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Master of Science, Healthcare Administration. Certified Healthcare Business Consultant. Certified Business Appraiser. Certified Valuation Analyst.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Dental Practice Start-Ups: The Good and the Bad

Building your own practice from the ground up gives you the ultimate degree of control in creating the professional environment you want. From the facility itself to equipment and employees, you’re in charge of deciding what works best for you. You’re engaged in a creative process that, while time consuming and capital intensive, will ultimately produce the work environment you’ve dreamed of, unimpeded by dated equipment and facilities or the inheritance of another dentist’s potential problems.

Dental practice start-ups can have plenty of challenges of their own. A successful start-up practice is dependent on the dentist’s ability to sell his or her services and requires a significant degree of business and marketing skills. Before the practice is even conceptualized, an important part of that planning is ensuring that the demographics of your chosen area will support your practice. Are there enough local residents of a certain income level for your practice to thrive? And how do you determine what income or population level is adequate for you or for your location?

It is recommended to conduct an informal research to ensure that your selected locale is not already saturated with existing practitioners. You will want to “run the numbers” to determine what number of practices would indicate a saturated market in your area. If you are committed to living and working in an area that already has numerous dental practices, then acquiring a practice with an existing client base and cash flow might make the most sense as you would minimize the amount of marketing required to establish your business.

And finally, some loan companies may be more reluctant to lend funds for a practice start-up, as there is no income history, existing equipment or property to use as a collateral base.

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