Business Healthcare Management

Running a Successful Dental Practice

A practical management course for building a profitable, compliant, patient-centred dental business

Running a Successful Dental Practice logo
Quick Course Facts
18
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
18
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
6.3
Approximate Hours of Course Media
About the Running a Successful Dental Practice Course

Running a Successful Dental Practice is designed for dental professionals who want to lead with confidence, improve performance, and build a stronger healthcare Business. This course shows you how to combine clinical quality with practical commercial planning, patient experience, financial control, team leadership, and compliance.

Build A Profitable And Patient-Centred Dental Practice

  • Learn how to treat the dental practice as both a healthcare service and a sustainable Business.
  • Develop practical systems for operations, finance, marketing, compliance, and team performance.
  • Improve patient growth, retention, treatment acceptance, and long-term practice value.
  • Gain a structured approach to Running a Successful Dental Practice with confidence and clarity.

A practical management course for building a profitable, compliant, patient-centred dental business.

This course gives you a clear framework for leading and managing a modern dental practice. You will explore how to define your vision, values, market position, service mix, and Business plan so your practice can grow in a focused and sustainable way.

You will learn how to improve daily operations by managing appointment books, chair time, front desk processes, SOPs, and patient flow. The course also covers dental practice finance, including revenue, costs, cash flow, pricing, fee reviews, treatment plan profitability, and the key performance indicators every owner or manager should track.

Patient growth is a major focus, with lessons on first contact, follow-up, case presentation, treatment acceptance, recall, reactivation, membership plans, ethical marketing, online reputation, and referrals. You will also strengthen your approach to recruitment, training, delegation, meetings, feedback, performance management, compliance, risk, complaints, documentation, suppliers, technology, expansion, and long-term practice value.

By the end of Running a Successful Dental Practice, you will understand how to manage the Business side of dentistry without losing sight of patient care. You will be better prepared to lead your team, make informed decisions, reduce operational friction, and build a profitable, compliant, patient-centred dental Business.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Foundations of Practice Leadership

3 lessons

This lesson frames a dental practice as both a clinical care environment and a healthcare business. Learners examine why excellent dentistry alone is not enough to create a sustainable practice, and h…

Lesson 2: Defining Your Practice Vision, Values, and Market Position

20 min
This lesson helps dental practice owners and managers define the strategic foundation of a successful practice: a clear vision, usable values, and a market position that patients and team members can …

Lesson 3: Understanding Patients, Demographics, and Local Demand

19 min
This lesson shows dental practice leaders how to understand the people, households, employers, competitors, and access patterns around a practice location. Rather than guessing what patients want, man…

Strategy and Commercial Planning

2 lessons

Lesson 4: Choosing the Right Service Mix and Clinical Offering

21 min
This lesson shows how to choose a dental practice service mix that fits the local market, the clinical team, available chair time, and the business model. It focuses on building an offering that is co…

Lesson 5: Building a Practical Business Plan for Growth

22 min
This lesson shows how to turn a dental practice growth ambition into a practical business plan that can guide decisions, spending, staffing, and accountability. It focuses on a simple planning structu…

Practice Operations

2 lessons

Lesson 6: Managing Appointment Books, Chair Time, and Daily Flow

20 min
This lesson explains how to manage the dental appointment book as an operational and financial control system, not just a diary. It covers chair-time planning, procedure mix, buffer design, handoffs, …

Lesson 7: Creating Reliable Systems, SOPs, and Front Desk Processes

21 min
This lesson shows how reliable systems and well-written SOPs turn a dental practice from a personality-dependent workplace into a consistent, scalable operation. Students learn how to identify high-ri…

Financial Management

3 lessons

Lesson 8: Dental Practice Finance: Revenue, Costs, and Cash Flow

23 min
This lesson explains the financial operating model of a dental practice: how revenue is generated, where costs accumulate, and why profit does not automatically translate into available cash. It focus…

Lesson 9: Pricing, Fee Reviews, and Treatment Plan Profitability

22 min
This lesson teaches dental practice owners and managers how to set fees deliberately, review them on a regular schedule, and evaluate whether treatment plans are financially sustainable before they ar…

Lesson 10: Key Performance Indicators Every Practice Should Track

20 min
This lesson explains the core key performance indicators dental practice owners and managers should track to understand financial health, operational efficiency, and patient growth. It focuses on prac…

Patient Growth and Retention

3 lessons

Lesson 11: Patient Experience from First Contact to Follow-Up

19 min
This lesson maps the patient experience across the full journey: first enquiry, booking, arrival, clinical handover, treatment discussion, payment clarity, departure, and follow-up. The focus is on pr…

Lesson 12: Improving Case Presentation and Treatment Acceptance

21 min
This lesson focuses on improving case presentation so patients can make informed, confident decisions about recommended care. It covers how to connect diagnosis to patient goals, explain treatment opt…

Lesson 13: Recall, Reactivation, Membership Plans, and Retention

20 min
This lesson explains how a dental practice can protect and grow revenue by managing recall, reactivation, membership plans, and patient retention as one connected system. It focuses on practical workf…

Marketing and Brand Building

1 lesson

Lesson 14: Ethical Marketing, Online Reputation, and Referral Growth

22 min
This lesson shows how a dental practice can grow visibility, trust, reviews, and referrals without drifting into misleading claims, privacy risks, or pressure-based selling. The focus is on ethical ma…

Team Leadership

2 lessons

Lesson 15: Recruiting, Training, and Retaining a Strong Dental Team

23 min
This lesson explains how a dental practice owner or manager can recruit, train, and retain a dependable team without relying on luck or personality fit alone. It focuses on role clarity, structured hi…

Lesson 16: Delegation, Meetings, Feedback, and Performance Management

21 min
This lesson shows dental practice owners and managers how to turn leadership expectations into daily team behaviour. It focuses on practical delegation, productive meetings, useful feedback, and fair …

Governance and Risk

1 lesson

Lesson 17: Compliance, Risk Management, Complaints, and Documentation

24 min
This lesson gives practice owners and managers a practical framework for keeping a dental practice compliant, defensible, and patient-centred. It focuses on governance routines, risk registers, docume…

Sustainable Growth

1 lesson

Lesson 18: Technology, Suppliers, Expansion, and Long-Term Practice Value

23 min
This lesson shows how a dental practice owner can use technology, supplier management, measured expansion, and value-building decisions to support sustainable growth. It focuses on practical choices: …
About Your Instructor
Professor Christina Ross

Professor Christina Ross

Professor Christina Ross guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.