2023 has come to an end. But looking back on the past year, the dental industry has not waited for the long-awaited high growth.
On the one hand, the implementation of centralized procurement of dental implants and the weakness of consumption have made entrants experience labor pains in 2023It has become a consensus that the dental industry has entered the era of low profits.
On the other hand, although the number of closed clinics has reached new highs in recent years, the number of dental institutions is still increasing dramatically, with an annual growth of more than 10,000 outpatient clinics, and the competition in the industry has become more and more fierce"More and more volume" has become the deepest feeling of practitioners in the dental industry.
The era of low profits and the intensification of involution have made the dental industry face huge challenges. However, just like the two sides of the coin, there are also great opportunities behind the challenges: the implementation of centralized procurement has promoted the activation of a wider range of planting demand, coupled with the emergence of a younger trend of oral consumption and the continuous upgrading of economic demand for beauty, which has brought new possibilities to the dental industry.
It was observed that in order to seize new opportunities,Industry pioneers have begun to seek transformation and iteration。Among them, the continuous implementation of digitalization, the acceleration of the chain of dental institutions, and the return to the essence of medical services have become the three major trends of the industry, promoting the transformation and upgrading of the industry.
In the face of the critical year of 2024, how can the dental industry in transformation take advantage of the wind?
Digitalization is no longer a matter of choice
Rather, it is a mandatory question
Before formally answering the above questions, let's take a look at a set of data that may be contrary to the perception of practitioners:Despite the huge operating pressure in 2023, the dental industry is still favored and bet by capital.
According to the data, in 2023, 12 domestic dental innovation companies will receive financing, including Meadville Dentistry, Dentafee, Boya Met, etc., with a total financing amount of more than 600 million yuan, with an average of one financing per month. In addition, Zhengya, Meihao Medical, Malong Dental, etc. are launching and sprinting for IPOs, and the successful listing of Condon Dental is enough to prove that the popularity of the dental industry is not decreasing.
Domestic Dental Innovative Enterprises Receiving Financing in 2023 Data**: Arterial Orange Database.
Why are these companies able to raise money against the trend in the cold winter? After combing through the companies that sprint to IPO and obtain financing, it is found that digitalization is the common reason for their investment.
For example, Kangdeng Dentistry, which was listed last year, emphasized in the investor Q&A in December that the company is accelerating the construction of digital management platforms and the upgrading of intelligent manufacturing; Another example is Zhengya, which launched the IPO, and has been focusing on digital orthodontic technical services and the research and development of first-class orthodontic products.
In this regard, a number of investors told thatDigitalization is no longer a choice question for oral entrants, but a mandatory question. The reason is that digitalization can help the dental industry change the problems of difficult medical quality standardization, high marketing costs, non-standard operations, and opaque information in the past, so that service organizations can do soFocus more on the improvement of diagnosis and treatment quality and operational capabilities, so as to achieve standardization, standardization, and then bring the possibility of greater large-scale development.
Taking oral implantology as an example, the application of the digital oral implant surgery navigation system can extend the invisible anatomical structure vision of doctors to "visualization", so that doctors can greatly improve the accuracy of implant surgery, reduce surgical trauma, and improve surgical efficiency and success rate.
It is for the above reasons,Digital innovation in the upstream of the oral cavity, mainly equipment and instruments, is in full swingA series of innovative industry products such as intraoral 3D scanners, CBCTs, dental and jaw model scanners, and oral surgery navigation systems have emerged, attracting capital to flock here.
And whereasOn the downstream service side, more and more enterprises have begun to pay attention to digital construction。Taking Meadville Dentistry, which received a new round of financing in 2023, as an example, its core strategy of "medical + technology + partner" has been focusing on digitalization since the beginning of 2016, and has become the first dental chain enterprise in the industry with a self-developed digital system.
Specifically, Meadville Dental has created oneAn information system with the core of improving management and operation efficiency - "Weixiaomei Medical Cloud Intelligent Platform".The platform covers HIS, finance, ** chain, human resources, OA and other systems, which can not only meet the refined management of enterprises, but also fully support the business coordination and data sharing of multiple organizations.
In terms of landing, the core of Meadville Dental Digitalization is "patient-centered" and "medical-centered", so as to build a digital layout suitable for Meadville Dentistry's characteristic DSO model. For example, Meadville Dentistry's AI intelligent technology performs a number of intelligent detections for the patient's oral condition, quickly assists doctors in finding patients' oral problems through AI analysis, and can generate customized reports for patients through AI. It not only helps to strengthen patients' awareness of oral health care, but also improves the accuracy and efficiency of oral diagnosis and treatment.
For example, with the help of big data technology, Meadville Dental can quickly classify customers, conduct patient return visits and tracking, improve efficiency, and maximize the management of existing patient resources.
The effects of digitalization are clear. Up to now, on the fully shared digital intelligence platform, Meadville DentalIt has achieved a high degree of integration of human, financial, material and other dataIt forms a strong ecological closed loop, minimizes human intervention, improves operational efficiency, reduces operating costs and management risks, and allows professional doctors who want to start their own businesses to focus on medical work without worries.
However, in the interview survey, due to the high investment cost of digitalization and the weak perception of users, most dental service institutions are not willing to pay for digital equipment.
In this regard, a number of industry insiders said that there is a misunderstanding in the industry, namelyIf digitalization can reduce costs, many organizations will spend money on it, but they are not interested in doing things that increase efficiency. Therefore, at present, in addition to the head dental institutions are willing to invest in digitalization, it is difficult for single and scattered institutions to carry out digital construction.
Based on this factor,Enterprises that take the lead in digitalization will have a leading edge in the future competition, and enterprises that provide digital empowerment for service organizations are bound to enter a greater space for business imagination.
Therefore, in 2024, a critical year for the dental industry to turn from an incremental market to a stock market, actively embracing digitalization and carrying out digital construction is something that every entrant needs to consider.
Chaining speed-up,
The era of the strong and the strong has arrived
In addition to the acceleration of digitalization, the chaining process of the dental industry is also accelerating.
Combing the investment and financing trends of the dental service industry in the past 4 years, it is foundVenture capital is increasingly concentrated in leading institutions, and a number of chain institutions have come to the late stage of financing, and are even sprinting for IPO or successful listingThe era of the strong and the strong has arrived
Oral medical service financing events in the past 4 years Arterial network mapping.
As can be found from the table above,Most of the leading institutions have achieved 1 financing in 2 years, or even 2 financing in 3 years。The abundance of funds has brought greater impetus to the chain expansion of leading institutions.
However, from the perspective of the development of the industry, the chain expansion of the dental industry is not easy. The reason behind this is thatThe dental industry is facing various problems such as talent, technology, marketing, marketing, and managementThese factors dilute institutional profits, so that the scale effect is not effectively revealed. This can be seen from the financial reports of listed companies, the net profit of several listed dental institutions is generally below 10%, and the increase in the number of institutions has not brought them a significant profit advantage.
Therefore, how to solve the scale of the chain process has become a difficult problem for institutions.
The stones of other mountains can be used to attack jade. Take the U.S. dental industry as a referenceThe emergence of the DSO (Dental Support Organization) model has provided a new solution for the chain expansion of the dental industry.
Before elaborating on this model, it is important to understand the peculiarities of the dental industry: in the industry, dentists often open their own practice after working for many years and choose to start their own business. Therefore, in terms of the basic pattern of the market, the United States is similar to the domestic market, that is, the single and scattered dental clinics in the private market are the mainstream.
But here's the thing,Although dentists have a wealth of experience and good competence, they lack experience in non-clinical matters such as clinic operations, law, finance, management, etc. The core of the DSO model is to provide non-clinical support services for dentists and dental clinics, so that dentists can focus more on the improvement of medical technology and the best for patients.
As a result, the implementation of the DSO model soon set off a boom in the American dental industry. As of now, more than 10% of dental clinics in the United States are affiliated with DSO. At present, the top two companies in the United States are Heartland Dental and Aspen Dental, both of which have a scale of thousands of clinics.
Looking at China, more and more enterprises have implemented the DSO model in recent years, including Meadville Dentistry, Malong Dental, Happy Dentistry, etc. Among them, as the first to adopt the DSO model in China and localize it, Meadville Dental has launched a characteristic partner system on the basis of DSO, with the purpose of making doctors withdraw from the administrative management work such as personnel management, financial and tax co-ordination, and marketing that doctors are not good at through the "business partner" model (including outpatient partners, doctor partners, city management center partners, and headquarters partners), so that doctors can better focus on the most valuable diagnosis and treatment work, and truly achieve "partner-centered".
On the one hand, the partner incentive system realizes the self-driven management of doctors and effectively solves the dilemma of doctor supervision; On the other hand, through the acquisition and acquisition of regional word-of-mouth brands operated by doctors, the core members have been developed into partners, which has further promoted the scale of chain institutions.
In the development of the innovation model, it should be optimized according to the operational feedback. In order to solve the problems of limited management radius and obstructed career promotion in the process of chaining dental institutions, Meadville Dental upgraded the partner plan to the Meadville Star plan, creating a "old + new" two-wheel drive model.
It is reported that this model has two major advantages, one is to motivate the partners to take ownership, through the empowerment of them to participate more in major decisions, so that they have a sense of responsibility and excitement to lead and set an example. The second is to outline a career advancement roadmap for partners, establish a ability-oriented rapid promotion mechanism, cultivate "star" partners, and build a strong and reliable talent echelon by inheriting and strengthening the excellent quality of the team, so as to provide capacity reserves for the sustainable development of the group.
In the previous research and interview, the relevant person in charge of Meadville Dental told that the implementation of the Meadville Star plan has made employees become the owners of the company, and the mentality is very different from that of pure part-time jobs, and has made the dental association look at things from the perspective of operators, and be more able to consider and offer suggestions for the long-term development of the company. In addition, the Meadstar program has become an important part of the high-quality growth environment for employees.
With the support of the Meadville plan, the talent system within Meadville has been able to have more comprehensive and systematic supportEvery employee can also continue to grow in a good environment. Benefiting from this, each partner who has grown up has also become a rising star, promoting the continuous development of Meadville's talent system.
To sum up,The global expansion of the DSO model has made the industry see the value, and the domestic pioneers have also embarked on a unique local development path of DSO.
In addition, throughout the evolution history of various industries, a good innovation ecosystem will gradually spill over to the outside in addition to its own iterations within the enterprise, thereby promoting the overall upward trend of the industry. It is reported that after 8 years of deep cultivation, Meadville Dental is positiveFrom DSO1Stage 0 (mainly for the empowerment of the group's internal institutions) crossed to 2Phase 0 (will empower dental institutions outside the group).。This means that domestic dental institutions can have the opportunity to participate in and enjoy the industry dividends under the wave of DSO model.
Next, how to better participate in and tap the potential of DSO, and expand the management and operation model that is more in line with China's local will be an important direction that the industry needs to promote.
Return to the essence of medical services
The dental industry starts again
In the article "30 Years of Turbulence in the Dental Industry: Attempts, Problems and the Future of Innovators" released last year, it was mentioned that under the dividends of the times, dental institutions have experienced a rapid development stage in the first 20 years of this century, and then encountered great difficulties under the amplification of the epidemic, and marketing wars and first-class wars have emerged one after another.
The dental industry in 2023 will suffer from "involution". In the face of this situation, entrants are increasingly aware that returning to the essence of medical services is the key to the healthy development of the industry.
How to return to the essence of medicine? That is, to pay more attention to patient needs and patient experience。For example, in the process of oral diagnosis and treatment, many patients will give up because of the fear of "pain", especially children who have severe needs for oral diagnosis and treatment, and the "pain" is stronger, resulting in their low degree of cooperation. As a result, the patient's treatment process is prolonged, and the effect is ultimately greatly reduced.
As can be seen from thisA comfortable oral cavity that embodies humanistic care and relieves patients' anxiety and pain is a new value embodiment in the field of dentistry. In response to this, more and more enterprises have begun to layout.
Taking Meadville Dental as an example, it is actively promoting the comfortable diagnosis and treatment of intravenous anesthesia. Specifically, comfortable diagnosis and treatment allows patients to be in the best state throughout the process. In addition, the whole process is equipped with ECG monitoring equipment, and the anesthesiologist will also accompany it, which is of great value to elderly patients with systemic diseases.
In addition, in order to promote the development of comfortable diagnosis and treatment, Meadville Dental is also actively participating in the co-construction of the industry. For example, in April 2023, Weile Dental, a brand of Meadville Dentistry, hosted a 2023 annual forum on oral comfort diagnosis and treatment applications with the theme of "Comfort, New Future", which was widely praised by the industry.
In terms of improving the patient experience, Meadville Dental has been focusing on improving its medical resources in recent years. On the one hand, Meadville Dental cooperates with colleges and universities to carry out the training program of dentists, on the other hand, it also holds many theme activities related to the training of young dentists, and holds the "Meadville Dental Case Competition" every year, so that dentists can truly grow.
It is worth mentioning that although the national oral awareness has been gradually improving in recent years, the awareness of oral health is still insufficient, coupled with the lack of primary oral diagnosis and treatment, many patients often wait until the pain is too bad to choose to go to the dental institution, and at this time the oral problems have become more and more serious.
In order to alleviate this phenomenon, Meadville Dental also proposedThe concept of "popularization"., that is, close to people's livelihood, to meet the oral health needs of the grassroots people, such as filling a tooth decay, helping adult patients do every tooth cleaning, and even teaching them how to brush their teeth correctly and protect their teeth.
Taking adult periodontal disease as an example, according to the survey data in 2020, more than 90% of adults in China have different degrees of periodontal disease, and the market potential is huge. In fact, this also reflects that simply dividing medical services into high-end, mid-end and low-end is not objective enoughThe basis of medical services must be mass medical care, which is the real needs of users.
Of course, it is more important to be aware of the return to the essence of medical servicesOral services need to be long-term。In this regard, Meadville Dental has pioneered a set of dynamic medical management system with the construction of management organization as the core, and the three pillars of the group's medical management committee, business unit medical management team and outpatient medical management team, so as to comprehensively improve the lean management ability of the medical team and promote the comprehensive upgrade of diagnosis and treatment services.
There is no doubt that how to provide better and better services for patients and truly patient-centered will be the key support for the dental industry to start again in 2024.
Write at the end
In the face of 2024, dental practitioners should be fully aware of the difficulties while also strengthening their confidence. Because the upward trend of the dental industry will not change, the opportunities are still broad.
Referring to the development path of the dental industry in the United States, per capita disposable income and the aging process are the two major factors that accelerate the development of oral diagnosis and treatment services, China is currently in the stage of the United States around 1975, per capita GDP has entered a new stage of 10,000 US dollars, the aging is deepening, and the national awareness of oral diagnosis and treatment continues to improve.
That is to say,China's dental industry is far from hitting the growth ceiling, and the future possibilities are huge.
Of course, in the process of continuous improvement of the industry, the quality of medical services will always be the key and fundamental. Therefore, for those who enter the dental industry, they must adhere to long-termism, innovate and iterate and continue to grow under the premise of grasping the fundamental value of medical care.
Only in this way can the future story of the dental industry be more exciting and exciting.
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