If you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, “Our schedule is full, collections look solid, but there’s still not much left over at the end of the month,” you’re not alone.
We talk to dentists every week who feel the same way. The practice looks busy from the outside, yet the financials tell a different story. You’re producing plenty, but overhead, PPO adjustments, and rising costs keep eating away at what should be profit.
The answer isn’t to work harder or squeeze in more patients. It’s to fine-tune the areas of your practice that have the biggest impact on your bottom line: operations, margins, and cash flow.
At Virjee Consulting, we help dental practice owners see where their money is actually going, identify the small shifts that make the biggest difference, and create a plan for how dentists can add more to bottom line in the coming year.
Here’s how we approach it – and how those same improvements can also make your practice more valuable.
1. Strengthen the Operational Side of the Practice
Think of operations as the front end of profitability. This includes treatment acceptance, call handling, hygiene reactivation, and how efficiently your team fills the schedule.
Take a practice of collecting around $800,000 each year. If treatment acceptance improves from 55 percent to 65 percent, that alone can increase annual collections by about $40,000. If call pickup and scheduling success rise from 82 percent to 90 percent, that adds another $15,000. And reactivating just one additional hygiene patient per day can bring in another $10,000 over the year.
That’s a total of $65,000 in potential revenue growth without adding a single new day of work.
What makes this even better is that every dollar of added production helps offset fixed overhead. Your rent, insurance, and software costs stay the same, but your profit per patient goes up. The key is consistency. Measure those numbers monthly and coach the team around them.
When you know your treatment acceptance rate or hygiene reactivation rate, you can spot trends early and correct them. This is how small operational tweaks lead to how dentists can add more to bottom line in the new year.
2. Improve Margins and Reduce Waste
Higher collections are great, but they only help if you keep more of what you collect. Margin expansion is about finding hidden profit inside the systems you already have.
One of the fastest ways to do that is to review your PPO contracts and fee schedules. If you have not done that in the past two years, chances are you are leaving money on the table. Negotiating better reimbursements can add around $15,000 in annual profit for a practice of this size.
You can also eliminate low-performing marketing or unused supply subscriptions. Even a small trim in those areas can free up another $5,000.
That adds up to $20,000 in additional margin.
None of this requires major changes. It’s about taking a closer look at where your money is going and asking whether that cost actually supports growth. The goal is not to cut blindly but to spend intentionally.
When your margins improve, you have more flexibility to reinvest in the things that matter, such as technology upgrades, team training, or patient experience improvements that keep your practice growing and healthy.
3. Build Better Cash Flow and Tax Efficiency
Once you increase production and margins, the next step is protecting what you earn. This is where proactive cash flow and tax planning make the biggest difference.
Imagine your overhead running at 66 percent. Reducing that to 65 percent keeps an extra $8,000 in your pocket. A tailored tax strategy can add another $35,000 in savings. And reviewing or expanding your retirement plan can defer another $5,000 into long-term wealth.
Together, that’s almost $50,000 in additional cash flow and tax benefit. Combined with operational and margin improvements, the total annual impact could reach $108,000 for an average $800,000 practice.
Those savings can fund retirement, reduce debt, or go toward strategic reinvestment. Most importantly, they make your practice financially stronger without increasing your workload.
Why More Profit Also Means a Higher Practice Value
Here’s something many dentists don’t realize: the same profit that improves your paycheck also increases the value of your practice.
Dental practices are typically valued using a multiple of their profit. Depending on your profitability and buyer demand, that multiple usually ranges from three to six times your annual profit.
That means every extra dollar of recurring profit can increase your practice value by three to six dollars. Using the example above, a $108,000 improvement in profit could increase your practice value by roughly $430,000.
So when you focus on strengthening your bottom line, you’re not just improving cash flow, you’re building long-term equity. Whether you plan to sell in five years or simply want a stronger position for financing, these changes build measurable value.
How to Make 2026 Your Most Profitable Year Yet
The best time to plan is before January starts.
Here’s a simple roadmap to put this into action.
- Choose two operational improvements for the first quarter. Focus on treatment acceptance and scheduling efficiency. Set targets, track weekly, and celebrate progress.
- Tackle one margin win each quarter. Review PPOs, vendor pricing, or marketing spend. Keep what performs and cut what doesn’t.
- Schedule quarterly financial reviews. Work with your accountant to forecast profit, review taxes, and plan retirement contributions.
- Reinvest intentionally. Direct a portion of your improved profit toward equipment or team development that enhances patient experience and supports long-term growth.
When you follow this rhythm, profit becomes a habit rather than a surprise.
Plan Your 2026 With Virjee Consulting
At Virjee Consulting, we help dental practice owners understand their numbers, identify the right levers to pull, and build long-term financial strength.
We work with dentists across the country who want more than simple bookkeeping. Our goal is to help you turn day-to-day decisions into measurable results for your bottom line and your practice value.
If you want to make 2026 your most profitable year yet, reach out to us today. We’ll review your current numbers, outline the first steps, and help you turn steady results into lasting success.
We go through this entire approach in more detail in our October Webinar: How $1M+ Practices Can Keep an Extra $100K Each Year.
You can watch the replay here: https://www.dentalcpausa.com/webinars-on-demand/
