Chinanews client, Beijing, August 12 (Reporter Xie Yiguan) "It was a toothache. After I got the price list, I felt distressed."

　　The long and crooked wisdom teeth have worn out the mouth. Recently, Xiaolin has been busy looking for a chain dental organization. The price list of tooth extraction shows that it takes more than 2,000 yuan to go down a set of procedures.

　　Due to the high fees of dentistry, there is a saying in the industry that “Golden Ophthalmology, Silver Surgery, and BMW’s dentistry.” Is oral medicine really so profitable?

Data map: The patient is treated in the hospital.

Photo by Xu Lanqing (not related to graphics and text)

High-end is not profitable, with huge losses exceeding 1.2 billion in three years

　　Recently, Real Group, a high-end private dental medical service provider, submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

　　The prospectus shows that as of March 31, fiscal year 2019 to fiscal year 2021, Riel Group's revenue was 1.080 billion yuan, 1.1 billion yuan and 1.515 billion yuan, and losses for the same period were 304 million yuan, 326 million yuan, and 5.98 million yuan. 100 million yuan, a huge loss of 1.228 billion yuan in three years.

　　The scale of revenue has risen, but the amount of losses has continued to expand, which is really surprising.

However, such financial statements are not unique in the industry.

　　The combing shows that Keen Dental, which has been listed on the New Third Board in 2014, has continued to lose net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company from 2016 to 2020.

Bybo Dental, which was "phased" by Legend Holdings and Taikang Insurance, had a net profit loss of 591 million yuan, 795 million yuan, and 793 million yuan from 2015 to 2017.

Data map: Doctors perform oral examinations for children.

Photo by Hu Jing

Is the money earned by the agency given to the dentist?

　　For a long time, dental medical service institutions have shown themselves as "high fees", especially when it comes to dental implants, orthodontics and other projects.

　　Someone once calculated an account. People generally have 28 to 32 teeth. If you choose to do dental implants, the cost of planting a tooth is more than 300,000 yuan.

　　A bite of income can buy a house in the county and earn a BMW car, but why do dental medical institutions lose money?

　　Riel Group explained that “the cost of revenue is mainly affected by changes in employee welfare expenses.” The prospectus shows that Riel Group’s employee welfare expenses account for more than 60% of the cost of revenue.

　　According to a report released by consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, as the demand for dental medical services continues to grow, the compound annual growth rate of the number of dental graduates in China is about 10.8%, but the total number of registered dentists is still lower than that of public and private dental medical services. The needs of institutions have led to fierce competition among market participants for qualified dentists.

　　A reporter from Chinanews.com searched on a recruitment website and found that the monthly salary given by the director of the Department of Dental Recruitment of Riel Dental is 50,000-70,000 yuan. One of the requirements is more than 10 years of clinical work experience.

　　A dentist told a reporter from Chinanews.com, “For example, dental implant surgery requires training based on many years of surgical experience to master, and it must be combined with rich prosthetic experience to do it well. Generally, dentists with less than ten years of clinical experience can say 'Will grow'."

Data map: Oral implant surgery robot attracts visitors.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Tomita

　　In addition to labor costs, another important expenditure for dental medical service organizations is raw materials and consumables.

Especially for medical projects such as dental implants and orthodontics, the cost of consumables is high.

　　"This has caused downstream dental medical service institutions to be far less profitable than upstream medical device companies." An insider said.

　　For example, from 2018 to 2020, the net profit of the invisible aligner brand Time Angel was 58.2 million yuan, 67.7 million yuan and 151 million yuan, respectively, with a gross profit margin of over 60% during the same period.

The retail price of Angel Time's dental appliance e-commerce platform is more than 10,000 yuan.

Profit dilemma under over-expansion

　　Medical institutions are caught in the embarrassing situation of "increasing revenue but not profit". From the industry's perspective, there may be factors of excessive expansion.

　　With the aging of the population and the increase in the public's awareness of oral health, the domestic demand for oral medical services has continued to grow, the industry has accelerated its expansion, and capital has also intervened to "share the soup."

　　According to data from market institutions, since 2011, the number of registrations of dental-related companies in my country has increased year by year. In the past ten years, the amount of financing disclosed by the oral dental track exceeded 16.9 billion yuan, and there were 389 financing incidents.

　　"In the medical field, multiple financings in a short period of time with the purpose of rapid expansion are full of risks for companies." Shi Lichen, founder of Beijing Dingchen Pharmaceutical Management Consulting Co., Ltd. said that companies need to consider whether doctors can keep up with their resources before expanding. , Many large-scale medical institutions and hospitals often have problems because they are expanding too fast, causing doctors' resources and internal management to fail to keep up.

　　The Frost & Sullivan report shows that the expected market size of dental medical services in China will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19.9%, reaching 299.8 billion yuan in 2025.

　　As the saying goes, haste is not enough. In the face of the "big cake", many dental medical service organizations may need to stabilize.

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