10 Ways to Increase the Value of Your Dental Practice

Let’s face it—increasing the value of your dental practice isn’t a straightforward or easy task, but certainly one that you’ll want to be working on throughout your career. Here are 10 ways to help you increase the value of your practice so you can set yourself up for long-term financial success and a sweet retirement.

1. Build Your Brand

You need to build your brand to build your business; you’ll need to build awareness of the practice itself, including its technology, location, and overall convenience. This way, when you sell, your patients and prospects are more likely to remain long-term, loyal, and inclined to refer their friends and family.

2. Become an Expert to Trust

There’s a reason you went to dental school—to become an expert in your field. You should strive to be a wealth of knowledge that your community members can trust, and by ramping up your marketing spend pre-sale, you can keep your and your team’s expertise in the minds of the patients you want to attract. Consider things such as your internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as your external opportunities and threats.

3. Acquire New Patients

Another key component of practice growth is acquiring new patients. You’ll want a top-tier team that’s capable of handling calls and converting those callers into patients. You’ll also want a steady flow of new patients to replace the patients that you lose to attrition naturally. Each new patient has the potential to garner roughly $15,000 in lifetime value for your practice!

4. Patient Retention

On that note, patient retention is also key—loyal patients will stay with your practice if you keep them happy! Retention programs, conversion rates, and how many patients have visited within the past 12 – 18 months are three key indicators to keep an eye on.

5. Patient Reactivation

If you can figure out why your patients keep coming back—and why they don’t—you can see what you need to do differently (and what you should continue doing). A patient survey is a great way of obtaining this information. Keep in mind that fear and perceived cost are also two major factors that influence attendance!

6. Treatment Acceptance

A strategic process should be set for all areas of the practice that can generate revenue. Establish a process that anyone in your practice can refer to for things like business and marketing decision-making, recall booking and reminders, new patient marketing, new patient onboarding, and treatment presentation/follow-up. Consistently educating your market area on the benefits of your service will ultimately lead to more revenue!

7. Team Engagement

When your team is engaged and supportive of where your practice is heading, it increases your patients trust in your practice. If you end up selling the practice, your patients are more likely to be accepting of the new ownership. This also means the purchaser knows your practice valuation is accurate and they can reasonably expect continued success.

8. Community Involvement

You should try to create a buzz in the community about your dental practice. Be seen and be relevant; this is the first rule of marketing, and it also allows you to do good for your community while building brand awareness. This valuable goodwill is awesome and could account for a large part of your practice’s final valuation.

9. Practice Measurement Tools

You should utilize available services and tools to measure your marketing results. You can call monitor and use tracking and scoring, as it shows where your dental practice has opportunities to improve and opportunities to reward. When you have good practice measurement tools and effective marketing, you can easily attract and retain new patients.

10. Business Plan

Having a complete business plan in place is always necessary, and it becomes even more important if you’re trying to sell your practice. Nonetheless, this plan doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to contain your practice goals and how you plan to achieve them. As the driver of your marketing efforts, a solid plan gives you the ability to make smart strategic decisions.

About Next Level Consultants

At Next Level Consultants, our mission is to bring you the knowledge and skills necessary to start, manage, and successfully operate your new dental practice. Under the leadership of Michael Dinsio and Paula Quinn, Next Level Consultants works tirelessly to ensure that you feel good about the direction your practice is heading. If you have any questions about how to increase the value of your dental practice, don’t hesitate to reach out for the help you need.