to develop into new locations. First, it’s important to know why you’re doing it. The benefits can be extensive. Opening a new practice may allow you to reach patients in a different geographic area, which can increase the breadth of care that you provide. With nationwide complications surrounding access to NHS care,[i] there are currently many potential patients in dire need of a dental appointment.
You may wish to expand into another dental field. A new practice could provide specialty care, focusing solely on paediatric, orthodontic or dental implant treatments, for example. This would again expand your patient base, but may also help build your reputation within dental circles as an authoritative figure for referrals and specialist care.
Opening a new practice creates opportunities to provide a greater number of people with incredible oral healthcare. However, whilst the professional services and patients that receive them must always come first, a private dental practice must be viewed as a business, in the same way a shop or restaurant would be.[ii] Careful management of the financial challenges that come with opening a second practice – think the acquisition of a building, refurbishment, increased wages and general upkeep – is essential to success.
Spinning plates
Long-term costs like salaries for a new dental team may be obvious, but it’s vital to track other ongoing expenses such as new clinical systems, handpieces, potential advertising and more general consumables. Looking to your current practice and assessing its financial commitments may be key. Closely monitoring and managing the cash flow will prepare you for what to expect from an expansion, and also help you identify any new areas of increased costs as and when they arise.
Continuing to track the cash flow and KPIs when the new practice has opened is essential. It will provide great insight into the balance of expenses and incomings, and may offer opportunities for tactical improvements.
For example, you may see that an associate dentist’s time to provide more complex treatments is taken up by routine oral hygiene visits, which could be managed by a dental hygienist. Hiring a new member of the team could then expand the care you can provide, whilst maintaining the high level of care you offer your patients. Not only could your practice see more patients, and provide better all-round care, but it may also boost the financial incomings too.
In the modern age, the ability to track performance and expenses will likely be completed digitally. Ciphering through the numbers can be made easy with a platform that allows you to clearly examine the most relevant KPIs and identify the potential for growth – it’s unlikely that many dentists will be ‘business mogul’ first, clinician second, so a software that compensates and completes the hard yards first is essential.
Control from anywhere
Further on the ‘leap of faith’ sentiment, there are not only concerns around financial and clinical success, but the overall management of such a large operation. For many it’ll be the first time overseeing multiple teams, with increasing needs and a larger-than-ever patient base. Finding a scalable platform to help effectively manage the business can be extremely beneficial.
The solution could be a cloud-based platform. Using this digital approach negates the need for additional IT infrastructure. Instead, business elements can be managed by software that works with your current systems, without restricting their performance as you grow.
To make the transition into expansion straightforward, clinicians could call on the help of Sensei Cloud, the Software-as-a-Service platform from Sensei, the practice and patient management brand from Carestream Dental. The cloud-based platform is accessible anywhere, at any time, with real time dashboards that display performance and financial metrics. Only the relevant information is shown, negating the trouble of sifting through endless data for effective results. Plus, revenue cycle management allows clinicians to streamline billing, NHS claims and revenue tracking, for business growth that excels.
Opening a new practice is one of the largest leaps of faith a dental professional may ever take. With experience, intuition, ambition and the ability to carefully manage business growth, it may be a jump worth making.
For more information on Sensei Cloud visit https://gosensei.co.uk/
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[i] Health and Social Care Committee, (2023). NHS dentistry – Report Summary. (Online) Available at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmhealth/964/summary.html [Accessed November 2023]
[ii] Sriyono, N. W. (2006). The business of dental practice. Isi, 39(2).
