How you can add a competitive edge to your dental practice.
The American Association of Orthodontists recommends that every child receive an orthodontic evaluation before their seventh birthday.
It’s interesting to look at the numbers to see how many pediatric dentists and general practitioners offer this service. As it turns out, only 38.8% of pediatric dentists say that they practice clinical orthodontics in their facilities. And only 7.1% of general practitioners offer orthodontic services within their practices.
Since so few practitioners offer orthodontics services, doing so could help you to rise above the vast majority of your competitors. Here, we’ll discuss the specific ways that offering these services can increase both your case acceptance and production. We have also suggested an expert course that you can enroll in to upskill in this important area.
Why add orthodontics to your practice?
There are several reasons to add orthodontics to your practice. Among them are the facts that it will help to grow your business, make you more competitive, increase your production, and grow a more trusting relationship with your clients.
Grow Your Practice
Adding orthodontics to your dental practice is a great way to help it grow.
First of all, you will be diversifying your dental offerings to your patients. Orthodontics is one of the services that is at the intersection of most referred out and most needed.
It’s likely that you as a dentist often find yourself referring patients to see orthodontists at other locations. However, rather than doing this, you will be able to simply treat patients in the same facility if you offer straight wire orthodontics in addition to your current services. This is more convenient for the patient who is already familiar with your office. It also directs more traffic to your own practice that would otherwise be going to another.
Become More Competitive in the Market
Since you will be offering two distinct services within your practice, people will be more likely to come to you when they need one service or the other.
Patients often find it an advantage if they don’t have to move between multiple doctor’s offices. This makes sense—after all, patients crave familiar surroundings when undergoing what they may consider stressful treatments.
Because of this, new patients looking for either a dentist or orthodontist will be more likely to come to you. They will understand that if they need both of these services, they won’t need to spend time moving between two offices.
As we discussed earlier, a very limited number of general practitioners and pediatric dentists offer orthodontics services. You will likely be the only one to do so in your area. As a result, people are going to book appointments with you over other practices—increasing your competitiveness.
Increase Production Dramatically
A typical orthodontics case is $5,000¹ and takes 12-24 months to complete. Even if your case acceptance is only one per month, adding Orthodontics to a General Practice can increase your practice revenue by $30,000 to $60,000 a year. If $4500 per case is profit, then that could increase your annual salary by as much as 37%.²
Because of this, adding straight wire orthodontics to your practice is one of the best ways to increase production. This can either go to increased salaries or be funneled back into the practice itself—allowing you to keep up to date with the latest dentistry technology and techniques.
Additionally, you will have more patients coming into your practice. Offering multiple services increases the number of patients that will be coming to you, so there are more opportunities to build relationships with patients.
Grow Trust Among the Patient Base
By offering more services, you will grow trust among your patients. Somehow, if a dentist can perform advanced dentistry such as orthodontics, patients automatically believe that their dentist is also going to provide a higher quality of general dentistry.
They’re not wrong.
If parents know that you can evaluate their children’s need for orthodontics while examining their teeth (or at least recommend another appointment for that purpose in the same practice), they will be less likely to go elsewhere for dentistry.
Why the AOS Dallas Course?
If you agree that adding orthodontic certification is a good idea for you and your practice, you likely are wondering what the best orthodontic course for general dentist practitioners is.
The American Orthodontic Society (AOS) is offering a five-part course in the Dallas area. This course will be led by experts in the field who will train you in the ins and outs of orthodontics. Our beginning course is designed to allow dentists to begin presenting cases immediately.
You will learn new skills including the necessary diagnostic records for orthodontic care, what issues you should and should not treat, and how you can financially incorporate your new services into your practice. This course also uses hands-on activities so that you can learn from experience. If you’re interested in getting more information, you can contact us with any inquiries.
Enroll today and increase your case acceptance.
There are many reasons that offering orthodontics can help your pediatric or general dentist practice to thrive.
Register today for the straight wire orthodontics course in Dallas. This engaging course is currently available to you at a discounted price, so don’t wait. Sign up to gain a greater understanding of the orthodontics services that your dental practice can offer and how you can make this happen.
¹https://bracesinfo.com/blog/how-much-do-braces-cost/
²Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor statistics (May 2019 report).