The Management of Dental Practices in the Post-COVID 19 Era: An Economic and Operational Perspective

Abstract

Background: In order to protect dental teams and their patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, dentists have had to adopt several measures (operating and post-operating procedures) which may increase the total treatment time and costs relating to individual protective measures. This paper will propose a thorough analysis of operating dentistry procedures, comparing the economic performance of the activity in a dental surgery before and after the adoption of these protective measures, which are required to contain the risk of SARS-COV-2 infections. Methods: The economic analysis is articulated in three approaches. Firstly, it assesses a reduction in markup by maintaining current charges (A); alternatively, it suggests revised charges to adopt in order to maintain unvaried levels of markup (B). And the third Approach (C) examines available dental treatments, highlighting how to profitably combine treatment volumes to reduce markup loss or a restricted increase in dental charges. Results: Maintaining dental charges could cause a loss in markup, even rising to 200% (A); attempting to maintain unvaried levels of markup will result in an increase in dental charges, even at 100% (B); and varying the volumes of the single dental treatments on offer (increasing those which current research indicates as the most profitable) could mitigate the economic impact of the measures to prevent the transmission of SARS-COV-2 (C). Conclusions: The authors of this paper provide managerial insights which can assist the dentist-entrepreneur to become aware of the boundaries of the economic consequences of governmental measures in containing the virus infection.