Dos and don'ts for practice financial health

In a stormy economy, run a tighter ship

Follow a budget. Carefully analyze all expenses. A budget should not only list the total expenses your practice incurs over a month, quarter, or year, but also organize them into overhead categories such as staff compensation, lab costs, dental supplies, etc. It is only through analyzing expenses and comparing present performance to established goals that you can see the areas where overhead can be reduced.

Don't let internal weaknesses drag down your practice. Almost every practice has significant inefficiencies in some of its management systems. Unless your management systems have been documented in writing and reviewed regularly, there is probably some level of internal weakness and inefficiency. Levin Group has found that dentists work much too hard and waste a minimum of 20% to 30% of production potential every day due to inefficient systems. This means that over a dentist's career, profit could be increased as much as 30% or more without working one more hour.