Welcome to episode 001 of The Dental Marketing Podcast. This week we talked with Dr. Jignesh Patel about his journey to success in the field of business dentistry.

Dr. Jignesh Patel is the owner of the Dental Center of Jacksonville. Dr. Patel began his career at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale and has since settled in Jacksonville with his wife. Throughout his career, he has extended his skills to provide exceptional dentistry, refusing to settle for anything less.

Dr. Patel’s philosophy of practicing dentistry is putting the patient first. Too often in the healthcare community, patients are not recognized as people and are simply treated for the problems that arise in the scope of the practice. Dr. Patel believes it is vital to value the patient’s feelings, background, interests, and challenges so treatment can be tailored individually with care and compassion.

Here’s just a taste of what we talked about today:

DR. PATEL’S THOUGHTS ON DENTISTRY BEING RECESSION PROOF

Dr. Patel wouldn't say dentistry is recession-proof. He continued by saying that patients make every decision in their life depending on their financial status. Whether they want to purchase a car or a house, it all must be factored in with what is urgent. 

In dentistry, it is about what could wait and what needs to be done. Can the patient postpone it for six months or eight months? Ultimately, anything that is delayed treatment can become worse, like a small cavity becoming a big cavity.

He also mentioned recession does affect the industry. Nobody walks into the dental office and says, "Hey, I'm just here to know what I want to do”. They want to get their mouth fixed. Just like anything in our body, we don't want it to go bad. Ultimately, finances are a huge deciding factor, and retention does put a big hamper on what they want to do.

ABOUT CORPORATE DENTISTRY

When it comes to corporate dentistry, Dr. Patel said it has absolutely outgrown and tripled in numbers. He could basically speak for his corporation, which was a very small corporation at that time. In his fourth year with the corporation, they went from five offices to 15 to 20 offices in town. That just tells us the percentage was almost threefold, and that was six years ago. Nowadays it's even worse. It's more. 

He goes on to say corporations are unfortunately taking over a significant amount in the private sector of dentistry, and there is a significant amount of new influx of dentists moving to Jacksonville or any big metro city. There is a significant need for dentists, and there is a shortage in rural areas. It's just unfortunate the industry is not having those offices open in those particular areas where there's a huge need.

Other Topics We Covered on the Show:

• The cosmetic side of dentistry and recession.
• Dr. Patel’s journey to owning a dental center. 
• What is the thing Dr. Patel might change in the last six years of experience in running this practice? 
• What is responsible for getting Dr. Patel this far in the field of dentistry?
• Dr. Patel’s thoughts on a fee-for-service model versus accepting insurance in the practice.

How To Stay Connected with Dr. Jignesh Patel

Want to stay connected with Dr. Jignesh? Please check out his social profiles below.

• Website: https://www.dentalcenterjacksonville.com/ 

With that… let’s go and listen to the full episode…