I think it’s time to share the preliminary floorpan, logo and pricing plan for the new office since I’ve had so many questions. Questions like:
What will it look like?
How will you make money at $3000 for braces and $2000 for Invisalign?
What is the name?
Where is it located?
And on and on and on. Here you go!
A-101 – FLOOR PLAN AND REFLECTED CEILING PLAN
Angela Weber from OrthoSynetics designed the logo and name for us and it’s definitely different AND retro at our request. Angela rocked it! The space is larger than we wanted but it’s in a great location as there are about 320,000 people within 4 miles. It’s in a shopping center in West Orlando on West Colonial Drive. The demographic is mostly middle class but there are some lower income areas we plan to draw from and some upper end neighborhoods to our west that we expect to get traffic from as well. The middle of the office in the back will be a secondary waiting area with couches and school desks for doing homework and phone charging stations. We have a couple offices for admin but we will not have TCs in this office. All the contracts and consults will be done chair side by assistants. I suspect a good deal of this will happen on the couches in the secondary waiting room in the back. My only office is the perch attached to one of the islands in the clinical area. A Dr’s office doesn’t serve any purpose! We will have a recording studio in the back for the kids to video themselves singing songs and share with their friends. Notice that we will have a pan/ceph as well as a pano to alleviate the congestion around the x ray machine in the afternoon when all the observations show up. We are going with Carestream machines as they are the best bang for the buck. The office should open in April and I’m super excited. It’s been a long time since I’ve been a solo doc with no one else touching my stuff. I’ll be the only doctor here for as long as I live and/or own the practice! One location, one doctor, one fee! Simple is great…
Smiley Face
Invisalign & Braces
Simple as 123…
Invisalign for $1999
- $400 down
- $123/month for 13 months
- Party like it’s 1999 (because Invisalign is!)
Braces $2998
- $292 down
- $123/month for 22 months
- Everyone deserves a great smile! TM
PS Once the office is up and going, I’ll be sharing my P&Ls regularly as well as other details about how the practice progresses here on OrthoPundit.com so we can all find out together how this experiment goes. I’m so excited I can’t stand it and I can’t wait to get the office open.
Nice open concept with few corridors. Thanks for sharing! A few questions:
1. What is the plan/fee for retention if needed?
2. What kind of patient numbers per day/exams/days per week would make this place hum?
3. What are the hours of operation and how might a template look different if no TC and going straight from chair to start with the assistant?
Thoughts
– Using a non-rounded reception counter will save a few bucks :).
– May re-orient the doctor desk so that people aren’t sneaking up on you from behind.
Good questions. I’ll be open three days a week 9-3:30. I’ll close any time my kids are out of school. Spring break, summer break, thanksgiving, Christmas and the like. Shooting for 2000 starts a year so when it’s up and running that’s about 16 starts per doctor day and I’m guessing about 170 patients per day. Case selection and the ability to finish cases effectively and quickly will be a big part of hitting these numbers as they are ambitious – but in the past I’ve always set my goals too low so I won’t make that mistake again. Template will be vastly different but that’s beyond the scope of what I’ll put here as is the way I’ll utilize non-doctor days. Computers at every chair as the assistant will schedule chair side.Essex retainers upper and lower. Of course we will offer lifetime retainers and guarantee my smile
A square desk would save a few bucks but I’m worth it!
I get your point about the direction of the perch but I’d rather see what’s going on.
Thanks so much for the questions and comments!
Come visit me when it’s up and going! Happy new year.
Sounds like a plan! Happy New Year!
The simplest floor plan I have seen. Nice!
How will you be staffing the office?
Will you hire experienced people in Orthodontics for a smooth start? How long will the training be for your first employees?
Thank you for sharing.
Little of both. Hoping to find some people who are minimally experienced as well as training some from scratch.
Hi Ben, The Invisalign for $1999… Is that Invisalign Lite? …with no attachments? …with no refinements? The challenge I see is patients will not be able visualize what “better” looks like and you’ll end up spinning your wheels and time doing so. Are you going to offer to place braces if patient not happy? How much will you charge for that.
Thanks, Matt
Sorry…I didn’t clarify. I mean you’ll be spinning your wheels trying to get patients to understand what “better” looks like.
Patient communication will be key. I agree that most orthodontists would have a very hard time with this given our general mindset of “perfection” and “ideal”. Our perception and reality are disjointed however and therein lies the problem – not with the patient. How I will handle this will encompass aspects of the new patient visit, the informed consent, the course of treatment and the debond/removal/cessation of treatment encounter. Also central to assuring patient satisfaction is effective case selection which takes a great deal of experience (fortunately I have this in spades). Being able to back up aligner treatment with braces is also helpful. Thanks for the question. It seems to be a common one.
I knew what you meant. Thanks!