CATEGORY 122 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST COLUMNISTS By Berris Saultry Taking control of costs in your practice Berris Saultry The inflationary pressure on prices and the associated cost of living pressures continue to increase impacting both the operation of a dental practice and patients. This has created a challenging climate for practice owners to maintain their profitability and maintain patient attendance rates and retention. The operating cost of a practice continues to rise across all aspect of operation with consumables, lab fees, insurances and wages all experiencing noticeable increases over the last 12 months. Combined with increasing interest rates, means that practices bottom lines are being impacted. The effects of the cost of living are also impacting patient attendance rates as the discretionary spending of dental treatment is prioritised to more immediate cost. During this period, it is important for practice owners to be proactive in their business to mitigate the impact of these external factors to their business. Adjusting treatment pricing is one step to negate the increase in production costs. This however needs to be combined with a focus on reducing cost to maintain the profitability of the practice. We encourage practice owners to implement a review of their expenses and to be proactive in seeking better pricing or alternatives which can provide better pricing. This can include clinical services but also utilities and insurances. Allocating the task of reviewing cost to a practice manager is a good approach to ensure they can focus on this area of your business, get comparisons, and implement changes if required. A starting point can be with your practice insurance. With insurance premiums anticipated to increase by 1025% this year, we encourage all practice owners to take the opportunity to get their current insurance reviewed and a comparative quote done to measure their premium and existing cover. Dental Assured is our chosen partner for practice insurance and Scott Wilford will be happy to assist dentists review their policies. If your policy is due soon, email your renewal notice to scott@dentalassured.com.au and Scott will provide a review and quote for you. If your premium is due later in the year, please take the time to send Scott the renewal date of your policy and he will make a note to contact you several weeks prior to this date to review your policy and provide a quote. By concentrating your purchases through specific selected suppliers, you can save time on ordering and managing inventory, while also generating higher sales volumes for the suppliers. This, in turn, opens the door for potential discounts because of increased sales. It is important to communicate this strategy to your supply partner and negotiate pricing accordingly. This technique can be applied to most dental consumable suppliers to obtain better pricing. This is one of the key principles of Dental Innovations and the central services we provide for our members. By leveraging the purchasing power of our 750 independent practices this allows us to negotiate exclusive pricing with our select suppliers. This results in an average savings of up to 15-20% on the total consumable expenses of the practices, which can amount to significant dollar savings. Our partners are: Dentsply Sirona, Dentavision, Ivoclar, SDI, Adam Dental, Ark Health, Piksters and Troll Dental. Dental Innovations can provide effective solutions for dental practices to reduce their operation cost not only for dental consumables but across the full operation of a practice. This includes savings on dental lab, HICAP’s, practice software, practice insurance, equipment, medical gases, JB HI-FI and marketing services. Our members can enjoy more than just savings from our partners. They also gain access to our personalized Online Ordering system, Inventory control, and social media content library. These tools help dental practices save time by streamlining their processes and increasing efficiency. For over 25 years we have been assisting independent practices save with the operation of their practices by negotiating preferential pricing across an extensive range of services. By joining Dental Innovations and utilising Dental Innovations full range of services practice owners can reduce their cost within their practice during this challenging period. u If you would like to see how Dental Innovations can assist you in your practice, contact Berris at berris@dentalinnovations. com.au or 0400 001 172 for an obligation free chat.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTc3NDk3Mw==