New dental practices: openings and who sells to them

How many new dental practices open in the United States?

Our database holds 298,630 dentist and dental clinic records in the United States. In the 30 days, 3,738 new ones arrived: 12.5 for every 1,000 records already there, against 13.8 across all sectors.

Among the 12 cities with the most dental records, Houston (99), Los Angeles (95), Chicago (80) and Dallas (80) received the most new ones. New York, with more than twice as many dental records as any other city (8,826), was 6th by new records (56). Relative to their stock, Washington and Dallas received 66.2 and 65.4 new records per 1,000 — more than ten times the rate in New York (6.3). A figure like that is worth checking record by record before reading it as dozens of new practices: one group opening several sites, or one practice whose dentists are each listed, adds several rows.

At state level, California received 583 new dental records (43,662 in all), Illinois 159 and New York State 125. All US figures: dentists in the United States.

And in the United Kingdom?

The United Kingdom has 21,601 dental records and received 73 new ones in the 30 days — 3.4 per 1,000, against 11.5 across all sectors. London received 23; none of the other 11 cities reached five. The London row is the London settlement written in the address; the county view, with all sectors, is on the Greater London page, and all UK figures are under dentists in the United Kingdom.

Why a record is not a practice

One business can have several records in any sector. In dentistry the effect is larger than in any of the other sectors we measured the same way: across the 35 countries, 13.5% of new dental records with a phone number carry a number that another new record also carries. For grocery stores the figure is 9.0%, for pharmacies 5.7%, for bars 1.3%. A typical case is a practice whose dentists are each listed in their own right next to the practice itself; others are groups with a central booking line, or several new sites of one group.

1. Count practices, not rows. Sort the export by phone number, then by address: rows that share both are one practice. Each record keeps a stable ID, so the duplicates you flag in your own sheet or CRM line up again on the next export.
2. Find out who buys. A practice that belongs to a group — in the US often a dental service organization (DSO), in the UK a dental corporate — may buy equipment and consumables centrally; at a single-owner practice the dentist decides. The same name on several new records is the clue, and the first call settles it.

Six markets compared

The United States received more new dental records (3,738) than the other five markets together (702). Relative to the records already there, new dental records arrived well below the all-sector rate in France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom; in the United States and Türkiye the two rates were close. Website information ranges from 71.6% in Germany to 40.4% in Türkiye; in every one of the six markets, at least 84.5% of dental records carry a phone number.

Who sells to a new practice, and when?

A new record is dated by the day it reached us, not by the opening day. Some practices on this month’s list are still being fitted out, some have been seeing patients for weeks, and some are an existing practice under a new name or at a new address. The first conversation finds out which, because the stage decides what is still open.

During the fit-out: equipment

• Treatment rooms: dental units and chairs, delivery systems, operatory lights, cabinetry. The largest orders and the earliest decisions; if you finance or lease equipment, this is the window (see equipment leasing leads).
• Imaging: intraoral and panoramic X-ray, cone-beam CT, intraoral scanners — and the software that comes with them.
• Plant room: compressor, suction, water treatment.
• Sterilization: autoclaves, washer-disinfectors, ultrasonic cleaners, pouching and instrument tracking. The decontamination room is planned with the floor plan, not after it.

Before the first patient

• Practice management software: scheduling, charting, billing, recalls and reminders, imaging integration. When an existing practice changes hands, data migration is part of the sale.
• Insurance: professional liability (malpractice in the US, indemnity in the UK) and cover for the premises and equipment — see commercial insurance leads.
• Payments: card terminal and patient payment plans (see merchant services leads).

Once patients come in

• Consumables: gloves, masks, bibs, composites, impression materials, disposables. The recurring account is worth more than the first order.
• Laboratory work: crowns, bridges, dentures, night guards, aligners. A dentist opening a practice may bring a lab from a previous job or be looking for one — ask, and ask whether impressions will be digital, because that decides how cases travel.
• Services: clinical waste collection, laundry, IT support, signage, a website.

Opening a dental practice depends on professional licensing, and the promotion of dental services follows professional rules in many countries. For the details, see the state dental board in the US and the General Dental Council in the UK. We do not track licenses: a new record is a business location that reached our database. Rules on unsolicited calls and messages differ by country and channel, and the obligation lies with the sender; check them with your own counsel before a campaign. For the call itself, see the cold call script for new businesses.

Building the list

1. Category: dentist, dental clinic, pediatric dentist, cosmetic dentist, dental implants provider, emergency dental service. Categories are each record’s own and are chosen one by one, so an implant supplier can take implant providers only.
2. Area: city and district; coordinates for a rep’s route.
3. Time: arrived in the last 30 days; for equipment, the newest first.
4. Channel: phone number on record; “no website information” if you sell websites or online booking.
5. Duplicates: sort by phone and address before the team starts calling.
6. Watch: save the search and new matches arrive by email every day.

Searching and counting are free on every plan, so you can see how many new dental records your territory had this month before you spend a credit (pricing). A credit is spent the first time you open a record’s details, and an export counts as opening; one credit opens one newly opened business or five established ones, and a record you have opened never costs again. Exports are CSV or XLSX. A record is a business location: name, category, address, city, district, phone, web address, coordinates and, where available, opening hours. It holds no patient information, and there is no email column and no named-person column.

All 35 countries

Across the 35 countries, the sector holds 1,293,798 records, 10,137 of them new in the 30 days; the United States (3,738), India (1,321) and Brazil (1,173) received the most.