Page 60 - The Dental Entrepreneur

The Dental Entrepreneur

“Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not

yet come. We only have today. Let us
begin.”

Mother Teresa

CHAPTER 9

Selecting The Proper Equipment

Southwest Airlines

There is a concept in dental office planning can that literally save you hundreds of thousands
of dollars in productivity in your career if you understand and implement this. It has to do with
the standardization of your equipment and systems. I use Southwest Airlines an example. It is
no accident that Southwest Airlines is a leader in aviation yet for years they only flew one
model of aircraft. What this did was streamline their maintenance and systems and maximized
their profitability. Everything is standardized throughout their entire system.This model is easy
transferrable to dentistry. What I have observed in the typical dental office is that there is only
an intraoral camera in room 1, curing light in room 2, laser in room 3, and cavitron in room 4
etc. Are you starting to get the picture. When the doctor needs something that is in another
room, one has to wait, shuffle, and sometimes reschedule a patient because each room is
equipped differently. The lesson to be learned here is that every operatory in your office
including the hygiene room should be equipped identically. Same chair, lights, handpieces,
even down to the burs in the bur block. The hidden productivity and the ability to do “same day
dentistry” will have a significant contribution to the bottom line. A perfect example of this would
be a hygiene patient with a broken tooth and by chance the next hygiene patient just
cancelled. You are able to easily work this patient into your schedule and post an extra $1200
in production for the day. These small incremental numbers over time become HUGE!

Equipment Selection

The selection of your dental equipment is a very exciting phase of your project. It also one
where things can get out of control in a hurry. I will go through each part of our prototype
startup office and show how significant cost savings can be achieved. Sometimes the ability to
be thrifty here is what makes this this entire project even feasible.

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