DDx — DENTAL GROUPS & DSOs
Dental Groups: the five ways this presents
Each presentation below lists what could be causing it, ranked, with the finding that tells the causes apart and what resolution actually looks like. 25 causes, 25 tests, each cited to a primary source for this specialty rather than borrowed from another one.
Nothing on these pages describes a client or an engagement.
PRESENTATIONS
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Patient acquisition cost is climbing
The marketing invoice went up and the new-patient count did not. The question that follows is always the same: is our cost per new patient high? The honest answer is that nobody can tell you, because dentistry has no published cost-per-new-patient benchmark at…
5 CAUSES · 5 TESTS
WORK IT THROUGH → -
New patient volume is short of plan
Calls and form fills are there. The schedule is not full, the hygiene column has holes, and the treatment that got diagnosed is not getting done. The owner describes it as plenty of interest that never turns into work, and the front desk describes it as being …
5 CAUSES · 5 TESTS
WORK IT THROUGH → -
Growth has plateaued
Same-store production is flat or down against last year while spend is unchanged or higher. The owner rarely opens with new patients — in the Dental Economics / Levin Group 19th Annual Practice Survey, "insufficient new patients" ranks fifth at 31%, behind dec…
5 CAUSES · 5 TESTS
WORK IT THROUGH → -
Performance varies by location
Same signage, same fee schedule, same scripts, same marketing. One office grows 12% and another is flat, and nobody in the room can say why. The regional blames the market, the marketing vendor blames the operator, and the group average conceals both.
5 CAUSES · 5 TESTS
WORK IT THROUGH → -
Preparing for sale
A banker or a platform has been in the room. The last three years need to read as repeatable, and the questions coming back are about same-store production growth, owner dependence, collection rate and where the new patients actually came from. Nobody is askin…
5 CAUSES · 5 TESTS
WORK IT THROUGH →
WHICH ONE
How to tell which one you have
These five overlap, and two or three usually apply at once. The order to read them in is set by which number actually moved. If cost per new patient moved, start there. If demand held and bookings did not, start with the volume page. If nothing moved at all, start with the plateau page — and if the group total looks acceptable while one site keeps coming up in conversation, read the variance page first, because a pooled number is structurally incapable of showing you what you are looking for.
Every cause on every page above carries a measurement you can run in your own systems, with the finding that confirms it and the finding that rules it out. Run two or three before you brief anybody. If the tests tell you this is not a marketing problem, that is the correct answer and it cost you nothing.
RESOLUTION
What resolves each, and what resolved looks like
Each presentation resolves to a different part of the work, and the pages say which: reporting and attribution where the finding is a measurement error, conversion and desk work where the loss is between the inquiry and the admission, acquisition where the demand genuinely is not there, and pre-sale work where the question is whether growth can be re-run by somebody else.
Each also carries what resolved looks like as a number — the measure, the published median, the top decile where an honest one exists, and a target range — with the source in the row. Where no credible distribution is published, the page says so instead of borrowing one from an adjacent specialty. That absence is itself a finding: it means your own trailing history is the only benchmark worth measuring against.
WHERE YOU STAND
Reference ranges for dental groups and DSOs
See also where you stand and what decides the outcome before any of this is treated.
A differential narrows the list. It does not close it — that is what the examination is for.
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