Practice Plan Regional Support Manager (RSM) Kirsty Munn, explains how profitability can support patient care.
For some practice owners, profitability is an uncomfortable subject. Most people who choose dentistry as their profession do so because they want to provide care for their patients and have a positive effect on their lives, not because they’re passionate about business plans, budgets or KPIs.
However, a profitable practice isn’t the opposite of a patient-focused practice. In fact, often the practices delivering the very best patient care are the ones with the strongest financial foundations. So, two things can both be true at the same time!
One of the biggest misconceptions I have come across during my career is the idea that profitability and patient care sit at opposite ends of a scale. It’s as though people see improving one means sacrificing the other. This is simply not the case.
When a practice is financially healthy, it’s in a position to make choices. It can invest in new equipment, improve the patient experience, support team training and development and create the time and space needed to deliver the kind of care it believes in.
It’s much harder to make those choices when finances are under pressure. To overcome this discomfort with generating profit, it helps if practice owners can change their view of profitability. It’s better if they can see it as an outcome that’s not separate from patient care, but as something that helps make great patient care possible.
For the most successful private practices their primary aim is rarely just to make more money. Their interests lie in finding ways to spend more time with their patients or to improve the patient experience. As well as these, the best ones are looking for ways to build a practice that’s enjoyable for their team to work in. Strangely enough, for these practices, profitability often follows. A bit like the harder you work, the luckier you seem.
Patient choice
Private patients are becoming increasingly choosy about where they receive their care. As well as good dentistry, they’re looking for trust, consistency and a personalised experience. They want to be able to have confidence in the recommendations they’re receiving. Most of all they want to feel listened to and valued. For the practices that understand this then they tend to build stronger patient relationships, which lead to better retention levels and greater loyalty.
Something else I notice is that many practices underestimate the value they already provide. They may have highly experienced clinical staff, a welcoming reception team or a culture built around prevention, and yet they’re often so deeply embedded within a practice that owners forget how important these are to patients. When teams are able to believe in and confidently communicate that value, conversations around fees become much easier.
Patients don’t exist in a vacuum. They can see what’s happening to costs and prices everywhere. If they understand what they’re paying for and can see the benefits, they’re usually a lot more accepting of fees than many practices anticipate.
Understanding the ‘why’
None of this happens by accident. The practices that thrive tend to have a team who understand their practice’s ‘why’. Everyone knows the part they’re expected to play in delivering a great patient experience. From the first phone call to the moment a patient leaves the practice, every interaction contributes to how people feel about the care they’re receiving. Put quite simply, that’s where sustainable profitability is really built – through creating a practice that patients value and want to return to.
I don’t believe practice owners should feel guilty about wanting a profitable business. A successful practice can invest in its people, its facilities and its future. It can provide stability for the team and consistency for patients. By having these firm foundations, it can continue delivering excellent care for years to come.
