Financial Reporting for the Dental Office

Fine-tune the dental practice's finances

Monitoring financial performance is vital to a dental practice’s success. Understanding and interpreting a variety of financial reports and effectively communicating critical financial data with all members of a dental practice are key responsibilities of the dental office manager. In the DALE Foundation’s Financial Reporting for the Dental Office course, you will learn about the principles of financial controls; variations in financial reporting for different types of dental offices; factors that affect dental practice productivity; the differences between daily, weekly, monthly and yearly financial reports; the importance of profit and loss (P&L) statements, daily balance sheets and budgets; as well as ways to effectively communicate with members of the dental team.

Our self-paced, interactive online course allows you to work through and review course topics on your own schedule. You can review specific course topics as much as you like to prepare for the post-course assessment. Upon passing the end-of-course assessment, you will receive a verification of participation to print and display.

*This course is an assessment-based certificate program. Upon successful completion of a certificate program, you will receive a verification of participation. A certificate program is not a professional certification, so you do not receive credentials or letters after your name. To learn more about the difference between certificate programs and professional certification, visit the Institute of Credentialing Excellence.

Course credentials

Subject Matter Experts:

• Melanie Cooper-Duncan, FAADOM
• Deborah J. Gowan, FAADOM
• Michelle Kratt, FAADOM

Creation date: September 2012
Updated: February 2017; October 2018
Date of next review: October 2021
Meets AADOM Fellowship requirements

Financial know-how for the dental practice

Seeing the whole financial picture is critical to your dental practice’s success. By the end of the course, learners will be able to:

• Understand the importance of internal financial controls and daily checks and balances in a dental office
• Identify different types of financial reporting methods based on type of practice, number of employees and office size
• Interpret the financial policy for the dental office, including discount standards, third-party payment options and fee schedules
• Determine the daily, weekly, monthly and annual reports necessary to maintain day-to-day operations
• Analyze dental practice productivity by reviewing the scheduling, patient cancellation, and procedure reports
• Evaluate the P&L statement, daily balance sheets and annual budget for future forecasting
• Recognize the importance of effective communication with and making informed recommendations to the dentist/dental employee

Test out our course

Check out our Financial Reporting for the Dental Office course – and discover the ways sound financial practices can pay off.

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