If you plan to start your own dental business, a dental business plan is a necessity. And if your practice has been up and running for a while, but you've never taken the time to write a business plan, now is as good a time as any.
A dental business plan is basically an organized and documented recipe for how you want your practice to run. It is the outline for your business and should be very detailed. Here are some of the basic sections that should be included in your dental business plan.
Day to Day Operations of Your Dental Business
Determine how you want to run your dental business. How many dental staff members are you going to need to keep things in operation? How many hours a week will they work and for what pay? What time will your dental practice open and what time will you close? Include things such as lunch breaks, off days, and emergency hour planning.
Supplies Needed for Your Dental Business
Determine all the necessary supplies that you will need to run your practice. For disposable items, count at least a month's supply. Remember that it is better to over plan than to under plan. You do not want to run out of something you need in the middle of a Friday afternoon while you have a patient in your chair with her mouth wide open. This can be catastrophic for your dental business.
Payments Accepted
What sort of payments will you be accepting? Are you going to accept credit cards, checks, and cash or just one or two? What insurance will your dental business accept? Be sure to add the cost of any special equipment needed to process checks and credit cards in with your supply list.
Fees You Will Charge
You've figured out how people are going to pay, now what are you going to charge them? Make a basic list of fees. Use the cost of labor and supplies to determine how much a certain procedure will cost. And be sure to do some competitive research.
Dental Practice Earning Potential
Do some research to find out, with all the other information gathered, how much your business is likely to earn in a given month. Be sure to subtract your fees from the total earning potential in order to make sure you aren't planning to pay too much for something or charge too little. Also be certain to determine the cost of advertising.
With your dental practice, like any other business, you may not pull a profit the first few months. Some small dental practices do not even pull a profit the first year. You have to be prepared for this. You also have to make sure that this is because you are still working on gathering patients and not as a result of bad planning.
Paying for Your Dental Business
Once you have all these numbers you need to determine how you are going to get the start up investment for your dental practice. Are you going to use credit cards? Get investors? Go to a bank? Should you apply for a loan you will probably have to show your business plan, so be sure to tweak any mistakes.
Creating a plan is a great first step in starting your new dental business, or growing your existing dental practice. So set aside a few hours in your schedule an begin developing your business plan today.