Elsevier

Dental Abstracts

Volume 62, Issue 5, September–October 2017, Page 257
Dental Abstracts

The Front Office
Locating your practice

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.denabs.2017.05.018Get rights and content

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Background

When selecting a practice location, dentists will hear a lot of conventional wisdom that have been passed along from generation to generation. The accuracy and applicability of these “truths” can be questionable. A quick look at three such truths points out some fallacies.

Rich Equals Better Patients

It’s not true that affluence leads one to be a better dental patient compared to poverty. Although one might think that rich people would always pay their bills and be willing to pay higher fees for care, the facts are that rich persons tend to be healthier and have fewer needs for dental care. They also are wise with their money and won’t pay for more dentistry than they need. Add to that the fact that it’s hard to define what is rich and what is poor, depending on the area of the country

Go Where There’s Little Competition

If you find an area where there are no dentists, it doesn’t mean that it’s the best place to locate your practice. Having no dentists in an area may indicate that there are not enough people there to support a dental practice. It may mean that no one there wants or is seeking dental care—perhaps because the residents are too poor to pay for it. Alternatively, the area may simply be a “bedroom community,” where people may live but they shop and work elsewhere, so they go somewhere else for

Go Where People Are Young and Well-Educated

Well-educated people under age 30 years are considered low risks by insurance companies because they tend to be in good health. They also have little money and little interest in seeing a doctor or dentist.

Clinical Significance

When looking for a great location for your new dental practice, it can be a good idea to consult experts in the area of practice location and growth. This is likely a better choice than listening to the conventional wisdom, which can be badly off track.

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McDonald S: Counterintuitive truths of practice locations. Dent Econ 107:24, 26, 2017

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