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A Three-Tiered Growth Strategy
The U.S. orthodontics market, representing an estimated $10 billion industry, is growing at an estimated rate of 7 to 10% per year. OCA’s strategy involves three key avenues for growth: internal growth, external growth and international growth. The first, internal growth—helping each individual center build business—is the cornerstone of our operating philosophy. The second, external growth, comes through acquisitions, new affiliations and de novo development. The 2001 merger with OrthAlliance, which added 264 affiliated centers and 156 affiliated practitioners, is an example of external growth. In addition, through that merger, a number of pediatric dentists have affiliated with OCA, opening the way for new growth opportunities through joint practices and referrals. The third avenue, international growth, represents an enormous long-term opportunity for OCA, one that we are aggressively pursuing.
Growing Business for Each OCA Center
We build relationships with our affiliated practitioners, assisting them in building business in their markets, helping them improve operating efficiencies and giving them a competitive edge. That’s a major source of our ongoing growth. It’s a process that involves building business one practice at a time, one relationship at a time, one facility at a time.
When we affiliate with a new practitioner, we go through a rigorous qualification process. A key goal is to affiliate with practitioners who still have room for growth and a desire for their practices to go to the next level—those who will benefit most from our services and achieve genuine benefits from the affiliation. We look for practices that will be affiliated with us for a long time, that have a long-term focus and that will achieve internal growth through our systems and programs. By assisting our affiliated practices in attracting business to the center through advertising and implementing extensive programs to increase productivity, we achieve strong and consistent internal growth. Our mature affiliated orthodontic practices achieved significantly more new case starts per year, on average, than the average traditional practice. That, combined with an ongoing emphasis on productivity, builds profitability.
Creative Growth Strategies
We use powerful information systems to measure and respond to market shifts and to provide the resources for growth of the individual practice. As an example, if a practice isn’t performing as well as desired, additional advertising dollars can be allocated to boost business. We assist our affiliated practices in employing creative, efficient strategies for growth, whether it’s building an additional center across town, using general dentist assistants or employing our new digital patient charting technology. We uncover opportunities to delegate responsibilities, so our affiliated practitioners can use their time effectively, a process that can promote improved quality as well as increased efficiencies. As an example, our Licensed Assistant Program enables orthodontists to serve a larger patient base while maintaining the highest quality of patient care by using a general dentist as an orthodontic assistant. In a recent analysis of 17 affiliated practices using the services of a general dentist assistant, year-over-year new patient contract dollar growth for these practices was, on average, 34%.
A System That Works
Our goal is to bring each center to full maturity, targeting same center sales growth. Our Practice Enhancement Team works with OCA affiliated centers to train staff, implement new systems and programs, and provide support as needed. OCA holds regional practitioner meetings and seminars to provide a forum for education and interaction between affiliated practitioners. And we use these meetings as an opportunity to seek feedback on how we can better serve them. Most importantly, we promote quality treatment by enabling our affiliated practitioners to do what they do best: practice orthodontics and pediatric dentistry.