The Dental Dow: Still Cruising Through 2015

Bill Rossi, President of Advanced Practice Management

Bill Rossi, President of Advanced Practice Management

Comparing the first half of this year to last year for the sample mature area practices, we find practice production is up 6% and collections are up 5.5%, continuing the trend from the first quarter.

Total patient flow (as measured by exams) is up 3.5% with new patient exams up 6%. Crown and bridge is up 2.7%. The gross collection percentage for the sampled practices is 85%, consistent with last year. I guess we can be happy that it hasn’t slipped another notch this year.

The trend to fuller Doctor and hygiene schedules continues too with Doctor downtime reduced by 15% and hygiene downtime by about 5%. Back in the ‘90’s, 6% used to be sort of assumed background growth. Now, this is the best trend in many years and over 75% of sampled practices showed growth.