According to a recent article, more and more new dental school graduates are choosing one of two paths – going to work for a large group practice, or purchasing an existing practice.
The combination of high dental school debt, the outlay for facilities and equipment, and staffing up a new practice can put a new dentist some $750 thousand dollars in debt. That’s a powerful disincentive for many, and those new dentists are going to work for corporate chains or local group practices.
Either choice is bad news for the single-dentist practice. Corporate chains are long on cash, with means large-scale advertising, and availability. Large local group practices enjoy economies of scale in administration which can also fuel advertising blitzes. Both types of practices are arguably in a better position than a single dentist to weather continued decreases in dental insurance reimbursements.
Coping With the Flood
If yours is a small, one- or two-dentist practice, you’ve got your work cut out for you. It’s a waste of time and money to try to compete against your competitors’ strengths. To thrive in spite of the factors arrayed against you, you’ll have to shift the playing field to favor you.
You have one thing going for you that the larger practices have trouble competing against. Your patients come to know, like, and trust you to solve their dental problems. In corporate practices, it’s often difficult for a patient to see the same dentist twice. And corporate practices, and often larger practices, are under time pressure to produce. That’s not conducive to establishing a trust relationship.
You have the potential to offer patients a superior experience in your dental practice. That might not matter too much to prospects who are motivated by price or insurance coverage. You shouldn’t be overly concerned about that, because if you’re going to succeed, you need to attract a different type of patient.
Stop Chasing, Start Attracting
The dental prospects with the means to pay more for a superior patient experience with a dentist they trust are what you need to not only survive, but thrive. The traditional motivators for these patients – price, insurance, and availability – simply don’t work.
To compete and win, you have to become the only logical choice to solve your prospects’ dental problems. You have to attract patients, rather than chasing them through advertising.
SmartBox Web Marketing is revolutionizing how dentists succeed with its industry-leading Patient Attraction System™. We work with more than 550 dentists on three continents to help them get more and better new dental patients.
The results that we obtain for our dentists are proven, and we have the hard data to back them up. Not only that, but we offer our unique $10K Guarantee that we’ll return the results we promise.
Find out what a Patient Attraction System™ will do for you. Go to www.smartboxwebmarketing.com/blueprint and schedule a Patient Attraction System Blueprint™ Session. They are reserved only for serious dentists who want to see a patient attraction system that can double their practice. You can get more patients, more profits, and more freedom.