How to Streamline Your Dental Equipment Purchases

Every practice, regardless of size, can benefit from a clear, repeatable process when buying dental equipment. This blog post is brought to you by GroupUps, and in it you’ll discover eight steps to build your own equipment-purchasing SOP, helping to ensure smooth and successful equipment procurement.

1. Needs Assessment

Create a regular cadence to identify potential upcoming equipment needs. What to consider:

• Usage of existing equipment: Is there equipment that’s constantly being moved from room-to room, or always has a wait?

• Age of existing equipment: Tracking the age of your equipment against the expected lifespan helps you plan purchases ahead, minimizing the chance of being surprised with an unexpected replacement.

• Growth plans: Do you hope to expand your practice or add new technology? What equipment will be required to support these plans?

Use this assessment to create a prioritized list of equipment for replacement or addition to your practice. Capture this list in a shared document that’s updated as things change to streamline planning.

2. Budget & Approval Workflow

Share your needs assessment with your accountant or financial advisor to improve the budgeting and planning process.

Don’t just consider the expected cost of a purchase. The budgeting process should also consider increased production or improved efficiency that you hope to achieve with each purchase. Tracking this allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of each purchase so your planning process continually improves.

3. Vendor & Specification Checklist

Especially when you’re evaluating new equipment, it’s easy to focus on the brands everyone’s talking about. However, it’s important to remember that popular brands might not always provide the best fit for your practice’s unique needs. That’s why it’s important to start with requirements before focusing on a specific brand.

Some things to consider:

• What do you plan to use the equipment for?

• What are your preferences for warranty and support?

• Does it need to interoperate with equipment you already have or are planning to purchase?

• If this is a new type of purchase for your practice, this is a good time to educate yourself on the technology. This could include attending courses, watching videos, and researching online.

• Capture your requirements in a single document. Using a spreadsheet can make it easy to classify as “nice-to-have” vs “must-have” and to evaluate solutions side-by-side.

Pro Tip: On large purchases such as CBCTs, chairs, and scanners, working with GroupUps gets you access to our brand-neutral AI that quickly captures your needs and translates them into suitable options, saving you hours of research time.

4. Product & Vendor Identification

Once your requirements are finalized, begin identifying the specific equipment and sellers that match your needs.

• Use online resources, such as manufacturer websites, 3rd party product reviews, and peers to identify potential options.

• When talking with sellers, share your list of requirements and ask them to identify how the solutions they present lines up with your needs.

• Start understanding the costs associated with each option you’re considering, and don’t forget to ask about subscription or other ongoing costs.

• If you started a spreadsheet in step 3, populate it with what you learn about each product to streamline your evaluation process.

Pro Tip: Don’t skip the demos! Once you’ve narrowed down to the top 2-3 options, be sure to get a
demo for equipment like CBCTs and scanners. We’ve seen demos completely change the mind of
doctors who had been convinced that one option was going to be their choice.

5. Evaluation

Review all the information you’ve gathered.

• This is where a spreadsheet comparison is especially helpful, because you can quickly eliminate options that don’t hit your must-haves, plus easily compare upfront and ongoing costs to understand total cost of ownership.
• Scoring how closely each option matches your requirements (1-5 scale) helps bring objectivity to what can sometimes become an emotional decision. You’ll know that the unit with the highest score is likely the best match for your practice.
• If you need financing but don’t already have it lined up, now’s a good time to get in touch with lenders.

6. Negotiation & Purchase Agreement Review

You’ve probably been negotiating all along, but now’s the time to really ensure you’re getting the best deal possible. This includes negotiating the final price, evaluating payment terms, confirming warranty, support, and training, asking for any “freebies”, and ensuring trade-in terms are all documented. Once you receive a purchase agreement or invoice, review it carefully before signing to ensure there’s no hidden surprises.

Pro Tip: As an individual practice owner, it’s hard to know if you’re really getting the best price or just being sold to by a salesperson. That’s why GroupUps built “Rate My Quote”. We compare and rate your quote against our nationwide quote database, giving you confidence that you’re getting the best price. Don’t want to deal with the hassle of negotiating? GroupUps can take care of that too.

7. Delivery, Installation & Staff Training

Finally, it’s time for your equipment to be delivered and installed! Follow this simple checklist to ensure it goes smoothly:

• Room prep: Confirm with the seller any clearance, power, or network requirements ahead of time.
• Delivery & installation: Confirm ETA, and if they’ll need any special access. Make sure you or a member of your team are available to meet the installer.
• Team training: Depending on the equipment, team training could be a quick hour on the day of install, or multiple sessions scheduled over time. Make sure training is blocked on your schedules to get new equipment integrated to the practice as quickly as possible.
• Post-install: Walk through the installation and note any necessary follow-ups so nothing falls through the cracks.

8. Maintenance & Review Cadence

Staying on top of preventive maintenance can extend the life of your equipment:

• Maintenance log: Whenever you get new equipment, review the recommended maintenance schedule and add it to your practice’s maintenance logs (perhaps you should add it to your SOPs in My Dental SOP?)
• Performance audit: Six months after any major purchase, review usage and performance against your expectations and record any lessons learned to help with future planning. Were you too optimistic about the benefits and usage of the equipment, or has your team used it even more frequently than expected?

Planning a large purchase and feeling overwhelmed?

GroupUps has helped hundreds of practices with equipment purchases, from established offices adding a CBCT and startup practices fully outfitting ops, to practices making routine upgrades to their technology. Save yourself dozens of hours of research and negotiating time by working with GroupUps on your next equipment purchase. Submit your equipment list here to get started.