Guides for solo dental practice owners
Long-form and practical, one per profit leak — what the leak is, how to measure it in your own practice, and how to close it. Each ends at the tool that does the work and a calculator to run your numbers.
Unscheduled treatment
The patient who doesn't say they're frightened: how a solo practice builds the trust that gets treatment accepted
How common dental fear is, how it can show up as cancellations and unscheduled treatment, and the habits, from first call to follow-up, that build trust.
Team & systems
Maxed out on remembering: the quiet staff signals that a solo dental practice is slipping
Six things a stretched dental team says, what each one points to, why another hire is rarely the first fix, and the one-day list that shows where the load sits.
Uninsured patients
Is your dental membership plan legal? Five checks before the first member joins
State law, PPO contracts, patient data, renewals and advertising: the five legal checks for an in-house dental membership plan, and what to ask your attorney.
Knowing your numbers
What one empty chair hour costs: how a solo practice grows production without adding hours
Nobody writes down what an empty chair hour costs. The five-minute sum that prices it, the two causes behind the gaps, and how to fill the hours you have.
Patient retention
The patients who quietly stop coming: why keeping them is worth more than finding new ones
Patients rarely leave loudly — they miss a visit and nobody calls. What each one is worth, the list that finds them, and how to keep the rest coming back.
Knowing your numbers
Six numbers, one page: how to tell where a solo dental practice is losing money
A full schedule is not the same as a profitable practice. Six numbers from your own software, in ten minutes — where each one lives and what it tells you.
Referrals & reviews
Why your happiest patients never refer you — and the two-question survey that turns them into referrals and reviews
Loyal patients rarely refer or review on their own. The one question that finds the ones who will, the moment to ask it, and the rules on rewards and reviews.
Cost objections
"I can't afford it" means the month, not the total — in-house payment plans vs third-party financing for a dental practice
Why cost ends more consultations than any objection, what third-party financing costs both sides, and the three-rule in-house plan that makes yes possible.
Online invisibility
Social media for a solo dental practice with no marketing budget: why the feed matters, what to post, and how to keep it up without anyone remembering
Where a new patient looks before they call, why a quiet page costs you the call, what to post and what never to, and the daily post that runs without your team.
Supply costs
Dental supply costs: where the money goes — and the weekly count that brings it back
The two ways supplies leak money, why there is no honest benchmark, your own number in ten minutes, and the ten-to-twenty-item weekly count that fixes it.
Unscheduled treatment
Why "let me think about it" is not a no — and how a nine-week follow-up brings unscheduled treatment back
Why patients who say they will think about it drift rather than decline, the three reasons behind it, and the nine-week follow-up that brings treatment back.
Uninsured patients
How to start an in-house dental membership plan — for the patients who have no insurance at all
What a membership plan is and is not, the three decisions that design one, the arithmetic, and how uninsured patients join — from a practice that did it.
Insurance write-offs
Should you drop a PPO? How to work out what a plan really pays you
A practical way to see what each insurance plan actually pays you, tell a fair payer from a plan that loses money on every visit, and leave the worst ones without losing the patients.
How these guides are written
- Every figure has a source, or it is not in the guide. Industry statistics are cited where they are used; results from the first practice on Profit Smiles are stated as one practice's results, never as averages.
- The method comes first, the tool second. Each guide shows how to work the problem by hand before it shows the tool that does it at scale — you can act on a guide without creating an account.
- Written by Profit Smiles. Dr. Prachi Deore, the spokesperson for Profit Smiles and the owner of the first practice on it, is quoted where she has said the thing; the guides are not written in her name.
The seven tools these guides point at: The Tools. The arithmetic, ready to run: Calculators.
Read the guide, then run it in your own practice.
All seven tools are free for your first hundred days — no credit card, nothing to cancel, and your dashboard shows what each one returns.
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