Clinical Practice Management

Stop hurting your patients! Deliver the “WOW experience” and watch your practice grow

Every dentist is looking to grow his or her practice, and we are all looking to bring in as many new patients as we can. Numerous excellent articles have been written by many highly successful clinicians and marketing gurus on a myriad of ways to grow your practice.

My marketing plan

2013: are you staring into the abyss? Have you a thought out a plan for how you are going to continue growing your business? Are you going to continue doing what you do and see diminishing returns in our struggling economy or wing it and take up opportunities as they present themselves?

Collaborating and connecting in the dental space

Communication skills are an integral part of our daily lives. How we communicate defines who our friends are, what our families think of us, and how our businesses are perceived by the community at large. Typically, when you think about communicating, you think about it in relation to your friends and family.

The filter principle: Is every patient a finals patient?

You remember finals, don’t you? Of course you do. Your examiners carefully selected a patient(s) for you to examine and diagnose and for whom to present a treatment plan. The finals patients were unlucky enough to have more than one dental problem and you were marked on finding all of them and your ability to determine a set of solutions for the patient.

Connectivity in the dental world

We live in a time in which things are changing exponentially and the way that we go about doing business is drastically evolving. The Internet has become a major player in businesses that never thought that it could apply to them. Instead of battling the Internet with a long stick and keeping it out of the dental industry, it has always been our philosophy to leverage it in new and innovative ways that can be used to the advantage of health-care professionals worldwide.

The passive income practice

Exit planning has traditionally been a fairly simple task for dentists. The choices a dentist faced were either winding down the number of days worked, thereby gradually easing into retirement, or working until three to six months before wanting to stop, and then advertising the practice for sale. After negotiations with the buyer, dentists would sell and walk away—much like a house sale. Sometimes there would be a good handover of patients and staff, and sometimes this process would be less ...

Case acceptance in complex-care dentistry

I enjoy seeing the articles in cosmetic dentistry in which clinicians recount their creation of magnificent works of art through digital restorative dentistry. In most of the case studies I’ve read, I am sure the patient fees reach well over US$15,000 or more.

The benefits of expanding and refurbishing your practice

There are many benefits to refurbishing or relocating your dental practice, and although the decision to make such major physical changes is usually secondary to other financial concerns, most practitioners find that they receive more than the obvious benefits with a new surgery. The opportunity to streamline the operation of your practice and attract new patients can be immensely profitable to your business. By increasing the functionality of your surgery, the productivity of your staff will improve. ...

Top 5 Internet marketing tips to promote your practice on YouTube

Video is the most powerful Internet marketing tool available today to market your practice. With the rise of YouTube and other video sites, any size practice can take advantage of video as an Internet marketing tactic to deliver your own personal PR marketing message about who you are and what you are all about.  

Informatics and IT in dentistry: a look forward (part one)

Recently, Dr John O’Keefe, the editor of the Journal of the Canadian Dental Association, interviewed Dr Titus Schleyer, associate professor and director of the Center for Dental Informatics, University of Pittsburgh, about the development of health information technology in the context of the dental profession. 

Leadership essentials for the ‘rookie’

Upon entering your first ‘real’ dental practice either as an associate or as an owner, with the dental degree in hand and requisite experience on your resume, it’s likely that one thing became abundantly clear very early on: The learning process had only just begun. There is a whole lot more to a career in dentistry than most young dentists ever imagine. 

Video marketing do or die ... to build your dental practice

I know this subject is scary and most of you don’t even want to think about producing video as part of your Internet marketing program. It’s too expensive … It takes too much time … I don’t know where to start! If you don’t, you are missing out on a huge opportunity which will impact the bottom line of your practice today and its future in years to come.