How competitive is dentistry in Manhattan?
A brief check of the New York Education website shows that there are 2790 dentists who hold licenses in New York County (Manhattan). That's a fairly large number but still finite. According to a check of the NYU Wagner website 3,100,000 people are in Manhattan each day, so there is about one dentist for 1,100 people in Manhattan. This statistic indicates that Manhattanites have a better ratio of dentists than average for the U.S.. According to numbers I obtained from the ADA site there is one dentist per every 1,642 people in the U.S.
This relative "over abundance" of dentists in Manhattan is not surprising since doctors and dentists tend to prefer practicing in well to do urban areas. A number of dentists I know maintain part time practices in Manhattan, probably because they do not have sufficient numbers of patients to support a full time practice.
The competition for patients in Manhattan can be fierce and has driven some dentists to offer various "incentives" for prospective patients, such as free bleaching, specials for new patients and offers of free consultations and even cosmetic Botox specials. I guess these incentives may be working for practices that accept most types of dental insurance, since patients lured in by these special deals may stay since the practice most likely accepts their plan, but for mostly fee for service practices, like my own, these kind of offers probably would not lead to patients whom would "stand the test of time".
Accordingly my practice doesn't offer free consultations and instead has a fee of $100 for an office visit to meet us and get an opinion. I set this fee on the low side to hopefully encourage people to come in and meet us, but this "token" fee does weed out some "bargain hunters". Some patients are referred by ZocDoc and most come in because we accept their insurance (Delta Premier or Cigna DPPO). These patients tend to stay, at least as long as their coverage remains in effect (but often leave if their company changes their coverage to a different panel.)
A high proportion of our new patients either come from our existing patients who tend to recommend their friends. To encourage these word of mouth referrals , we have a program in place (care to share) where they can refer a friend or loved one by giving them a care to share card. The recipient is entitled to an examination and any needed radiographs at no cost as long as the card is still valid (cards are given out usually with a 30 day expiration date) . Although this is a generous offer (worth up to so everal hundred dollars) I have found it stimulates referrals from my patients who seem to giving the "gift of dental health" to those they care about. As we explain when we give out these cards, "Why should referrals wait until something hurts them? Instead these cards, with an expiration date, give their friends and family an incentive to come in before a little problem becomes a potentially big one."
from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2018/03/how-competitive-is-dentistry-in.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/
This relative "over abundance" of dentists in Manhattan is not surprising since doctors and dentists tend to prefer practicing in well to do urban areas. A number of dentists I know maintain part time practices in Manhattan, probably because they do not have sufficient numbers of patients to support a full time practice.
The competition for patients in Manhattan can be fierce and has driven some dentists to offer various "incentives" for prospective patients, such as free bleaching, specials for new patients and offers of free consultations and even cosmetic Botox specials. I guess these incentives may be working for practices that accept most types of dental insurance, since patients lured in by these special deals may stay since the practice most likely accepts their plan, but for mostly fee for service practices, like my own, these kind of offers probably would not lead to patients whom would "stand the test of time".
Accordingly my practice doesn't offer free consultations and instead has a fee of $100 for an office visit to meet us and get an opinion. I set this fee on the low side to hopefully encourage people to come in and meet us, but this "token" fee does weed out some "bargain hunters". Some patients are referred by ZocDoc and most come in because we accept their insurance (Delta Premier or Cigna DPPO). These patients tend to stay, at least as long as their coverage remains in effect (but often leave if their company changes their coverage to a different panel.)
A high proportion of our new patients either come from our existing patients who tend to recommend their friends. To encourage these word of mouth referrals , we have a program in place (care to share) where they can refer a friend or loved one by giving them a care to share card. The recipient is entitled to an examination and any needed radiographs at no cost as long as the card is still valid (cards are given out usually with a 30 day expiration date) . Although this is a generous offer (worth up to so everal hundred dollars) I have found it stimulates referrals from my patients who seem to giving the "gift of dental health" to those they care about. As we explain when we give out these cards, "Why should referrals wait until something hurts them? Instead these cards, with an expiration date, give their friends and family an incentive to come in before a little problem becomes a potentially big one."
from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2018/03/how-competitive-is-dentistry-in.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/
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