Any stories of dentists having a hard time finding patients?

[coolness]

One of my friend's cousin is a recent graduate of dental school. She has her own practice now, but due to the intense competition from other general practice dentists in the area, she is having a hard time finding patients. She's making about 60g a year. Is this uncommon? Or is this typical in saturated markets?

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[critterbug]

Why oh WHY would anyone want to open up a practice in a saturated market The notion is simply ridiculous. Anyone with any business sense would know that there are so many untapped markets in dentistry, I find it hard to understand why so many dentists set up shop in an area that already has plenty of dentists, when there are so many areas that have a shortage!!??. Thats like me buying a Pizza Hut franchise and setting it up right down the street from another one. Sure, I'll probably just scrape by, but with a little research I could have set up somehwere alot more profitable and gained first mover advantage by being the only one in the area.

So, to anwer your question, YES it is common to struggle in a situation like this. An understanding of elementary economics will help explain it: SUPPLY VS DEMAND!!! When supply is greater than demand, intense competion will brew amongst the suppliers (dentists in this simple scenerio)

 

[DrJeff]

If you open up on your own, you *can* have a big and successful practice, .........eventually. It takes time, and word of mouth to build a practice from scratch, especially in a saturated market where its presumed that many other dentist have the "word of mouth" referral network going. The best analogy is the snowball rolling down the hill, it starts off small and then builds slowly at first, but if the hills long enough it can become a monster

In all honesty though it's not exactly the best idea to open up on your own in a saturated area. Its fine to practice on your own, but makes much more sense to buy a retiring dentist out since then you're starting with a patient base(granted some of those existing patients will leave, but you'll still have a much fuller schedule, and hence more cashflow than if you're starting from scratch). It's a more conceiveable option to start from scratch in an underserved area since you'll have a greater amount of people looking for a dentist.