Your Practice is Growing. Here’s How to Scale with It.

Growing your practice beyond your current limits can be a little overwhelming. For most doctors, dentists, and specialists, scaling your small business wasn't exactly covered in medical school, and it can be a daunting task. Along with more patients and more staff, there are a host of other activities that will now increase your workload. If you're growing concerned with how to scale your practice, don't panic! First of all, give yourself time to celebrate. Experiencing real growth is often a sign that you're going the extra mile for your patients. And SmileMakers is here to help you you navigate this exciting time and prepare for this growth in the future with a few ideas that'll help make the transition easier.


Your Practice is Growing. Here’s How to Scale with It

Upgrade Your Technology
One of the simplest ways to adjust to your growing patient base is to increase efficiency. The more efficiently your team can work, the more time you'll have to care for the inflow of new patients. As most healthcare technology is designed for optimizing your treatment, choosing to upgrade your tools and equipment could save precious time. With your practice growing, the best way to keep from burning out is to work smarter, not harder.

Use Your Space Wisely
When scaling your practice, inefficient space is wasted space. There should always be room to move and work without impediment, but poorly used space is basically just clutter. Consider the flow of traffic in your office and decide if some of the space can be redesigned or put to better use. If you've added more staff, or are hiring soon, make sure that there's enough space for everyone. Buy a larger front desk or expand certain operatories. By dealing with these inefficiencies now, you're ensuring they don't become a problem later.


Your Practice is Growing. Here’s How to Scale with It

There are other small changes that you can make which can be surprisingly efficient. An optimized waiting area, that includes comfortable seating and a well-planned children's area, can help patients feel welcomed without taking up too much space. This is especially important as your patient-base continues to grow, at no point should your waiting room feel cramped! Another quick solution is to rethink your current storage area. If you're currently holding your pediatric toys in versatile cabinet space, consider collecting them all inside a fun treasure chest or vending machine. The more you think about optimizing your office space, the more solutions you'll find!

Upgrade Your Ordering Process
When you're trying to accommodate a larger influx of patients, the last thing you want to be doing is spending valuable time placing multiple orders for supplies. Searching through catalogs or websites to find your preferred brand or standard practice essentials is using time that could be spent on other activities. Luckily, there are many ways to make your online purchasing process easier. At SmileMakers, we offer a number of features to help speed up your ordering process. Our quick order allows you to search for an item, choose its quantity, and proceed to checkout in a matter of seconds. Couple that with Autoship and you could have your stock arriving on your doorstep with minimal effort. To make reorders even easier, if you set up an account with us, we provide saved lists of your commonly purchased products, so reordering practice items is even faster the second time!

Your practice is growing. Here’s how to scale with it

Create An In-office Membership Program
As your practice grows, it can be difficult to maintain the homey atmosphere that patients look for when choosing a dentist. But patient retention is an important part of helping your practice to grow, so it's important to have a plan in place to help accommodate all patients, new and returning. For patients that do not have dental insurance or cannot afford dentistry costs upfront, now is the perfect time to create a membership plan. Patients that join the program can have access to discounted treatments or other rewards all while feeling connected to your practice. As you grow, it's important not to lose touch with the people that have supported you from the start; a membership program ensures that they always feel included.

Need to order new stock to accommodate your practice growth? SmileMakers offers bulk discounts on a number of our products!
By seeing an increase in new and returning patients, you're likely to run through your stock much faster than before. Our bulk and quantity discounts on items like stickers, practice essentials, and toys ensure that you can stay well stocked without breaking the bank. If you're hunting for more bargains, join our mailing list for details on all our sales, deals, and new products.