In this era, most of us buy everything from coffee to burger and apparels to groceries from franchises. We have an endless appetite for convenience. Franchise businesses normally provide handiness and affordable prices to consumers.

Well, have you heard of dentistry franchise? To date, there are no dentistry franchises in Malaysia but the idea of franchising a trip to dentist has been blooming in U.S since couple of years ago.

Convenience is the keyword. And it is better if it is cost savings. Comfort Dental is the largest dental franchise in U.S. It comprises of 78 franchises with 286 partner dentists across the state. They do approximately one third of all dental work that is done.  According to Dr.Biscuspid.com, the president and CEO of Comfort Dental, Rick Kushner said, “Our business model is a franchise, which means our economies-of-scale keeps costs down. Hence we make it possible for families to access quality dental at a low cost rate.”

Many states have laws the owner must be a dentist and some. The laws vary across the state. Previously, licensed dentists were prohibited from entering into arrangements with unlicensed proprietors and specifically prohibited from the franchise practice of dentistry. Under the new law which passed the bill on June 2011, Kansas has enacted a new law that will allow franchise dental practices to set up business in the state.

When Ideal Dental Care recently launched its joint venture partnership model, they were flooded with myriad of enquiries about running a stand alone franchise or incorporating a dental practice within an existing business. Within months, people realized you don’t have to be a qualified dentist to run a dental franchise.

According to the managing director of Ideal Dental Care, Peter Thompson, said, “Our partnership agreement meets my profession’s governance and strict regulations, which mean non-industry investors, can operate an Ideal Dental Care practice in the same way they would any other franchise operation.”

Thompson did not realize his business would have such a broad appeal when he first took his concept for a dental franchise to Tony Urwin, Franchise Consultant at FDS North, whose team helped create the current franchise model. It proved to be an instant hit and Ideal Dental already has franchises across the northern England and Scotland.

Dentists only took courses in dental schools to learn about dental health care but they lack in knowledge and practice in human resources, marketing and the basic know-how’s in running a business. In the U.S., there are independent based franchisers in dental practices that are able to assist in dentistry franchising businesses.

This is definitely an area of business that could be started in this part of the world. Intellect is interested in collaborating with local dentists or dental health care centres who and that are interested to develop this business idea.