Dr Becketts Dental office

Case Facts:

Dr Beckett is a dentist who seeks to differentiate her practice on the basis of quality. She was taught in the academy all about the technical part of dentistry but nothing on the business side. She had no formal training on how to run a business or how to assess customer needs. That wasn’t a problem at all during the previous years of her practice of profession.

However, due to rise of cost resulting from labour laws, malpractice insurance, and the constant need to invest in new equipment and staff training as new technologies were introduced, her overhead expenses skyrocketed to 70-80% of revenues exclusive of her wages and office rentals.

Furthermore, there was a movement in the U.S. to reduce the health care costs to insurance companies, employers and patients through large health maintenance organizations (HMO’s) who sets prices by putting an upper limit on the amount that doctors and dentists could charge for various procedures.

But then again, Dr Beckett, as a competitive dentist wanting to offer the highest level of dental care rather than being a low-cost provider, refused to become an HMO provider for the reimbursement rate 80-85% of what she normally charge for treatment.

Quality entails costs as they say, which is why patients of Dr Beckett sometimes had to pay fees that were not covered by their insurance policies. If the quality difference is not substantial, then patients would rather go to HMO dentist offering lower costs.

Thus this case talks about how Dr Beckett established herself as a successful dentist and the measures she had to take for the same.

This case also talks about the challenges Dr Beckett and her team faced in the highly competitive world.

We as a team have analysed the case in all aspects and have tried applying all the concepts taught in class

1] Which of the 7 elements of the Services Marketing Mix are mentioned in this case?

1. Product:

• Dr. Beckett offers the complete range of dental care.

• This varies from simple teeth cleaning to complicated dental surgery and implants.

• As was seen in the case, the goal of Dr. Beckett’s dentistry is to “provide superior dentistry in an efficient, profitable manner within the confines of a caring, quality environment” as they stated in their mission statement.

• Routines were standardized so that error was reduced and all patients would receive the same level of care.

• Thus it can be summarized as high quality dental