Dental News - Automate increasing your cosmetic revenue

Robert L. Ash, USA

Tue. 25 October 2011

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In today’s economy, it has become increasingly difficult to increase cosmetic production. Because most cosmetic procedures are paid for with disposable income, and there has been a noticeable lack of disposable income in the last few years, the problem has become almost impossible to overcome.

Cosmetic simulation is a well-known technique that is proven to substantially increase your bottom line, yet remains unused by many dentists because of previous technological limitations. Recent advances by SNAP Imaging Systems have now made this method faster and easier, and it can quickly be implemented into your workflow with minimal effort and a near-zero learning curve. The resulting financial impact can be impressive.

Even the name of the product, SNAP Instant Dental Imaging, can give you a preview of how fast and easy this previously difficult technique has become. Untrained personnel can easily produce convincing and natural-looking side-by-side full-face or close-up simulations in just a minute or two. SNAP’s automated procedures and automatic video help are a big departure from the old days of 200-page user manuals and two-week training courses.

Increasing case acceptance is not enough. Acceptance assumes the patient has already asked for a case presentation or is at least somewhat interested in having a procedure performed. Is it possible to turn uninterested, non-cosmetic patients into cosmetic patients in less than a minute? The answer may surprise you.

The idea is to give all of your patients a free simulated smile evaluation picture. This picture can then be taken home to show the spouse, family or friends. Providing these pictures to your non-cosmetic patients has been shown to dramatically increase the number of cosmetic cases that you book on a weekly basis. If providing free cosmetic simulations results in an increase in your caseload of as little as 10 percent to 15 percent, that can translate into an increase in your bottom line of 20 percent to 30 percent.

How is that possible? There are three reasons: Cosmetic cases are routinely much more expensive than non-cosmetic cases, they provide a higher income per hour, and once the office overhead is covered by your normal workload, anything over this amount is calculated at a much higher profit rate.

A more aggressive way of using cosmetic simulation involves renting a booth or table at a bridal show, health club or gym and offering free smile evaluation photos. Bridal shows offer your practice a huge opportunity because of several factors. First, most potential brides would love a free preview of what her bridal photo will look like. Secondly, the photo will almost certainly make it home to show the other people in the family, and that leads us to the third and possibly best opportunity — the fact that you may end up booking procedures for the bride, groom and two mother-in-laws.

How do you get started? Do a few minutes of research. Then actually do something about it. Do a web search for “smile design programs,” “cosmetic dental imaging,” “smile simulation” or any one of another dozen terms that can be used to describe what you want to do. Look at the various products that are available, and look for something that will do the job in a minute or two, not an hour or two. Look for a money-back guarantee.

The main thing is to get something, and start using it this month, not next year. Nothing changes until you change. In today’s economy, now is the time to dramatically increase your cosmetic revenue and overall profits.

Robert L. Ash is president of Snap Imaging Systems.

Note: This article was published in Dental Tribune Daily at the ADA, Vol. 5 No. 1, Monday, Oct. 10, 2011.

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