Growing Your Dental Practice Revenue With Orthodontics
Maintaining a successful dental practice is an ongoing challenge. Many factors are bound to impact its profitability, from patient turnover to revenue per patient. Developing your orthodontic skills through continuing education and then incorporating that knowledge into your practice could be the perfect investment. Doing so can improve your profitability in many different ways, as detailed below.
Attracting a Larger Patient Base
Building a strong patient base is vital for the success of any dental practice. Accomplishing this goal requires an understanding of the many factors patients consider when choosing their dental home. The availability of orthodontic treatment options, in particular, is one of the most in-demand features for general and pediatric dental practices today.
Adding orthodontic treatment options expands your potential patient base beyond people strictly looking for general dentistry, thereby setting your practice up to serve as a one-stop solution for oral health care. Dentists who don’t offer orthodontic treatment options must instead refer their patients to an external specialist. And that’s a process that forces patients to deal with extra paperwork, travel, and time out of their schedules.
By instead offering everything your patients need under one roof, you ensure that they will spend less time dealing with referrals and experience greater overall convenience, both of which are top priorities for many patients, particularly families. You’ll also be able to market your practice accordingly.
Increased Case Acceptance
Pursuing high-quality orthodontic continuing education prepares you to take on the widest range of cases. Orthodontic cases vary widely in their complexity. Some dentists opt for simple clear aligner courses, but a more in-depth straight wire course will prepare you to take on more challenging cases and increase acceptance.
Ensuring that you can handle more cases in-house is an important step toward increasing dental practice profitability. Every patient you refer to a specialist may as well be revenue leaving your practice. Your patients might even see the hassle of seeing a separate specialist as reason enough to seek out a new dental home altogether.
Orthodontic courses also prepare you to communicate with patients effectively. This way you can better impart the importance of orthodontic treatment for the appearance, function, and long-term health of the patient’s smile. Even in cases where referral to a specialist is necessary, you can provide a better experience for patients with effective communication.
In a similar sense, offering orthodontic services through your practice also increases the likelihood of patients committing to a treatment plan. Seeing as they already know and trust you, they’re more likely to get on board than when dealing with an unfamiliar specialist.
Higher Revenue Per Patient
Increasing the total number of patients you handle is a straightforward way to improve dental practice profitability. The thing is, it can only take you so far, as there are practical constraints on how many patients you can take on based on how much time you have. Focusing on revenue per patient instead can unlock more opportunities.
Many general dentistry treatments, especially simple one-time treatments like fillings or checkups, bring in relatively low revenue per patient. Orthodontic treatments, on the other hand, have much higher revenue per patient and can, therefore, improve your profitability.
Braces and straight wire systems, for instance, typically have higher fees that provide greater revenue. More frequent acceptance by insurance providers also means that a broader range of patients are able to afford treatment compared to other specializations, such as cosmetic dentistry.
You’ll also be able to build strong relationships with your patients, increasing long-term retention and the likelihood of them choosing you for any future treatments.
Diversifying Your Practice’s Services
Expanding into orthodontics increases the diversity of your practice’s services. That is always a good thing, but it can prove particularly beneficial when weathering economic shifts. Broadening the services your practice offers makes it more resilient no matter what the future holds.
That’s because you’re building long-term value by pursuing the necessary skills, knowledge, and equipment to offer orthodontic treatment. Your team will also develop new skills alongside you as the practice expands, thereby increasing the overall value of your practice and preparing you for greater success.
Enhance your orthodontic skills with courses from Williams GP Orthodontic Seminars.
It’s clear that adding orthodontics to your practice is a great way to boost dental practice profitability. You’ll be able to take on more patients and make more with every case you handle. However, you need the right skills to make that a reality.
Williams GP Orthodontic Seminars provides high-quality courses to let you do that, delivered by respected instructor Dr. Brad Williams. Browse our courses today to find the path forward for your practice.