Dentistry can be an isolated profession and it’s often difficult to know how your practice compares to your peers. While no two practices are identical, how would you know if the trends in your office are being seen by other dental practices? There are some questions that can be embarrassing to ask another practitioner about: practice volume, profitability, etc. The landscape of the payments your practice accepts has probably changed drastically in the last few years but those changes often can slip under the radar even when it is significantly affecting your bottom line.

Best Card, the endorsed payment processor of the WSDA and ADA Member Advantage has been working with thousands of dental offices nationwide for over 15 years, and we want to pull back the curtain on the uncomfortable questions you may not want to ask your fellow practitioners:

• How much does the average dental office collect in credit card payments?
• Have dentists raised their prices to keep up with inflation?
• What are other dentists paying to accept credit card payments?
• How much SHOULD you be paying?

Using our data from thousands of dental offices over the past 15 years, here’s a little peek into what the average dental practice has experienced!

How much does the average dental office collect in credit cards?

Dental offices have seen a large increase in the total amount of credit card payments collected over the past 10+ years and COVID accelerated that trend considerably, as patients moved towards payment methods that were more convenient and involved less physical contact. Furthermore, many insurance providers started issuing virtual credit cards as payment for their remittances, which also increased the amount of card payments dental practices are accepting.

• In 2023, the average dental office ran $44,925 in credit card payments per month.
• That’s a 45.5% increase over the 2019 average of $30,876.
• It’s a 195% increase over the 2009 average of $15,221. The average practice is now running almost 3 times as much in credit cards as in 2009!

While accepting credit cards ensures that offices can quickly and easily collect payments, with more patients and insurance providers choosing to pay with cards, it is a much more substantial factor in the practice’s total profitability than in the past

Have practices raised their costs to keep up with inflation?

Every dentist knows that Covid and the resulting supply chain and inflation issues increased the costs of many items used regularly in the practice. As a result, many dentists have had to raise their prices over the last several years in response to those increased business costs. We can see this trend clearly by looking at the size of the average payment across all practices.

• The average credit card payment accepted by dental offices in 2023 was $306 compared to $273 in 2019 – an increase of 11.87% in just four years.
• From 2009 to 2019, the average payment only increased 0.12% over a 10 year period.
• 2023 saw a slight decrease in the average payment compared to 2022: from $307 to $306, indicating that increases due to inflation may be slowing.

The Consumer Price Index shows that inflation in the U.S. from 2019 to 2023 was 19.2%, so even though the increase in average dental transaction size from 2019 onward marked a substantial difference compared to 2009-2019, the 11.87% increase hasn’t kept up with the economy-wide price hike.

What does the average practice pay to run cards?