What's the best way to maximize your profits? Cut your overhead. It's not always the easiest process, but with a few tweaks you can see a pretty large increase in revenue.
Running a practice can get pricey, especially when you add up things like dental supplies, PPE, software, IT expenses, and more. Toss in salaries, administrative services, marketing, and facility costs, and your monthly expenses can get out of hand.
Just look at the increase in dentistry expenses in the past 12 months:
Knowing the numbers with a few little touches can save you a lot. Find out cost-saving tips to help reduce overhead costs at your dental practice.
5 Cost-Saving Tips to Reduce Overhead in Your Dental Practice
Here are five simple steps you can take to put money back in your pocket:
1. Evaluate Your Expenses
The first (and most accessible) thing you can do to reduce dental practice overhead is to evaluate your current expenses. Pay close attention to charges when looking at invoices and receipts. You may even find extraneous fees that you can negotiate away.
Ensure the vendor doesn’t make mistakes. If you notice a mistake, get that refund! You can also reach out to your existing vendors and discuss potential discounts or better bulk pricing.
2. Reduce IT Costs
Nowadays, offices shouldn’t spend time and money on local servers. Whether for critical upgrades or IT consultants to make fixes, these costs can add up to your overhead and hurt your bottom line.
Consider upgrading to a 100% cloud-based application, which means no on-site servers you need to buy or manage.
3. Consolidate Purchases
Just like your local warehouse club, always buy in bulk from a sole vendor. “If you buy from one distributor, your business warrants 100% of that distributor’s attention. But if you buy from four distributors, you are worth only 25% of your buying power to each.”
The purchasing landscape has changed the past decade to free you up to get the supplies you need without relying on the 2 gorillas in the supply space. Explore alternatives like Dental Whale to see how much you can save without sacrificing quality or service.
4. Rethink Lab Expenses
Of course, you can’t get rid of all lab fees. But, you can be persistent about getting the right price. Lab fees can get hefty if not evaluated regularly.
“Lab fees that are at 10% are considered healthy. If this ratio is lower, then the practice may not be doing enough high-value procedures. If the ratio is too high, then the practice should be evaluating their contract to determine if those fees are fair. A healthy practice should aim for 8–10% when compared to production.”
To lower lab costs, use a larger network or national laboratories. You might even consider bringing your lab work in-house. Not only will it save you money, but it can reduce wait time for results.
5. Give Feedback
Most dentistry organizations provide a feedback form for your cases or product purchases. While many times you might only contact them when something goes wrong, it’s a good idea to give feedback when things go right, too.
By providing feedback, you can refine your working relationship with your vendors. They’ll understand what works for you and your practice better. And everyone appreciates a little pat on the back.
Cut Overhead Costs with the Right Dental Software
The best thing you can do to save money is with efficient processes. Is your current practice management dental software from a past era?
There have been incredible advances in dental tech and the security of dental records. And each piece of technology is meant to help your day-to-day operations run smoothly and efficiently. Software that requires add-ons can get very costly. An all-in-one software can remove the need to add on other software for patient communications, eClaims, etc. It’s a streamlined experience for both you and your patients.
Just ask your office manager if they would like to make all processes easier.
