Michael Ollinger - Kornberg School of Dentistry

Lunch and Learn: Financial Literacy for a Successful Practice!
Spring 2025
Temple Dental School
Lecture B, from 12:15-1:15 on March 27th, 2025
Mr. Perry went though some mock financial statements showing how the average Heartland Dental practice does normally. He showed several benchmarks and trends, such as the average practice spends 11-12% on operating costs and around 25% on employment. He mentioned the importance of choosing the proper lab, as sending out lots of lab work will add up over time and choosing the lab with the combination of the best rates and best service can heavily impact your financials.
I want to own a practice someday and don’t have the strongest ideas of what the average expenses should be. Seeing his benchmarks and trends give me an idea to shoot for when trying to financially balance my future practice. His advice about how to select a lab was also crucial. I knew that selecting a lab would be important, but I didn’t realize how much just cutting lab fees from 10% to 8% would save me year over year.