What are the three dental practice models and how do their economics actually compare?
Three distinct operating models with dramatically different production rates, overhead, and lifestyle implications. The first model is high-volume routine practice, sometimes called the fast-food model. Production runs $300 to $600 per hour with 65 to 85 percent overhead, fueled by 900-plus annual procedures, insurance contract dependence, and high staff turnover. The second model is the elevated-experience full-fee approach, sometimes called the department-store model. Insurance contracts get reduced or eliminated, quadrant dentistry replaces single-tooth work, fees climb to a higher percentile, and overhead drifts down to 60 to 75 percent. Production hits $600 to $900 per hour with measurable lifestyle improvement. The third model is the complex big-case practice, where production climbs to $1,000 to $1,500 plus per hour, overhead drops to 50 to 65 percent, and the patient flow shifts to long appointments with single patients receiving comprehensive treatment. Each model is operationally coherent. The transitions between them require deliberate redesign of marketing, selling, team structure, and physical space. Drifting between models without redesigning the operations underneath produces mediocre results in all of them.
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