Treating only certain ethnic group?

[john9192]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I got curious with this question recently.
I have visited couple of denal clinics with asian dentist.
I noticed that most of the times I go there only asian patients are present. All of the dentist got thier training here and are pretty fluent in English.
Is it mostly the patient's preference or is it the dentist's preference in seeing only the same ethnic group?
I wanna hear from associate dentist or practicing dentist who are non American born and wanna know what their patient ethnic group pool is like.

 

[Demeter]

I have a friend that is Vietnamese who set up shop in a very affluent caucasian community. He is doing very well there and is one track to produce 100,000 per month. Prior to his startup he was concerned that some white patients would not want to be treated by him, because of his ethnicity. He built a high end practice and hired a young friendly staff of beautiful local girls. Once people walk into his clinic the WOW factor takes over. The friendly staff talk about Dr. Pham if he is the best dentist in the world, ( making the doctor look good is part of the job description) and by the time the patients meet him it's no longer an issue.
I know of a different doctor that blames all of his failures on the fact that he set up shop in a white community. His english is poor, but mainly he is a just a negative person and will do poorly in life no matter what community he practices in.

 

[Daurang]

With any ethnic community, it is deeply ingrained in their culture to expect a certain amount of bartering and discount with any services. It is more comfortable and easier to dramatize their sob stories in their own language to get that discount. I actually empathize with them and expect it from them because I myself always ask for a significant discount no matter where I go even at Saxs5th's and Tiffany's; and successfully too.

 

[nhasigioi]

I have a friend that is Vietnamese who set up shop in a very affluent caucasian community. He is doing very well there and is one track to produce 100,000 per month. Prior to his startup he was concerned that some white patients would not want to be treated by him, because of his ethnicity. He built a high end practice and hired a young friendly staff of beautiful local girls. Once people walk into his clinic the WOW factor takes over. The friendly staff talk about Dr. Pham if he is the best dentist in the world, ( making the doctor look good is part of the job description) and by the time the patients meet him it's no longer an issue.
I know of a different doctor that blames all of his failures on the fact that he set up shop in a white community. His english is poor, but mainly he is a just a negative person and will do poorly in life no matter what community he practices in.

The initial barrier is always there. Once they learn that you do good work, they won't care as much or not at all. Yet, some still don't give jack for who you are. Personally I feel more comfortable dealing with my own people although they expect discounts from me. BTW, 100,000 monthly production is actually not as much as you think.

 

[Demeter]

The initial barrier is always there. Once they learn that you do good work, they won't care as much or not at all. Yet, some still don't give jack for who you are. Personally I feel more comfortable dealing with my own people although they expect discounts from me. BTW, 100,000 monthly production is actually not as much as you think.

100,000$ per month is still a million dollar practice. What really matters is what the overhead of the practice is, but to do a start-up practice and grow this into a 100K/month at the end of the first year is doing pretty good.

 

[charlestweed]

$100k/month is not much, if the overhead exceeds 70%. The owner of this "high end "practice probably has 5-6 competent employees with high paying salaries, nice office location with high monthly rent, high business loan to pay for expensive high tech gadgets, high lab fees etc. In order to maintain the high production every month, the owner of this practice has to keep on spending a lot of money in marketing. IMO, it is very stressful to run such high overhead practice. I hate marketing and I am tired of going around begging the GPs to refer.

You could bring home the same amount with only $50k/month in production, if you could keep the overhead below 40%. By sharing the employees and office spaces with my wife and my sister, my overhead rarely exceeds 40%. My offices see mostly Asian and Hispanic patients. Asian patients bargain a lot but once they approve the treatment, they never miss the monthly payments.