The process you have to follow in order to start a dental clinic in Singapore is pretty much similar to the steps of starting a traditional clinic. You will need to obtain your license for medical practicing from the Ministry of Health in Singapore. All your applications should be directed to the Central Licensing Branch of the ministry.
When can you start a dental clinic business in Singapore?
Before you go ahead with dental clinic Singapore, you should understand if you are eligible to go ahead and do it.
If you are a person who has an approved medical license, you will be able to go ahead with the decision of starting a dental clinic in Singapore. In addition to that, people who have approved medical organizations and societies will be able to do it as well.
Usually, a dental clinic in Singapore is registered as a business entity. However, you will need to register it with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of the country as well. When you establish the business, you will be able to go ahead and apply for your license from Central Licensing Branch.
How to start your dental clinic in Singapore?
- Locating the right place: As the first step, you need to locate the right place to start your dental clinic. Otherwise, you will not be able to get the attention of people who are looking for the service of dentists. You must spend your time and energy understanding a strategic location.
- Get the approval for the place: If you already have a place, you will need to think about renovating it. That’s where you should obtain a building work permit. You should approach Building and Construction Authority for it. You will need to comply with their regulations when you are renovating the property to start your night dental clinic in Singapore.
When you complete building work, you should obtain a Temporary Occupation Certificate and a Certificate of Statutory Completion from the Building and Construction Authority. Then only you can occupy the space. Along with this, you will also need to get your Fire and Safety Certificate.
The other license you need to have is the advertisement license, which is offered by Building and Construction Authority. You obviously go ahead and set up signage around the dental clinic. You should have this license to go ahead with it.
Obtain approval from medicinal drugs dispensary
Since you are going to dispense medical drugs through the dental clinic, you will need to obtain approval for it from the medicinal drugs dispensary as well. In other words, you should obtain the certificate for the registration of a pharmacy. Along with that, you should obtain a L3 license from the national environmental agency as well. You must do it if you are going to have x-ray machines inside your dental clinic.
Find a suitable name for the dental clinic
Once all licensing work is done, you will be able to select a name for the dental clinic in Singapore. This is one of the crucial names. Along with the name you select, you will need to add either Dental Centre or Dental Clinic. Therefore, you must pick a name that goes perfectly well with this phrase. It is important to keep in mind that you cannot have words such as National and Singapore in the name of your dental clinic.
After you register the name of the dental clinic, you should have the exact same name on your signboard as well. You need to make sure that you are not picking any offensive words for the name of the dental clinic. You should not upload any such offensive diagrams or pictures in the signboard as well. You need to follow this rule when you are working on stationary of your dental clinic as well.
Get a clinic manager
To ensure smooth business operations, you need to think about getting a clinic manager for the dental. It is recommended to get a medical practitioner as the clinic manager. He should be registered with the Medical Council of Singapore as well. This is a law that you must adhere to.
Obtain the other licenses
You will need to obtain few other licenses to manage your dental clinic in Singapore while adhering to all the legal requirements.
First license that you should get out of them is the risk based license. It is a new license, which incentivizes the healthcare institutions. Depending on the nature of your dental clinic and the treatments you offer, you will be able to get this license.
You need to make sure that all the applications that you send out to ask for licenses is sent at least two months beforehand. That’s because the time taken for processing the license is longer than you expect. In case if there are multiple branches in your dental clinic business, you need to get licenses for each and every one of them separately. In addition to that, you should purchase a licensing fee for every dentist who practice in the clinic as well. If it is just one dentist, you will have to pay $770. If there are 2 to 5 dentists, the cost will be $1,100. If the number of dentists is over 5, you will have to pay $1,500.
Document Submission
You will need to submit some important documents to the Ministry of Health in Singapore. They include the fire safety certificate, ACRA company profile, and floor plan of your dental clinic, authorization letter from the company director and a consent letter from the licensee.
Issuing the license
When all documents are submitted, you will be able to receive the license within a period of one two weeks. This is depending on the type of license that you apply for. The license you get will be valid for a duration of two years as well.
What additional licenses should you get?
When you want to start a dental clinic Singapore Sunday, there are few other licenses that you should obtain as well. Here is a quick overview of them.
- Medisave Accreditation – If you want to provide opportunity to your patients to go ahead with Medisave claims, you should obtain this license. You will be able to get this license within a relatively short period of time.
- Provision of Cone Beam Computed Tomography – If you are planning to provide special care to the patients under specialized diagnostic radiology, you should obtain this license. You should be a dentist with a postgraduate qualification to go ahead with it. If you don’t have a postgraduate qualification, you will need to go through a CBCT related training course.
- Hazardous substance permit – You can request for a hazardous substance permit online. National Environment Agency will be offering this permit.
- License for irradiating equipment – When you get any kind of irradiating equipment to the dental, such as ultrasound machines, laser machines or x-ray machines, you should obtain license for irradiating equipment. This license will be offered by the National Environment Agency.
- Certificate of Registration of a Pharmacy – You should obtain the Certificate of Registration of a Pharmacy by making a payment of $500. Before the license, a pre-approval of the pharmacy area should have to be done.
- Charitable Institution License – If the dental clinic is registered under charity, you will need to obtain this license.
- Medical Advertisements and Sales Promotion Permit – You should obtain Medical Advertisements and Sales Promotion Permit if you are planning to promote any pharmaceutical products to visitors or patients who walk into the dental clinic.
Final Words
Now you have a solid understanding on how to go ahead and start your dental clinic in Singapore. This can be a daunting task for many. However, everything is properly organized and you just need to follow the steps. Then you can get hold of the licenses that you want and start the operations of the dental clinic.
You should dedicate at least two months for the preparation and obtaining licenses before the date that you are planning to start practicing. This can help you to stay away from unexpected hassle and frustration in the long run.
If you want to get more information on how to start your dental clinic in Singapore o if you want to get more information about monthly accounting services and company incorporation, you can contact us. We will be able to help you with starting your own dental clinic in Singapore. The consultation you can receive from us would be a great investment, which you can do towards ensuring the future success of your dental clinic in Singapore.