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How Can We Financially Survive CoVid-19 And Its Aftermath?
It is truly difficult not to succumbed to our fears and worries especially when the situation is something we can't control and the uncertainties are simply enormous. One of the main issues of the current situation is not only how we can protect our lives but our livelihoods as well during and after it is all over.
As we have read in the statistics, besides the medical doctors, nurses, first responders and hospital staff who are in the first line of defense of taking care of those who are affected by CoVid-19, the dental professionals such as dental hygienists, dentists and dental lab technicians are in the top 5 of professions if we continue to practice will be the most vulnerable to this virus. Thus, we are all forced to stop doing non-emergency and elective procedures and for most to totally close down their dental practices. In abiding the rules of our respective countries to contain this virus such as social distancing, we are in a lark on what to do to ride out the financial challenges we will be facing now and afterwards.
So, what do we do on this current crisis?
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS
One has to know the current finances one has, meaning how much cash you do have, and, the monthly expenses your household do need. If you have closed down your clinic, this means you will be dipping into your savings, and hopefully, you do have one and enough to at least sustain you and your family for at least 2-3 months. If you do have employees, then, you also have to consider their well being and see if you can do afford to pay their 1 month salary and at least 1/2 of their 13th month pay or do a cash advance. Anyway, we believe if do you have employee/s in your clinic, we can assume you do have a lucrative practice or at least earning more that you can be decent enough to assists them at this difficult time. Remember, if you are worried about finances, what more for them?
2-3 months sustainability is already tight but if we will base the recovery that's supposedly happening in China, and, more so, in Taiwan, this is the number of months that the situation after its peak has started to recover, that is, if all of us will unite together and follow the rules on how to combat and contain the community spread of this virus. Thus, if we consider this scenario, we have to observe a strict budget within the month/s we might be in lock down or in restricted movements.
SKILL SETS CHECK LIST
This is the best time to think what other skill sets you do have besides practicing dentistry that you can make use at the current situation especially if you are not as financially stable even prior to this situation. Here are some skill sets that you may need to have and be able to use in order to find a temporary means of earning a living:
- Computer Literacy
- Online Skills
- Teaching Skills
- Writing Skills
- Accounting Skills
- Driving Skills
- Marketing Skills
- Sales
- Cooking Skills
- Research Work
These are skills, if you have one or more, that you may tap, and, provide you the means of temporarily finding ways to earn a living especially if the period of seclusion will remain more than expected or even now, if your savings is not enough to sustain you and your family.
RE-INVENTING YOUR DENTAL PROFESSION
With the skill sets we mentioned above, you can use some of them to re-invent and restructure the way you will provide your dental services to your patients while we practice this social distancing. It is true that we won't be able to do majority of the treatments but, consultation and prescribing medicines is still something we can do including temporarily diverting what you know in our profession into another business.
- TeleDentistry At Home – Teledentistry can be defined as a remote provision of dental care, advice, or treatment through the medium of information technology, rather than through direct personal contact with any patient(s) involved. Thanks to the widespread availability of inexpensive web cameras and video chat programs like Skype, Facebook live and other platforms, dentists can provide consultation remotely. Patients can pay you for this service. On the other hand, if you don't want to go through the hoopla of setting this up, you may apply on certain online sites that may be in need of your professional service.
Here are some websites where you can probably offer your services (Click the word to bring you to their website):
1. The Teledentists
2. OralEye
3. Virtudent - Offer Your Teaching Skills in Dentistry – Prepare graduating or just graduated dental students for their dental board examination. Every year, at least 50,000 dental students take their licensure examination in the hopes of practicing dentistry. You can help them achieve their goals by showing them how to do their best and pass the dental board examination. Creating virtual online exams and online tutoring can be a great way to help our future colleagues and at the same time earn from it.
- Online Survey Services – Dental companies, brands, and organizations from around the globe are constantly seeking the opinions of people to help shape new products they develop and how they market them. They count on survey companies for market research to tap a global test market and provide them with reliable information. If you spend time online and enjoy giving your opinion, paid surveys are a great side hustle to earn a little extra cash while helping these companies. Each online survey has a different payout, with some offering as much as $50. Most will pay less, but also take less time. Points are accumulated per survey as much as (100 points = $1), with occasional opportunities with much higher earning potential with more surveys you accomplish.
Here are some dental online surveys you can participate (Click the word to bring you to their website):
1. Dentavox
2. The Medical Panel
3. Survey Monkey - Online Sales Strategy – With the skill sets we mentioned above, doing online business is one of the ways we can financially survive this. As dentists, we already have skills in sales since we do sell our treatments and ideas in catering to the needs and wants of our patients. You can start an online business by selling a variety of things like for example if you know how to cook, you can offer food delivery with the use of social media. You can also do e-mail marketing by using your email list of your patients or use a video tool that can help your practice reach new patients and do some marketing for your practice. Using the technology available today, you will be able to freely find ways to earn money to wave out our inability to do our profession.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, with flexibility, humility and perseverance, we can indeed do something productive and still solve our financial worries while we cannot do anything about practicing our profession the way we know how. We simply cannot be selfish these days and just think of ourselves, don't you agree? What's the point of a livelihood if our very lives are on the line? Right now, the most important thing is for us to unite together but apart so we can end this CoVid-19 dilemma that's creating so much havoc in our world.
Please Do Share & Comment Below If You Have Other Suggestions on How We Can Financially Survive This. Thank You.
Contributors:
Dr. Jean Galindez - Writer | Main Editor
Dr. Bryan Anduiza - Writer
