You did it. You opened your own dental practice, worked hard, and found the perfect staff and patients. You’ve been extremely successful, and you couldn’t be happier professionally. Now what? 

When a business is going well, the obvious next step is to expand. What isn’t so obvious is how to know it’s the right time or what steps to take. Luckily, Dental Intelligence is here to break dental practice expansion down for you. One way to make sure your expansion is successful is through seamless dental office communication. Dental Intelligence Team Chat is the most efficient dental office communication system available. 

Once you’ve set yourself up for success with the right communication tools, how do you know it’s time to expand?

Evaluate Your Success

The first thing you’ll need to do is check in with your practice’s success. Just as you would do with a patient, evaluate your practice for its health, noting any problems. You can see all the necessary information to evaluate your practice with Dental Intelligence Metrics & Reporting.

Before you decide to expand, you should know what you’re risking. Expanding your practice may be a great opportunity, but it is a risk. You have to guarantee your current location is doing well enough to open another. 

You should ask yourself: 

• How many patients have I had in the last 18 months?
• How much does my practice currently cost to run month to month?
• How much revenue does my practice bring in month to month?
• Is my revenue consistent?

You need an exact number for each of these questions. These answers, along with your return on investment, will help you determine the objective health of your practice.

Analyze Your Patient Base

You can have the best tools and staff in the world, but they’re useless if you have no patients to treat. Knowing who your patient base is, how consistent it is, and how to find more patients is a vital step in dental practice expansion. 

Start by looking at how many patients you’ve had in the last 18 months. Patients should come in for biannual cleanings at the very least. It’s important to keep track of who has come in for their scheduled appointments and who you might’ve overlooked. Sending out reminders and ensuring that patients have a positive experience assist in retaining patients. 

Not only do you need to keep old patients around, but you also need to bring in new patients consistently. This is a careful balance you have to keep — you don’t want to sacrifice one for the other. Don’t prioritize gaining new patients at the expense of the loyal ones, but don’t overlook the importance of new clientele, either.

Knowing your numbers when it comes to patients is essential. This can help you estimate your patient load for your new location and secure your success for your practice as a whole.

Overestimate Costs

You might recall from the first time that opening a dental practice is expensive. Most of the costs you have now will double after opening another location. There are extra costs associated with securing a new building, expanding your inventory, and hiring new staff. When you’re calculating your budget for your new location, it’s better to overestimate costs. 

Permits, leases, marketing materials: everything comes with a fee. Prepare to cover unanticipated costs for the betterment of your practice. Remember that money isn’t the only thing you’ll spend on this practice; you’ll also spend time.

Prepare Yourself for Change

Dentists tend to be detail-oriented, and you’ll want to be involved in every step when you expand your office, from the waiting room to the front desk, to the equipment. If you expect to run two or more locations the same way you ran one, you’ll burn yourself out.

Prepare yourself to change your procedures, your staff, and how you manage your time. This will take a lot of planning and mental preparation ahead of time. There will inevitably be snags in the plan, and you should know how to adjust accordingly.

Reap the Benefits of Practice Expansion with Software Tools for Dentists

There’s no question about it: Dental practice expansion takes time, money, and effort. It’s a major risk — but it can have major rewards, too. Profitable dental services come from practices willing to take those risks and grow. When you have the capacity to serve your existing patients and bring new patients into your practice, you can increase revenue without compromising on service.

Schedule your demo of Dental Intelligence today to start improving communication at your practice.