If you’ve been contemplating a switch to a more sustainable model, it’ll take time, it’s not something that can be achieved overnight.
Here are a few quick tips on how to slowly, but surely build a sustainable practice.
Build a culture of sustainability
In order to fully embrace the process of building a sustainable practice, you’ll need to ensure your team is onboard. Like any new initiative, if you don’t have team buy-in, you’ll find it difficult to push forward and achieve success.
One thing you can do is identify sustainability champions within your practice. They will help advocate for more environmentally friendly practices in every facet of your business and encourage the rest of your team to join in.
Redefine your goals
While your end goal is always patient driven, it may be time to re-evaluate your goals to ensure they are in line with a more sustainable practice.
It’s great to plan ahead and redefine your objectives, so you can work towards your sustainability goals and have something to aim for.
Align with sustainability
Who you align with matters. To bring forward some more concrete changes within your practice you’ll need to ensure you’re aligning with other businesses who adopt the same sustainability ethos as you.
Ask your suppliers these questions:
- Are your products Fairtrade?
- Are your products recyclable, or made with recycled materials?
- Are your products sourced sustainably?
Start aligning your practice with products that support sustainability and minimise their impact on the planet and the community. You can start off small, but soon you’ll start to see a real shift as you align yourself with products which are environmentally friendly.
It can be expensive to make a switch to environmentally friendly products all at once, so set yourself goals and make smaller changes that will eventually add up to a bigger, more sustainable picture.
Once you start building a more sustainable practice, you can align yourself with other sustainable businesses in the community, participating in valuable collaborations – working together with a common goal in mind.
Connect with your patients
Once you build a sustainable business you can let people know what you are doing and how your practice has changed.
These initiatives can be woven into your marketing strategy and are a great way to connect with like-minded patients who will be drawn to your practice because you align with their environmental views.
Make it fun
While looking after our planet is serious business, you can have fun along the way. Look into out-of-the-box ways to tick sustainability boxes and connect with your community through your shared beliefs.
Reduce paper – go digital
There are many ways to digitise your business, helping to reduce the amount of waste paper.
Embracing new technologies and moving parts of your business online will go a long way to reduce the amount of paper your practice uses as well as improve efficiency.
Our Dental Payment Plan solution is a managed service that helps your patients get the treatment they need and want, while reducing the administration tasks within your practice.
As a DentiCare provider your patients have access to affordable payment plans, and you can navigate all payment plan details online, while the DentiCare team manages overdue accounts, billing, and following up missed payments.
These are just a few ways to start building a sustainable practice. It won’t happen overnight, but every small step you take is moving you closer to a more environmentally friendly approach to business and you’ll be surprised what a big impact your practice can make.
If you’d like to know more about the DentiCare Payment Plan solution contact us today!