A Free-Reprint Article Written by: Hema Gopal, M.B.A. and D.M.D. Article Title: How to Make Smart, Profitable Technology Decisions for Your Dental Practice
See TERMS OF REPRINT to the end of the article. Article Description: Wrong investments in technology can cost your dental practice dearly in time, money, and debt. The damage is usually irreversible, as equipment cannot be resold easily. If you do manage to resell, it will be at a fraction of the original purchase price... Don't let your next equipment purchase push your dental practice into financial losses... Get the facts before you buy... Additional Article Information: =============================== 556 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: 2010-01-13 11:30:00 Written By: Hema Gopal, M.B.A. and D.M.D. Copyright: 2010 Contact Email: mailto:[email protected] For more free-reprint articles by Hema Gopal, M.B.A. and D.M.D., please visit: http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/recent/author/hema-gopal,-m_b_a_-and-d_m_d_.html ============================================= Special Notice For Publishers and Webmasters: ============================================= HTML Copy-and-Paste and TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of Article Are Available at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/g/dental-practice-technology.shtml#get_code --------------------------------------------------------------------- How to Make Smart, Profitable Technology Decisions for Your Dental Practice Copyright (c) 2010 Hema Gopal, M.B.A. and D.M.D. Visionary Management http://www.visionary-management.com/ Wrong investments in technology can cost your dental practice dearly in time, money, and debt. The damage is usually irreversible, as equipment cannot be resold easily. If you do manage to resell, it will be at a fraction of the original purchase price. Buying new equipment is similar to buying a new car, which depreciates 25% in value the minute you drive it off the dealership parking lot. Sadly, we find dental offices wasting enormous amount of money in this area. Dentists either pay too much for equipment or buy instruments that subsequently gather dust in the office. Purchase decisions are made impulsively, because another doctor down the street invested in it, or because other doctors recommended it on a blog. Dentists believe that a new technology will excite patients and bring in droves of new patients, only to be disappointed by the response. Or, they purchase the machine and find that the return on investment is not quite as high as stated by the manufacturer. The learning curve for using new equipment also tends to be steep and rarely as simple as presented by the manufacturer. Questions to Ask Before Any Technology Purchase The following 12 questions are helpful in making a sound decision: 1. Is this piece of equipment suitable for your office and your skill set? 2. What is the learning curve? How much time is required to become proficient at using this particular instrument? Are you certain your office will use this instrument extensively? 3. What if you don't purchase this instrument? Will the office lose patients or lose opportunities? Will the office appear outdated? What are the ramifications? 4. Will this generate increased production for the office? Are you simply replacing income from one set of procedures with income from another set of procedures? 5. Are the time savings claimed by the manufacturer real? Will that time be used to do another procedure? Does your scheduling system allow for additional patients to be seen? Do you have adequate patient flow to realize the benefits? 6. What is the true and full cost of owning this piece of equipment, including all repair and maintenance costs? 7. What is your estimate for Return-On-Investment (ROI) for this instrument? Be conservative. (Manufacturers always overstate the ROI figures with a slew of optimistic assumptions.) 8. Can you truly afford the new piece of equipment? Are you in position to pay outright for the equipment? Leasing or financing equipment should be a last resort, as the interest rate only increases your debt and your total cost. 9. What is the payback period for this investment? How many months or years before you recoup the full cost of the equipment? Are you close to retirement? 10. Is the manufacturer going to be in business for the next 10 years? If they go out of business, will you still be able to use this instrument/machine? 11. What is the level of support provided by the manufacturer? 12. Do you really need to purchase this new, or can you purchase it used? Will the used machine be supported by a warranty? What is the potential cost saving - used versus old? Upgrade and invest in technologies, but carefully evaluate your options before you take the leap. With sound technology decisions, you are on your way to a more profitable practice. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Hema Gopal, M.B.A., D.M.D., and her husband Peter Gopal, Ph.D., consult with dentists who are intent on building a more profitable practice. Whether you are leaving money on the table due to broken patient appointments, improper scheduling, poor case acceptance, low hygienist productivity, excessive overhead, or unnecessary reliance on PPOs, they can pinpoint your weaknesses and prescribe remedies. Receive a free, realistic assessment of the earning potential of your dental practice by going to: http://www.visionary-management.com/assessment.php --- END ARTICLE --- Get HTML or TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of This Article at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/g/dental-practice-technology.shtml#get_code ..................................... TERMS OF REPRINT - Publication Rules (Last Updated: May 11, 2006) Our TERMS OF REPRINT are fully enforcable under the terms of: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR: ..................................... *** Digital Reprint Rights *** * If you publish this article in a website/forum/blog, You Must Set All URL's or Mailto Addresses in the body of the article AND in the Author's Resource Box as Hyperlinks (clickable links). * Links must remain in the form that we published them. Clean links should point to the Author's links without redirects having been inserted into the copy. * You are not allowed to Change or Delete any Words or Links in the Article or Resource Box. Paragraph breaks must be retained with articles. You can change where the paragraph breaks fall, but you cannot eliminate all paragraph breaks as some have chosen to do. * Email Distribution of this article Must be done through Opt-in Email Only. No Unsolicited Commercial Email. * You Are Allowed to format the layout of the article for proper display of the article in your website or in your ezine, so long as you can maintain the author's interests within the article. * You may not use sentences from this article as an input for any software that steals sentences from others in order to build an article with software. The copyright on this article applies to the "WHOLE" article. *** Author Notification *** We ask that you notify the author of publication of his or her work. Hema Gopal, M.B.A. and D.M.D. can be reached at: [email protected] *** Print Publication Reprint Rights *** If you desire to publish this article in a PRINT publication, you must contact the author directly for Print Permission at: mailto:[email protected] ..................................... If you need help converting this text article for proper hyperlinked placement in your webpage, please use this free tool: http://thephantomwriters.com/link-builder.pl Would you like to learn how to improve the performance of your article marketing campaigns? Download our F.R.E.E. 108-page Article Marketing Ebook at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/advanced-article-marketing.html ***************************************************************** * * This email is being delivered directly to members of the group: * * [email protected] * ***************************************************************** ===================================================================== ABOUT THIS ARTICLE SUBMISSION http://thePhantomWriters.com is a paid article distribution service. thePhantomWriters.com and Article-Distribution.com are owned and operated by: Bill Platt 3010 E Raintree Stillwater, Oklahoma USA 74074 Learn more about our article distribution services by visiting: http://thephantomwriters.com/x.pl/tpw/info/article-distribution/index.html The content of this article is solely the property and opinion of its author, Hema Gopal, M.B.A. and D.M.D. http://www.visionary-management.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ---------------------------------------------------------------------
