CNN Commentary: Truck stop dentist feels no pain
(Source: CNN)
- Dentist in Iowa found ingenious way of boosting his business
- He says dentist set up a thriving practice at a busy truck stop on Interstate 80
- Traffic ensures there will be some truckers in need of dental care
- He says the dentist can’t rely on return business from his patients
One dentist in Iowa found an ingenious way of keeping his chair filled with patients.
You may not have the answer for how to thrive in a lousy economy. I may not have the answer for how to thrive in a lousy economy. But the truck stop dentist figured it out a long time ago.“When your dental practice is in a truck stop, you don’t have a lot of patients coming in for their six-month cleanings,” said Dr. Thomas P. Roemer. “You have people walking in holding their jaws in pain. Treatment is not optional — they need to see a dentist, and they need to see me now.”
Dr. Roemer’s one-man dental office is inside the Iowa 80 Truckstop, at Exit 284 of Interstate 80, near the small town of Walcott. The complex proclaims itself to be the world’s largest truck stop, and if you’ve never been there — well, the truck stop itself is probably a story for another time. Suffice it to say that the establishment is spread over 200 acres, that it features its own movie theater, a 300-seat restaurant with a 50-foot salad bar, the Super Truck Showroom (more than 75,000 truck-related items for sale, festooned with enough gleaming chrome to make you reach for your sunglasses).
