Two procedures billed at the same price don't necessarily earn the same. Between chair time, lab costs and materials, the real profitability of a procedure can vary twofold. Calculating it is how you give yourself the means to decide.
The cost items to account for
- Chair time: the most valuable item. A long procedure ties up both the practitioner and the equipment.
- Lab cost: prostheses, custom devices — often the heaviest item for prosthetic procedures.
- Materials and consumables: to estimate as accurately as possible per type of procedure.
From revenue to margin
A procedure's margin is the amount billed minus those direct costs. Thinking in margin rather than revenue avoids a classic trap: favouring procedures that are "big" in amount but barely profitable once the lab and the time are deducted.
An example of reasoning
For a prosthetic procedure, subtract the lab cost from the accepted amount, then an estimate of the chair time. What's left gives an idea of the margin. Repeated across your whole activity, this reasoning reveals your genuinely profitable procedures.
Pitfalls to avoid
Forgetting chair time, ignoring declined quotes in the analysis, or comparing procedures without accounting for their duration. A view by procedure and by period is more reliable than an isolated figure.
How Dentuose helps
Dentuose brings together quoted amounts, accepted amounts and costs to shed light on the profitability of your activity, by procedure and by period, in a readable dashboard.
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