Congratulations! Now that you have acquired your dental license, you can start running your own dental practice. But like any other profession, you will experience different challenges even after you have built a name for yourself. Knowing what these challenges are can help you manage each issue and boost your business success.
Patient acquisition
One major challenge every dentist has to face is how to attract patients who pay, choose to stay, and willingly refer your services to others. Quality service is one way to retain clients. But acquiring patients prove to be a more difficult task. What you can do is to promote your practice as proactively as you can, be it online or offline. Show your target audience that you are already an expert in your field and train your staff to be as friendly, accommodating, and professional as they can be.
Patient retention
Acquiring new patients is good, but if you fail to keep clients, then your dental practice will suffer. So make sure that you also prioritize patient retention. Always make it a point to create an impressive first impression to engage with your clients. Be patient in answering their questions and always engage with them on social media. After each dental visit, don’t simply tell them when their next scheduled appointment will be. Try to make an extra effort reminding them of the checkup date via email, text messages, or phone calls.
Patient compliance
Many dentists find it hard to convince their patients to be cooperative and do their part by complying with your recommended treatment regime. Explain to them just how important their compliance and cooperation are for their oral health. Also, if you can give them different treatment options, they will think that they will have more control over the treatment. For instance, you have a patient needing a retainer. To help improve their compliance, you can partner with a dental lab for retainers; they can choose between different retainer types.
Tax issues
All professionals pay their corresponding taxes. For your dental practice, you may be nursing a huge financial headache if you fail to pay your taxes on time. So make sure that you don’t fall behind to avoid certain tax issues. Better yet, hire a local accountant who can take care of your taxes so that you can focus on caring for your patients.
Late payments
When patients fail to pay their dues on time, you may end up having negative cash flow. While it pays that you be compassionate to patients, especially those who needed major dental surgery, you still need to maintain a strict policy that can help you handle late payments. Know that improving your accounts receivable process is a must. You should have enough capital to supplement your business.
Dentists like you are not prone to financial issues, tax challenges, patient compliance issues, and patient acquisition and retention problems. By knowing the possible solutions to each of these issues, you’ll find it easier to manage your dental practice and remain in the business.
