I often speak of the "golden age of dentistry" which seems to have occurred some
time between the late 1950's and the early 1970's. Even though I am uncertain about
the dates, I know the age ended before I graduated from dental school. As the son
of a dentist, its interesting for me to talk with my father about those years --
a time when he was in the prime of his professional career
There was a shortage of dentists rather than patients, and overt marketing was only
for the unethical. Lending institutions would provide all the funds a dentist needed
on his signature alone. It took months rather than years in private practice to
establish a consistent flow of patients. No one even acknowledged that a dental
marketplace existed.
With dentists' financial success all but assured, the sole emphasis during the golden
age was quality of care. The moral structure of the profession did not make room
for a focus on practice profitability. The unspoken litany was:focus on quality and
the financial rewards will follow in their natural course.
In spite of the dramatic changes that have occurred in the dental marketplace since
the golden age, I still often find vestiges of the litany in our profession. Even
with the significant risks abundant in today's marketplace, I still see dentists
who don't wish to acknowledge the link between their profitability and their ability
to deliver their best for their patients.
I maintain that delivery of quality in private practice today requires significant
initial capitalization, a healthy cash flow, and continual reinvestment in the practice.
How do dentists compete for the best employees when they are in short supply? How
do they maintain physical offices that create value in the minds of patients? How
do they obtain the finest continuing education and equipment? How do they design
and implement effective marketing programs? Quality is not possible without these,
and none of these are possible if a practice is not profitable.
Just as strategies can be developed and skills obtained for creating quality care,
so can they be for creating profitability. We have rightfully always taken quality
seriously. Its time we do the same with profitability
