What’s Ahead in 2024
Industry experts share their predictions for what lies ahead for the dental industry this year, with artificial intelligence, digital dentistry, additive manufacturing, and preventive care all at the forefront.
Patient Financing Is as Important as Ever for Clinicians and Patients
Patient Financing Is as Important as Ever for Clinicians and Patients
Jay Letwat, vice president of Dental, Sunbit
The financial and economic challenges of 2023 are likely to continue into 2024, requiring dental practices to focus heavily on increasing operational efficiencies. But getting to better margins via deep, indiscriminate cost-cutting or reactive reductions will most certainly backfire. Rather, the right investments offer unparalleled opportunities, enabling savvy practices to outperform the market and stay profitable.
Investment decisions will not be made lightly. Tighter margins mean that every dollar invested needs to be put to good use in today’s landscape. And we have all seen that the right technology can either offer substantial savings and value—or simply mark another costly investment that goes underutilized.
In order to vet investments, leaders will need to ask these questions of every tech vendor:
1 Will this drive revenue and quickly show time to value?
2 Will this be broadly applicable vs narrowly focused?
3 Will this elevate the patient experience in a material way?
Consider my core area of expertise–patient financing. We all know that wallets are tighter, expenses are up, and insurance reimbursement is flat. However, innovative patient financing is proved to help practices acquire and retain patients and increase treatment acceptance.
At Sunbit we can easily demonstrate that our technology has a positive impact on revenue, brings fair and transparent patient financing to virtually every patient (not just some), and is so easy and accessible that adoption is never a barrier (eg, financing that produces more work for front office teams or requires too much of patients will not succeed).
Yes, the rampant tech buying spree of the past may be over. But that is not a bad thing. Those tech products that offer material value will become even more integral to the industry over the coming year.
