So you're planning on starting a dental practice and are probably wondering how to do that on a budget. Good plan! The answer to this question is easy – but it does bring up other questions.
The cheapest way to equip a new dental treatment room is with decent used dental equipment. That often winds up being a combination chair, delivery unit, light, and cuspidor – just like in Dental school. There's a reason the Dental schools do this. They have to buy a couple of hundred chairs and if something breaks - which is pretty frequent - they have to be able to swap things out...almost instantly. This is not the kind of thing that happens in a normal dental practice! Dental schools also aren't very worried about how productive your day is since they are going to impede your progress at just about every step.
You can get started doing private practice dentistry this way, but the problem with this strategy is what comes next. You get stuck with that low-performance capability. In addition, every time you've got your patient stopping and trying to sit up and huck a bolus of spit into that cuspidor, you're losing time and money...and a good percentage of the time they end up missing the bowl! And worse, most of the time the placement of the cuspidor gets in the way of assistant positioning. You've got loans to pay! You need to increase your production per hour. Or if you don't, you need to spend all your waking hours slaving at that office to pay that loan. If you're going to do that maybe you should just consider a better associateship! So perhaps you should consider a modification or two to this plan. It will make things a little more expensive but, if done right, it shouldn't increase the overall cost too much and will tremendously increase your ability to produce income and satisfy patients.
What would be the next step up from this? The most common so-called upgrade is to go with a homemade rear cabinet of some sort, on which you screw the cheapest delivery system possible. Here's what's great about that. It's pretty cheap… and you need some kind of counter space anyway. Further, it takes the handpieces out of the patient's direct view. That significantly increases your ability to present and close cases in the room - especially with apprehensive patients. Then what's commonly done is to purchase a good used chair only and give up the overhead dental light. What's not good about this strategy is that the delivery system is in the worst possible position. It’s behind you. You wouldn't drive a car with the steering wheel behind you, so why would you want to practice dentistry all day doing that? Therefore I'd like to propose a third alternative for inexpensive equipping. Buying new what has to be attached to walls, and not buying cheap Ikea crap that is going to delaminate in the first few years. Remember, it's made for someone's dorm room or your first apartment. Not the high-abuse environment of a dental practice.
Once you decide that you are not going to put a cuspidor or handpiece on the chair, the result is that the chair does not need to be plumbed to the center of the room. This saves more money than the cost of the actual used equipment! Ideally, a channel would be cut in the floor to provide power for the chair, but if you are on an extreme budget, you can eliminate this and plug the chair into the side wall. It's not ideal, but it's acceptable - as long as you plan on having all of your rooms and users come from the same side (Left or right-handed). Next, you can always put blocking in the ceiling for a future track light. The blocking doesn't cost much if you do it with your build, but it is quite expensive and disruptive if you try to do it later. If you actually have come to understand that at some point, you will want patient lights then this will make sense. If it doesn't - shoot me an email. I'm an Ergonomist. I know these things.
That leaves the choice about a delivery system. Your delivery system is both the engine that drives the vehicle and if done right, your complete supply delivery hub! If you are on a tight budget, that's the only place that I would consider buying something good. I didn't say great, but if you can buy something that you can upgrade later without a significant penalty, then that's a game changer. It makes the possibility of economical equipping possible.
Later, with profit from your new or expanded venture, I can promise you that there will be better patient chairs and operator stools that you should get. There will be amazing storage solutions for your lab and sterilization. But those things have to compete with equipment that you really want to buy like milling machines, CBCT imaging, and even an overly expensive robot to drill into people's heads! (Really though, you do not need that on day one!)
One last statement that I want you to carefully understand, please. You should be establishing or growing your practice in a growing area - or at least a place that either does not have enough dentists or if it does - has a bunch of bad ones. If you are doing that, and you're not a jerk, then the practice is going to grow. Quickly! And your equipment cost as a percentage of monthly revenue will drop below 10%, and then rapidly down to 3 to 5%! Remember, the cost of dental equipment is NOT the issue! The issues are 2; First, how do you get the money when the bank wants to limit you too little, and second, how do you learn to get REALLY productive? We can help you with both of these! Get in touch. We've done this for thousands of doctors - just like you!
For a complete reference to every step of starting a new practice, check out my book: Dental Start-Up Guide: Your Key to Practice Success.
