3 dos and don’ts of improving your dental practice in 2025

The three dos

When improving your dental practice, concentrate on the following things.

Set goals

Many unestablished dental practices focus on daily work, which includes making clients happy, putting their daily income in order, and managing office inventory. As a result, the daily activities overshadow their long-term goals, making the practice dormant.

As much as you need to take care of daily tasks, you must keep an eye on your long-term goals and strive to achieve them. If you still need to set long-term goals, ensure to do so immediately. Once that’s done, revisit them to determine the progress. For example, if among your goals is to get more referrals or improve efficiency, ensure you see progress in the same. You might need to work on your marketing strategies to increase patient volume.

Define your ideal client

While some may argue it is good to cast a wide net when it comes to the types of patients you are looking to focus on, a lot of the time it can be more harmful than helpful and can also strain any marketing efforts you have in place for your practice.

At the end of the day, targeting a specific demographic can not only help you target your marketing efforts but also help a lot with word of mouth and consistency across your patients. A great example of this is Dobie Revolution Orthodontics in Connecticut. Dr. Dobie and his team have successfully narrowed down their ideal clientele and have catered their entire in-office experience to meet the needs of those types of clients.

With their main client being teens and adolescents, they went ahead and installed an in-office arcade, a DJ, and countless other fun and exciting aspects. This not only impresses and keeps their existing clients coming back, but also helps them with word of mouth and attracting new patients in that age group. Know your clientele, and do whatever you can to fit that clientele’s needs.

Improve communication

Thanks to technology now patients can schedule their appointments and have online communication. This move eases the communication between the dentist and patients without needing in-person communication. It’s, therefore, important to adapt and transit from regular in-person communication to modern ones.

Crisp communication between a dentist and patients creates an opportunity for the patients to understand what to expect during their visits, what they should do if their medical insurance doesn’t pay for services, and how much they should pay. Since dental work is costly, developing a way to communicate with your patients beforehand will go a long way as far as keeping their finances in order is concerned.

The three don’ts

Avoid the following things when improving your dental practice.

Don’t work with incompetent, unreliable employees

While you might be the dental practice owner, its success and efficiency depend on your employees. If your employees are competent and reliable, nothing will be standing between you and having a better-performing dental practice.

Building a name for your practice can take years and days to destroy. Therefore, develop measures and rules to ensure your practice interests are safeguarded. Sometimes, this means letting go of employees who don’t adhere to the rules and regulations.

Don’t work with fewer employees

Employees’ efficiency and reliability depend on whether or not they’re enough. With the correct number of employees, you’re guaranteed an increase in process efficiency, streamlined processes, and more income.

As far as having enough employees is concerned, it means not being understaffed or overstaffed. In any case, you lose money in one way or the other. Therefore, assess your practice to determine the services you provide and estimate the number of patients you receive daily. Once you get a number, determine how many employees you need to remain effective.

If your practice needs to be more staff, consider increasing the number. If it’s overstaffed, find ways to increase the income to cater for extra wages, even if it means adding the list of services you offer if you don’t want to release them of their duties.

Don’t assume the patient remembers appointments

Some patients who don’t attend the next visit forget about the appointments. Therefore, it’s important to avoid assuming that they do. Besides showing your patients that you care for their dental health, reminding them of their appointments will make them rethink skipping appointments. You can use phone calls, text messages, and emails to remind your patients about their appointments.

Conclusion

Improving your dental practice involves streamlining your processes and offering unbeatable services. For this to happen, you must develop measures and be on the same page with the entire crew. If you’re looking forward to improving your dental practice, consider the dos and don’ts discussed above for positive results.