Running your own dental clinic is a huge step in your dentistry career. It’s your opportunity to branch out on your own, build your own practice, and enjoy the profits from all of your hard work.
But buying a clinic, paying staff, and keeping up with the latest technology in dentistry aren’t cheap. Many clinic owners are paying their way out of debt. The average dental clinic costs 65% of the previous year’s gross receipts, and it can be tough to pay that all back.
You need a way to add new revenue streams to your clinic. These ideas can help you improve profitability and raise revenue at your practice.
1 Selling Dental Scrap
Your dental scrap could be worth more than you think. Dental scrap often contains precious and semi-precious metals, including gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, found in broken crowns, bridges, PFGs, and PFMs.
The precious metal in many of these materials is recoverable and recyclable. While individual pieces may not be worth that much on their own, they can accumulate over time and become quite valuable.
You can sell your dental scrap to generate extra income for your practice. Refiners can remove impurities from precious and semi-precious metals and recycle the metals. Get a dental scrap recycling kit to get started.
2 Teaching
Do you have a skill or specialization that you regularly do in your practice that other dentists want to know? If you have a solution for certain procedures or working with patients that you find have great outcomes, you can framework the steps that you take in a way that is both teachable and monetizable. If you’re an expert in an innovative type of technology, such as AR or 3D printing, you may find a ready market among other dentists who want to expand their own skills and knowledge.
The next step is finding ways to speak on this topic and train larger groups of dentists. It may be something you do as a speaker at training events or something that you put on online platforms.
It can take time to turn teaching into an income stream, but if you have a good solution, other clinicians will want to know. Find what works in your business and create a way to share it with other practitioners.
3 Creating an Online Course
You can take teaching one step further by turning your unique process into an online course. Packaging your specialization as an online course allows you to scale that skill to a much wider audience than you could reach through one-on-one training sessions or even as a speaker.
The scalability of an online course makes it a great non-clinical income stream. You need a great idea and topic that many in the field will want to learn about. The best way to create an online course is to stick with areas where you know your practice excels and surpasses others in the business.
4 Create Shorter Cleaning Appointments
The 50-minute dental hygiene appointment is becoming increasingly common in dentistry. It’s been found that 50 minutes is generally plenty of time for a thorough cleaning appointment, and making the shift can add a lot more income to your practice. The 50-minute appointment allows you to add more appointments and take in new patients.
There are plenty of ways to boost your clinic’s revenue with these additional income streams.
