Afleveringen
-
Tiff and Kristy give tips on how to catch up on those collections fast, including a day-ahead assessment and treatment plan presentation. The advice given in this episode isn’t only effective for offices concerned about collections, but any office, regardless of what their bank account looks like.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00.738)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and I hope you are just having an incredible day today. I hope you are so jazzed and you are so excited about dentistry, because I'm excited about dentistry. You don't call us the Dental A Team for nothing. Our job is to help you in your practice become the A Team of dental offices. Honestly, I love this. I love what we do. I love talking to you. I love helping you and your team just become everything and more that you've ever hoped to be. So today, I hope you are ready. I just did a really incredible
team training with an office about case acceptance. And I realized, hey, maybe that's something where I can help you in your practice. I love doing this with teams. I have a couple of practices where I help their treatment coordinators. And we've actually been able to add multiple millions. And that's not an exaggeration, multiple millions to their practice. And the thing that I just love is when we increase our case acceptance from doctors and team members, we're able to help more patients. And that's what I tell everyone. are.
so blessed and so lucky to be able to be treatment coordinator masters and to be able to help more patients and to give patients this incredible life, to be able to give them the confidence, to be able to give them the smile, to be able to help their longevity. And I always enjoy hearing the objections. So it's a fun time. So we'll do a part one, part two of this podcast where I'll kind of break down case acceptance for you of kind of how I get team members into this mindset.
And then what I'll do part two of all the objections and how you can overcome objections and treatment planning. I think one of our greatest wins was when I had an office who literally was able to sell an electronic, like an electric toothbrush, which we all know is better than just a standard one to an Amish family. I was blown away. And it was because this treatment coordinator was able to provide so much value of what this patient actually needed and to help them have the best dental health. And I just...
I love treatment planning and case acceptance so much because to me it's helping more patients have healthier smiles, healthier mouths. And I just think it's one of the greatest gifts that we could ever, ever, ever, ever give our patients and our team. So I hope you're excited. I'll break it down for you in a couple of simple steps. These are some of the things that I do to get treatment coordinators and doctors in the right frame of mind. Because what I found is case acceptance is truly 80 % your psychology and what you're thinking and 20 % skill. So I'll give you both.
Kiera Dent (02:19.79)
But really just wanting to break it down for you that so much of case acceptance is about Literally what you're thinking about. if you're new to the Dental A Team podcast, welcome. I'm Kiera Dent I'm your host I love all things dental and so much so that my last name is actually dent I created the Dental A Team consulting years ago when I left Midwestern University's dental college and working with so many of those dental students shout out to all of them and Realizing those students that I loved so much. We're going to go out into this
big bright world of dentistry and they were gonna need an advocate, someone who could vet companies for them, someone who could help guide them, someone who could help them understand what a P &L was, understanding what cashflow was, understanding the business aspect and the team aspect of dentistry, and that's how Dental A Team was born. So my first practice we took from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months and opened our second location. Dental A Team is a miracle grow for practices. We're able to increase.
your production, decrease your overhead and honestly decrease your stress and get a full doctor team experience. So that way doctors, don't just have to do this on your own. So that's a little bit about what Dental A Team is about. If you are part of our actual consulting dental family, welcome. I love you. I'm so grateful for you. It is truly one of the highlights of my entire life is watching offices succeed. Like we shout out office wins every single day in our team huddle. And when I hear offices who have broken a million or hit a hundred thousand for the first time or took home a paycheck for the first time or
got their team on board for the first time, literally, I light up, our team lights up because that's what we do. Our consultants are truly experts at what we do and we truly do love seeing your wins. Our tagline is your success and our passion. So our passion is seeing you successful. Our love of dentistry is being able to make sure you and your team are truly flourishing to help those patients get the best dentistry they can. So with that, setting up case acceptance is what I promise you are gonna come in part one of part two.
And like I said, we do this with teams. It's something really, really, really, I would say fulfilling for me to actually teach your teams how to present cases, how to help them. Like I said, I literally have a practice. We've got five offices and we have added multiple millions of dollars to their practices over the years of just working with their treatment coordinators and doctors. And it's funny, they have another person who watches their business and they said, what's happened?
Kiera Dent (04:39.342)
how you guys grown so much and they said it all started when we hired the Dental A Team and just shout out to that practice and that owner and those owners at that, those locations because honestly, they don't just listen but they actually execute and they implement and we work on it and we listen to their treatment plans and we review and what I will tell you, one of my biggest secrets for it is it's usually one or two words that's making or breaking your case acceptance. And I hope you heard that. It's one or two words.
that's actually making or breaking patients saying yes or no to you. So that's where it's so fun. So, okay, step one that I always like to tell people is, like I said, 80 % psychology, 20 % skill. So what you've got to do is you've got to literally be in the right mindset before you go in. So doctors, before you go in and present an exam, team members, before we go and talk about it, before we hand things off, treatment coordinators, before you even think about presenting a treatment plan, I want you to have the right frame of mind. Kiera Dent's frame of mind is...
Everyone says yes to me and there's always a solution. That's my mantra. That's what I say. That's what I think about. And this is when I used to not even be able to close $500 cases. I went from closing $500 cases all the way up to closing 50, 60, 70, $80,000 cases same day. I literally had no idea a credit card could go up to $80,000. I was like, whoa, we're buying a boat today. Like I didn't even know this was reality. But what I learned was it was my psychology. It was me realizing that this was not a big treatment plan. It's just a treatment plan. So that's the second step to this.
We actually cut out the emotion of it's not a big treatment plan. And what I love to do is I love to ask you right now to tell me, and you can say this out loud. I know I'm not actually listening, but hopefully you're playing along with me today. It actually will make this really real for you. But what is the number for you that's your actual high dollar treatment plan? If I were to say, what's a big treatment plan for you? What's your number? Some people's a thousand, some people's 5,000, $10,400. What is your number?
I need you to tell me your number and do not sugarcoat to me. Don't go higher, don't go lower. If you're listening to this as a team, which, hey, that's a great idea. This is a great team training. You're getting it with me for free. But what is the number? And the reason I want to know this number is because no matter what, no matter what you're doing, guess what? That number actually is influencing you. And what I say is there's no judgment on treatment planning. I just need to know and you need to know.
Kiera Dent (06:56.126)
what your number is so then we actually figure out where your ceiling is and how to go around it. When I start working with treatment coordinators, I usually say that I can typically tell when I look at a treatment tracker on a treatment coordinator what they're closing and it's usually close to us in their bank account. Dun dun dun dun dun, mic drop right there. The reason why is because we have this familiarity association where we think people are just like us and so I hear all the time of like, but Kiera, couldn't afford that or Kirea, could afford that or Kiera like,
That's like, it would be so hard for me as a parent to do this. And what we do is we try to put ourselves in other people's shoes, AKA empathy. But what we do on that is we actually close down a lot of cases that could be yeses because people are not just like us. Like I said, I didn't even know credit cards at the time could go up to $80,000. I had no idea. And had I assumed or projected or tried to be familiar with these patients, I would never have been able to close those cases. So what we wanna look at in these situations is,
We've got to cut the emotion. We've got to realize this is my ceiling and I'm going to get beyond that ceiling. Doctors, you have the same thing. You might walk into a room and you might think, my gosh, this patient is gonna think I'm buying my boat or they're paying for this. Whatever you're thinking about, patients actually pick up that energy vibe from you. And I know this sounds like woo woo.
but I will tell you I have taught so many people how to close cases and I'm freaking good at closing cases. Like I literally can walk into offices. I still test my skills when I walk into a practice because I really wanna make sure that what I'm teaching you is actually still working and it is. I have done it so many times successfully. So pick this up. We've got to cut the emotion and it's just a treatment plan. So I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever want to hear you ever again say, my gosh, it's a big treatment plan. Because what you do is you amp yourself up and you get all this energy behind it.
unnecessarily, and then you actually get like skittish and nervous and the patient feels that. I want to remind you, patients are not buying treatment plans, they're buying your confidence and a dream of their future life. So what I like to do is then next, figure out what kind of motivator this patient has. Is it cosmetic, function, cost, or longevity? I also found with treatment planning, sequence matters. So notice I said, is it cosmetic, function, cost, or longevity?
Kiera Dent (09:08.546)
I did not start with cost and when I've done this in rooms and I've asked people and you can ask yourself right now, what is the number one motivator for you and your mouth? You're probably not gonna tell me it's cost. Believe it or not, you listen to those four. If you could only choose one, cost could be a portion of it, that's fine. But guess what, I could say, what is most important about your mouth and your smile? Is it cosmetic, function, cost or longevity? What would you tell me?
and I just sampled a room of probably 50 plus people and of those 50 plus people, three people it was cost. And the reason I like to highlight this is because we assume and we project because we wanna be familiar and close to these people that they're just like us and we think, my gosh, it's cost. If I were to sample an entire room of treatment coordinators across the nation, I promise you the number one thing people would tell me as to why they can't close cases is due to you got it cost.
But when I actually sample people and find out what's truly the most important for people, it's usually like 3 % of the room actually cares about cost. So I really, really, really want you to note that. And I want you to see that. With that, the next thing we're going to look at is, OK, now I know.
One, it's my psychology. Everyone says yes to me. There's always a solution and you can have whatever you want. You don't have to say that. But the reason I do that is because guess what? I walk in with pretty strong confidence. This patient is buying my confidence and I'm going forward knowing I'm going to figure out what motivates this person and I'm going to be able to help them say yes to this incredible life that they get to have with these teeth. Our teeth are literally the way we eat, talk, communicate, express our emotions. Like all of it. It's such an incredible thing for us to do.
We've cut the emotion, it's just a treatment plan. And then after that, what we're gonna do is we are going to make sure that we're not accidentally closing cases down before they even begin. And I say, don't create a solution to a problem they don't have. So a lot of times treatment coordinators, what they'll do is they'll start to like want to associate with this person and anticipate what objection they're gonna say so they don't quote unquote get broken up with. You're not about to get broken up with if a patient's silent.
Kiera Dent (11:23.17)
They're just thinking through it. So what starts to happen is treatment coordinators and or doctors and team members start to ramble. We start to talk, we start to be like, my gosh, and what you end up doing is talking them out of treatment. So we need to also learn the art of silence. So once we present a treatment plan, once we do it, we want to ask them, what questions do you have? I want you to be rock solid, confident moving forward. Notice I'm teaching you sequence matters, putting things in order. What am I focusing on? Same thing when I do a treatment plan.
What am I focusing on? Am I focusing on insurance first? Am I focusing on how I want them to feel? Am I telling them, hey, what questions do you have for me? I want you rock solid confident. I'm telling them moving forward, this is how I want you to feel. What patients will do is they will actually follow through with you. It's going to be something wild for you. And so making sure that we're using language that's going to get our patients going where we want them to go. We're also making sure we're not planting, I call it weeds in our flower garden. So not.
accidentally creating solutions to problems they didn't say they had. So it's, hey, like, so we have financing options. Well, if they didn't say they have a financing issue, why are we offering financing options? Like, I know, like, it might be a lot of time. Why are you saying that? If they didn't say it, don't bring it up. Because what you do is you plant seeds. And I've talked about this on the podcast, and I think it's just a really good example. I went to PT one time and I had a really bad knee and hip pain.
And the PT was like, I noticed you didn't have insurance. I was like, yeah, I don't. And she's like, this might be really expensive for you. Thank you. I'm in pain. How many times do I need to come? And she's like, well, I don't know. How many times do you think you could afford it or come in? Girl, you just planted weeds in your flower garden. You just gave me all these objections that I was not even thinking about because you didn't stop talking to listen to me of what I actually said.
What I said is I'm in a lot of pain and I want to get out of pain. You then pick up, Kiera's number one motive is to get out of pain. So, hey, Kiera, the way we're going to be able to get you out of pain is we're going to see you three times a month. I'm going to see you for an hour. You're going to do exercises at home and we're going to get you out of pain in the next four months. Fan-freaking-tastic. Now, if I have an objection, I'm like, well, how much is that going to cost? Do you guys do payment plans? Let me bring that up, but pay attention to what your patients want. So,
Kiera Dent (13:42.978)
These are just going to be a few little things for you. There's so many more things when I teach offices, like we need to edify our doctor. We need to tell this patient, my gosh, you are so lucky that Dr. Taylor is your doctor. Dr. Taylor is incredible. They're going to take great care of you. They do incredible dentistry. I am so excited for you to get treatment done with them. I have now put this patient on the winning team. They are buying my confidence. They are so excited about it and treatment coordinators. will give you a tip when doctors diagnose our job is to close. Did you hear that?
Doctors, when you diagnose, you should be able to expect and count on your team to close. I feel like when my doctor like diagnosis treatment, my job as a treatment coordinator is to get that patient on the schedule to figure out what their needs are and to be able to close that patient. So I need to figure out one, it's my mindset. Two, I need to make sure that I am not bringing emotion into this treatment plan. Three, I need to make sure that I'm presenting things in a right sequence based on what I'm focusing on to make sure that patient is focusing on the things that I need them to focus on.
Four, I need to make sure that I'm not planting any weeds in my flower garden and presenting solutions to problems they don't even have. And five, I need to make sure that I get this patient on the winning team. Doctors, you can say the same thing. You can present the treatment plan and say, my gosh, Kiera is an incredible treatment coordinator. She's gonna take great care of you. I know you're gonna really love her. I want you to be super confident moving forward. We have told them, we want them confident moving forward. We have told them that they're going to move forward.
Why on earth would we diagnose treatment and why on earth this patient come to the dentist if they don't want to move forward? Riddle me that. Think about that for a second where I was like, oh my gosh, they're gonna be so stressful. Insurance and money and teeth and pain. Well, yes, you're gonna create that. What you think about is what you create. And I will tell you this over and over and over again. So if you're like, oh, the patient can't afford it. Like the patients are saying no to me. You keep creating that. Care is as everyone says yes to me and there's always a solution and we will find it.
We will find it. Not I will find it, but we, me and the patient, we will figure this out. We will find a solution because I will close cases because if I believe in my doctor and I believe in the dentistry that they do, my job is to help this patient get the dentistry that they need done. We can then go in to so many different pieces of how we present this, how we talk about this, how we go into objections. Like I said, there will be a part two to this podcast. but really the reality is you've got to get this podcast. This one's about, you've got to be in the right freaking mindset.
Kiera Dent (16:03.438)
before you even think about presenting a treatment plan. And usually we're like, Kara, tell me how to present the treatment plan. And I'm gonna say pause. And I want you to think about the treatment plan you're presenting, but I want you to think about the mindset, the sequence, what you are putting emphasis on because that's what your patients are responding to. You're like, patients aren't saying yes to me. Well, my question is, what is your sequence? What are you focusing on? What are you thinking about that might be influencing and not might that is influencing what your patients are responding to?
So it's wild when I start to get people in this mindset, when I start to help them realize like, okay, when I walk into the room, doctors, patients love you, they say yes to you when you are diagnosing comprehensive care. Whatever you feel is what this patient's going to respond to. Treatment coordinators, when they come up, it's an easy, it's an A plus B equals C. Fantastic, I'm gonna schedule you, present the treatment plan, bada bing, bada boom, we're gonna figure out the solutions. Notice I've cut the emotion. This patient's here, I didn't get them here. I did not brush their teeth, I did not floss for them.
They got themselves here. But the great news is my job is to help you get the great dentistry that's going to really truly make sure that you are taken care of. And that's what my job is to do. My job is to not like woe is you, like make you feel bad about this. My job is to have confidence. My job is to know that no matter what objection this patient gives me, I have a solution for it. And we are going to have a solution together. My job is also to help this patient figure out what their driver is by listening to them, paying attention. Like I said, it's 80 % psychology.
What is this patient's motivator? What is it that's driving them? Doctors, you can pay attention to this too when you go into the room. Look to see how do they talk? What do they tell you? What are the things when you emotionally connect with them? When you ask them about their life, what are they telling you? Link your treatment plans back to that. They tell you you've got kids and it's a mom. Reminder, she's worth it. She truly is worth it. If it's an elderly patient, remind them that your body deserves this nutrition. Like it's so great for you and it does so many things for you and it deserves that nutrition.
to truly make sure that you have the best quality of life you can. We can remind our patients of these things. It is an emotional purchase. They are not buying a filling. They're not buying a crown. They are buying the ability to eat. They are buying the ability to smile. They're buying the ability to make memories. They're buying the ability to communicate with confidence. That's what they're buying. And so when you walk into a treatment plan, this is how you become a treatment planning master, a case acceptance like guru. This is how you do it is it's.
Kiera Dent (18:26.196)
start out with the right mindset. And this is what I get obsessed with because a lot of times we think we're doing all these pieces and we're not. And so what I want you to realize is the next podcast will be the tactical and you're like, okay, I'm going to like hurry up and listen to that high five. Thank you for being an avid listener. But number one, get this podcast dialed in first before you listen to the tactical, because if you don't fix your mindset, no matter what tactical piece I give you, you will always continue to get the same results where your focus goes, your energy flows.
where your energy flows, your focus goes, and it just goes around and around. So if I'm thinking patients will say no to me, that's going to become my reality. You create your reality. So if you've got patients saying no to you, you are creating it. So what paintbrush strokes do we need to remove? What thoughts do we need to remove? What new thoughts do we need to bring into it? What do I need to drop? I know what my number is of a high treatment plan. I need to drop that because there are no high treatment plans. There are just treatment plans. There is just dentistry. These are just people that deserve to have healthy mouths, healthy bodies.
healthy lives. That's what treatment planning's about. So I'm so jazzed. I hope you took a bunch from this. If you want, we do this with teams. And like I said, you want to believe that I can add a pay for our consulting in a couple sessions? Here we go. It's really such a beautiful thing. And to help teams become so confident to do this is truly a huge passion of Dental A Team. So if you're like, my gosh, I don't even know how to do this. I need you to listen to what I'm saying that I don't even realize I'm saying.
That's what we're experts in and I love to do this for teams. love to help you doctors out with this. So reach out [email protected] and be sure to catch part two of this because I'm going to go into tactical on the next one, but promise me you will get your mindset right to help more patients. It is your moral and ethical obligation. And I hope you take that on seriously. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
-
Kiera shares a ton of fun ideas on ways to attract and engage with potential patients in your community. These range from a killer referral program, to considering the locations of where you’re advertising, and more.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:01.752)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am just so excited to be chatting with you. I hope that your day is just going incredible. My day has been incredible. I have the opportunity to work with clients and just a fun coaching call day. And I always enjoy it. I enjoy helping clients. I enjoy helping you. I love to get on a podcast and I love to share. And with summer approaching, I thought it might be kind of fun to give you a quick tactical podcast where I talk about maybe some summer marketing ideas that maybe you haven't thought of. know
For a lot of practices, summertime can get a little bit slower or different things can happen for you. And so just maybe a quick tactical for you about maybe some ideas that you hadn't considered to grow your new patients during the summer. If you're planning and preparing now, that way you can have a more filled summer for you. As always, the Dental A Team, we are here to give you tactical practical tips, helping dentists and teams.
have an easier life, helping you have a better patient experience, helping you just have more fun in dentistry. That's what we're about. And that's what I hope you're about. And I hope you remember that you are truly in the best, most incredible profession you could ever be in, and that's in dentistry. If you love our podcast, I hope that you rate it, you review it, you share it, and you are able to just help us positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So in today's episode, it will be short. It'll be technical.
I'm gonna break it down for you of just like I said, some summer marketing ideas that I think are a little outside the box thinking. So one thing to think of whenever we're going into marketing is we always wanna make sure that we're looking to see who is our patient and where are they located. So if you're trying to attract for pediatric practices, they're trying to attract moms, that's their ideal patient. I know you might think it's kiddos, but guess what? It's actually the mom. In some of my other practices, their patient base is more of a geriatric patient base.
For others, it's a transient. So you've got more new families moving into your area. And so when you're looking at that, paying attention to what is your patient base and where are they going to be hanging out, that's gonna impact some of these summer marketing ideas. So I think one of the easiest things is having a really, really great referral. I see this in the waiting rooms, I see this in practices, but making sure it's targeted to your patient base. I have a practice and I think this is just a huge shout out to this practice. They picked a KitchenAid.
Kiera Dent (02:19.562)
That was what they're giving away to their patient base. And the reason why this is so impressive is because they know their patient base and their ideal patient so well that one of their patients was actually at their child's birthday party telling every person who came to please become a patient because she wanted to win this KitchenAid so bad. This patient A is a raving fan, B took it to their child's birthday party and C this practice picked up a ton of patients because what gift they were giving away actually resonated with their patient base.
So I have a practice in there in like upstate Washington and it's like more of a outdoorsy area. So like a Traeger or a Blackstone works really well in their area. A practice in Texas, concerts were really big. So they gave away these very limited concert tickets. It was like one of the top best ones. A pediatric practice gave away some like Lulu or Aloe gift cards. So that was something that was super, super powerful for another practice.
but really just knowing your patient and what's going to resonate with them. But I think like something to really know is making sure that your practice is focused on internal and external marketing efforts. So when we do referrals and raffles within our practice, that's more internal. Yes, we're attracting external patients, but what we're doing is we're only able to connect with the patients that are coming to our practice. So we really wanna make sure that we're not just like...
only focusing on the internal and then looking for some of the external opportunities. So I thought like that would be something fun, a referral program, bring a friend, share a friend, having cards made so that way people can get really excited. And with some of the practices we work with, a lot of them are like, gosh, I wish I just had a card as the dentist or as team members, because when I'm out and about, people always ask like, where can I get it? And like, I wish I just had a card where I could just give it to them. I could put my phone number on it. So if they had any questions, they could contact me.
So just really looking to see what are some of these internal ways that are so simple that maybe we're just overlooking that could really help us, especially with summer on the horizon. Some other things like, depending upon where you are, if there's a school around you, looking for possibly around fall time where you might do something with clear aligners or whitening. Think about those seniors who might be needing to get senior photos and proms and end of year. Those could be some really good promos that you could possibly run in your area. Again, depending upon your patient base and what's around you.
Kiera Dent (04:39.178)
And now for some external ideas that I think are just kind of fun of look to see again, where is your patient base? So for like geriatric, they might be hanging out in some retirement homes, in retirement communities, maybe the YMCA club, like that's where these people are going to really congregate. And so could we put flyers there? Could we go to the retirement communities? Could we put on a wine and cheese evening for them? Could we put on some lectures, some lunch and learns for them?
Could we offer our membership program that's special for their residents in their area so that way if they don't have insurance, they're able to access our membership program, you're able to bring in a huge patient base, and you're also able to help and support these communities as well. And I really think some of those areas, like if you can actually access them and get in touch with them, think about if you're the preferred dentist for that retirement community, especially if you place implants, you do all on fours, that might be a really incredible area for you to go.
to access, to incorporate, to be with them. I also am really big on community. If you wanna be a community dentist, if your community is tight knit, which a lot of them are, where can you access? Can you get into county fairs? Could you be at some of the sports games? Could you be in any of those other areas where maybe your community's at? And that is more for branding, not necessarily for ROI of patients. So branding is something super important for you to have as well, where it's not necessarily just.
like, okay, great. Like I spent $5. Now we got a patient in a lot of times it's just awareness. It's just being there. And I use the example of the chiropractor in my hometown. They're Ellison chiropractic. And honestly, this chiropractor was everywhere. They were all of our high school games. They sponsored a lot of the football games. It was Ellison chiropractic, which makes sense. You know, these, these football teams, they were there. Our community was very tight knit. had
our high school colors were orange and black. Their colors of the chiropractor place was orange and black. So they had it everywhere. They were representing our school. They were representing our community. They were on the city council. Like they literally were everywhere. They're the chamber of commerce and everybody knew and everybody went to this chiropractor in our community. And so I've thought about dental practices of how can you be the town's dentist?
Kiera Dent (06:54.744)
How can you be the one that everybody knows, that everybody sees, that no matter where you are, people are like, hell, that's the dentist. Like that's our community dentist. So looking to see, is there a festival that you can attend? Can you get your name out there? Can you be a part of it? Can you have swag? I know there was a practice that we worked with that made mouth guards for all the football players on the high school teams.
So that way, and it had their school colors, but it also had that office's logo on it. And I just think that's so clever because this is branding. These are opportunities, but you've got to make sure that you're doing this based on what your patient base is. So if your patient base is elderly, you don't want to be supporting the high school. They find out a lot of people there. You might want to do TV commercials. I have a practice and they do TV commercials and my in-laws actually saw one of our practices. Like I saw them on TV and I was like, yeah, because
my elderly in-laws are watching TV. They're listening to the radio. That's where that patient base is. So those marketing dollars are actually making an impact. So looking to see maybe mailers, maybe mailers work in your area. Maybe there's a new housing development that you could go get in and you could again offer a membership program to them. So if they don't have insurance, you could be there, throw some testimonials in there. Maybe talk about your in-house plan and how great it is for patients within your practice. These are all little ways where if you get ahead of the summer slump,
or the September or slam dunk September that we're going to be able to have it. We're really truly just going to impact your community and maybe just get you out there. You could do a block party. So your community is out there. They're having a good time. Have like hot dogs. I know there was a practice and every Friday they'd hand out donuts on the corner. So everybody knew this dental practice. Like literally they were the practice of all practices and people would drive by, they'd get their donuts. They had their
practice name on a napkin, and that's what they were known for within their community. So I think knowing your practice, knowing what you can do internal, so having like a great referral or giveaway during the summer to really get people excited, making cards just so your practice and your team can actually give those away consistently, and then looking to see what can we do externally. I also think back like when you were starting your practice, how often did you go see specialists? And if you're a specialist, how often did you go see general practices?
Kiera Dent (09:09.646)
Are you dropping off goodie baskets? Are you going to say hello? Are you, I mean, for March Madness, I remember I used to love all the ortho offices because they'd bring us cookies all the time as a dental practice. But how often are we going and actually connecting with the specialist in our area or vice versa, the general practices? And I know that seems like, Kiera, I did that back in the day. I don't want to do that now. I want to remind you that grassroots marketing and face-to-face and referral marketing is one of the best things you can do.
So I have a practice and they're incorporating sleep. So they went and met the sleep doctor. They started getting a ton of referrals and vice versa. And now this doctor is actually taking on this dentist patients and kind of moved that doctor, the dentist, moved them to the top of the line at the sleep doctor's clinic. And I just think the power of relationships and the power of being known in your community and the power of really making an impact. Dental A team's big.
Big mission is to create an impact in the greatest way possible. And so we do it with dentists all across the nation. So we don't really get a community opportunity, but you and your practice can. You can make fun things in your area. And I think being cautious of our dollar spends, making sure we're tracking what we're doing. There's two sides of marketing. There's the actual like getting patients in and then there's the branding and awareness of your practice. And I think it's really important to not just do internal marketing, but also external marketing in some fun ways like this.
where you really get to make an impact because this is a community where you live. This is a community where maybe your kids grow up or your kids go to school or if you don't have a family, it's where your employees, kids and families are going. I think really as dental practices, we have such an incredible opportunity to impact, to flourish, to grow these communities by looking out. So just wanted to pop in with some quick tactical things for you for summer marketing, really easy of one, having our internal, two, having our external.
knowing who our patient base is, knowing the actual appropriate prizes and giveaways and fun things that we can do for that. And then last but not least, it's always making sure that you are just an incredible practice, that you are really giving top-notch dentistry, that you are creating an incredible VIP customer and patient experience where your team truly, 100%, is giving these patients something to rave about, something to be excited about.
Kiera Dent (11:27.244)
And this is something I love to do with offices. love to do with teams. love to do it in our consulting where we help offices figure out what is their niche, what makes you special, what makes you the best practice for somebody to come to, and then really highlighting that and making it such a full team experience. So that's something that we're passionate about in consulting. Our job is to help you grow, to flourish, to have your best life, but to get that from a doctor and a team where you guys are working in tandem together.
I really do believe that dentistry and running a successful practice does not need to be hard. so Dental A Team, the question is, what if this could be easy? Because with Dental A Team, can. And so if we can reach out, we can help you if this resonates with you. Email us, ask us for more ideas. I'm happy to have a call with your practice and give you some free resources and advice for your practice just to truly help youth flourish. And if you're like, gosh, I just need some help, reach out. This is the time. I know it takes a lot of humility to do that.
But why, why struggle when we have done this successfully for hundreds and thousands of offices? Why not yours? So reach out, I'd love to help you. [email protected]. Let's make this summer an incredible one. As always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast.
-
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
-
Kiera talks about the numerous shifts on the horizon in dentistry, what your practice can do to embrace the changes, and how Dental A-Team can help.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:01)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. I hope today is just an incredible day for you. And I hope you remember you are in the greatest industry possible. And today I'm really excited because I feel like there's some opportunities to discuss and challenges that I think offices are gonna be facing in the next five to 10 years. I wanted to pop on and just say like, hey, dentistry is changing fast. And my question is, are you and your practice gonna be ready to seize the opportunity or?
Honestly, are you going to be struggling and hanging out in the back? I think that there will be a lot of shifts. I think we've seen a lot of shifts in dentistry. And so really just popping on to help you look for different things for technology, patient experience, different things within the practice, and really be able to help you guys prepare and get your practice there. Do you guys know Dental A Team? We are here to serve. We are here to help you and your practice have the best experience. I truly do believe that running a dental practice that's profitable and successful does not need to be hard. It does not have to be crazy.
and it can actually be fun and we can get doctors and team members aligned to be able to work in tandem together. And so that's why we're here today. I'm super excited because honestly, staying ahead of these trends is going to help you have long-term practice success. I've really been watching in the offices that we consult, the ones that are adapting and early adapters to technology, I think are going to be in the forefront. And so really just looking at where you are in the life cycle of your practice, looking to see where you want to be in the next five to 10 years.
and not making decisions to sell or to go to a DSO or to stay in a legacy practice out of necessity, but actually out of choice. So number one, I think that AI is coming in. AI is coming in pretty popular. There's a lot of different things. So we're having it in diagnostics. So like Pearl and Overjet, they're able to help co-diagnose with you. There's 3D printing that's coming in. I know offices are using AI and creating bots. We have an office.
where they've created an actual 24 hour a day bot for their practice. And I really think right now is a time for you to be learning. So whether it's 3D printing within your practice, automating our patient communication, looking into AI like this practice where they have a bot, using chat GPT for other things, utilizing AI, think helping practices with case acceptance. We've talked with Pearl, I've had Pearl on the podcast before, but what's crazy cool about that is offices are utilizing it.
actually you're seeing like a 30 to 50 % increase in case acceptance just by using this AI assisted technology. And I prefer Pearl over Overjet. Honestly, I think that there's no wrong choice on it. But the reality is like, I think you've got to get these things in motion. You've got to start looking for them. Otherwise, I really am concerned for you as a practice that you will accidentally become outdated. So really making sure that you are, you're working through this, that you are adding these things in because I think
AI is going to rapidly take off. And if you're not prepared, I think you will be outdated. So that's opportunity number one. So I'd say get involved in some sort of AI, whatever it is, even if you just start dabbling in chat GPT every single day, whatever it is, but really starting to utilize that. Opportunity number two. Now these are the opportunities that I see in the next five to 10 years. I think they're hitting this now. But number two is going to be like looking at membership plans, fee-per-service.
looking at some of those things. Now I'm not here to say drop insurance plans. I've actually been, think a consultant who's been pretty adamant about hanging onto insurance plans for as long as you can, pending upon what you want to do for marketing. If you're an incredible marketer, rock on, you might not need it. But insurance is just going to be something where I feel over time, it's going to get a little bit funkier. I don't think you're going to see a huge increase in insurance funds. I could be totally off on this. I'm not stamping my like everything that I am, but I think like, let's pay attention to it and let's see.
costs are rising in dentistry, but insurance plans are not paying a lot. And so could we start to shift our patient base? Could we start to retain our patients and actually build this fee for service model in? Now you've got to be super careful and I'm going to put like huge asterisks and exclamation points and pieces around it because if you do not transition out of insurances correctly and have a plan and a process and a patient experience in place, you will get like, I've seen it be so bad for practices. So really I think like,
One, if you don't have an in-house membership plan, let's get that started. I'm very pro these. It allows you to have options in the future. It allows you to have different marketing strategies. I think a lot of people are just looking at benefits at a different way now. And I think it just helps you to not be as dependent upon insurance in the future. Then number two is assess your insurance plans. And let's see, are there maybe any insurance plans that we could drop that aren't really going to hurt your production? You really got to do this strategically. Otherwise it will burn you in the booty.
and I do not want you to be at that practice. I've had too many of those offices, so let's make sure you're not there. And then make sure that we're like really getting people sticky to our practice. I think this will be a really, really, really big change for people. And then also it's something where even as fee for service patients, if you can get them on membership plans, I can speak for myself. Being on a membership plan, I actually came in for my two cleanings as opposed to a fee for service patient who often will only come in one time.
So I think it's just another way for you to have more patient flow, more opportunities to diagnose by having that membership plan. I have a practice where they were, this is me as a patient, I was going to them and they had a membership program. The doctor left, branched off, opened up their own practice and they don't have a membership program. And I was like, well, sweet, maybe I'll just go to you once a year. This is as a consultant. I know I need to go in twice a year. I know I have amazing teeth, but I don't need to go twice a year. Like honestly, if I only go once a year, my teeth are probably fine.
but if they had put me on a membership plan, there are other opportunities. For example, you could offer me a night guard, you could do whitening on me, you could do fluoride treatments on me, but because they're not putting into place a membership plan, odds are I probably won't be going back. So look to see how can we actually get our patients to be retained in our practice, not dependent upon insurance. So when we start to trickle that down, we start to convert more and more of our patient base. And what I will say is a lot of practices have transitioned say,
30 % of their patient base over to a membership plan. They start practicing on this, they start getting used to it. So when they want to drop insurance plans, they have a solution that's been really ingrained into their practice. The team's really good. I'm obsessed with companies like Dental Menu. I think that they do a great job for membership programs. I think that they've got a great one built. BoomCloud Clear. So you can just take a look to see who you like the most for it. And then I'm really obsessed with Moola. Moola, I think is a great credit card processor for you.
that actually helps you with your membership programs in-house so you can actually save on your credit card fees. I'm really pro them. Any of these companies that I'm recommending today, be sure to tell them, Denali team, you heard it on the podcast because they actually have a referral pricing for you. So that's what I negotiate. We don't do hardly any affiliates within our company. I just negotiate the lowest fees for you. but really I think looking to see, I think it's an opportunity for you with insurance plans and the economy to start adding in a membership.
Opportunity number three for you is looking into, tell the dentistry I don't think like hot, hot, but I do think virtual consult and online payments. So how can we make things easier for people? So can we get a virtual consultation? Can we start to have, I know there's like, we've had other people on our podcast before where they do virtual, like your smile, what is it? Your virtual smile consult. And what you can do is you can actually do treatment planning. You can have new patients meet you.
You can have videos on your website where it's like, hey, I'm the doctor. They can actually ask questions to the doctor. I have seen a lot of this with bigger cases come into pretty strong effect. Also, if you're wanting to do say consultations where maybe we're doing bigger treatment plans or even like full mouth cosmetic, there's a lot of those that I think are out there to help virtually. I have a doctor and they do a lot of what's called hybrid. So all on X cases and there's a software they can literally use and show the patient their new smile sitting in the chair.
So I think whether you're having patients virtually meet you or if you're using that technology within the chair to help present your cases better, having online options, so online scheduling, online payments, those types of things I really think we need to get more into the virtual world. I think dentistry is a smidgey dated. So I would strongly recommend for you on this to see how can you actually add these pieces into your practice because I do think these are going to like enhance you and just be something patients are expecting. Right now patients are expecting online.
patient scheduling, they're looking for online payments. They're looking for, mean, think about it. If I want to have a consult, my husband and I, we've done IVF. I've talked about it a couple of times on the podcast. I did a virtual consultation with my IVF doctor in another state and we went and we went, now, if you know IVF, IVF's around a 20 to $25,000 process per cycle. And so thinking about that in comparison to dentistry, they literally did virtual consults with me so I could be out of state, I could fly in.
I didn't have to actually be there. And so looking to see, that's what modern medicine is doing. What things could we actually do in dentistry that might be able to help us out as well? So I really think looking for that, that's where I mentioned Moolah, they're great for online, your smile, your virtual, gosh, I'm like botching it. I think it's your smile virtual consult, virtual smile consult. Look it up, that one I'm not as strong on. But just see how can we incorporate some of these items within our practice.
And I would really say that when you do this, you're able to get those high case acceptance. You're able to have more patient acceptance. Think about it. We're paying bills online at night. We are also scheduling appointments. I am constantly on my phone in the middle of the day, at night, on the weekends, moving appointments around, looking to see. And I think if we're not offering that for our patients, we're actually gonna get left behind because patients might accidentally leave you to go to a practice that's actually more up to date. So definitely.
Let's get into how can we become more virtual online. I think it's a huge, huge, huge opportunity for practices. Like I said, I think those are the top three opportunities right now. So we've got AI, membership programs, and then getting more virtual. So virtual consults, virtual like having more available online options. And then I think two of the big challenges in the next five to 10 years, which I think we're seeing it, which I think tie into the opportunities are,
We know it's expensive to run a dental practice. And I think dentistry has had this like nice run for quite a few years, decades where they've been able to stay in a very profitable margin. Hence why DSOs have entered the playing field. And so I think with inflation, higher payroll, supply costs, I think that there's some things in there to pay attention. And number one is you've got to know your number. So I'm really pro overhead calculators, looking at it, having your team involved with you, making sure that all of you are on the same page.
Those are gonna be some really good ways for you guys to stay on top of it, not falling out behind the scenes and figuring it out. Then utilizing buying group things. So for example, Synergy is a great buying group. You buy from your own preferred vendor, but you just get a discount on your supplies. Why not do things like that? How can we actually look to see, can we hire hygienists in and then have a base plus commission? and I were on the podcast.
a couple of weeks ago talking about how we can incentivize hygienists and not have to have as high of payroll, but really looking to see what are the ways that we can do this, looking to see how we can increase our fees, doing a 5 % fee increase, negotiating with insurances or possibly dropping some of those lower paying ones. What are some of these pieces? And what I will say is When you watch your numbers and you analyze your overhead, I promise you, you will be more profitable. So right now we're like, gosh, it's so expensive, which I'm not here to say it's not.
But there's offices out there that are running at a 35% overhead. So that means there's 65% profit margin for them. So looking at that and knowing that there's practices that are able to do that, that means once we know it's possible, then we can look for how you can do it in your practice as well. Now I understand that there's different areas. California is expensive. Hawaii is expensive. Like I hear you, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. And I think being a wise steward over your numbers is actually something that I really would implore you to do.
to make sure that as costs rise, you know what you're actually spending money on. So you can actually make better decisions. look to see, can we hire this person? Are we paying within the realm? What do we need to do? Could we add on other services within our practice? all on X cases, ortho cases, things like that. But I really think like it's a huge challenge that I think you've got to stay on top of. Otherwise, before you know it, you're gonna just be like inundated and not be able to hire team members because we weren't watching it. We didn't know our numbers. We didn't know what we needed to be producing.
We didn't build block schedules to make sure that our practice could actually run lean and efficiently. And then challenge two, which I think has been hitting hard, which we'll just kind of address, is like staffing shortages and team retention. But I will say that this is like an if. Like there's so many offices out there that I know have incredible cultures. And so what I really feel like needs to happen in this realm is you've got to be an office that in a place that people want to work for. I started noticing that the new currency is time.
Time is the new currency, I think, in where we're at right now. Time and compensation and being happy. But I don't think it's as high on compensation as people think it is. Yes, it's a piece, but I see team members that are getting paid less, but for great cultures are saying because they want this work-life balance. They want more time. They want to be able to be with their kids. They want to be able to feel appreciated with their boss. They want to feel like they're doing a great job. And that is more the currency of today. And so how can you build this culture where
We attract a bunch of people to our practice. We have team members that want to stay with us and that we actually know that, like, we're looking to see how can we maximize this. I am seeing a trend, I'm not saying this is how you have to be, but I am seeing a trend where there is a four-day work week of employees actually tends to lead to less burnout and less team turnover. I don't know what it is. My five-day practices tend to have a bit more of that, but the four-day, and again, they, so they're not,
just open four days or open five days, but they have these rotating shifts and rotating days where they're off. I have seen that that's helping. And so I really feel that when you can build this amazing culture, build it to be a place where you're excited about, add fun things in, watch your overhead, watch those costs. But I really think it's something that's possible. think back to why you started to practice. You wanted to change, you wanted to do things differently. You want to have a team where you were so excited. I know that's what I get excited about. love, I love having a team. love.
loving on them. I love giving them opportunities. I love seeing them flourish in their lives. I love being excited for the growth they're having and so really trying hard to build this incredible team culture to cut the team turnover, to keep it to where you're this like raved about practice where everybody wants to work for you. I think would really, really be an incredible thing for you to just take on. And I know we've heard about it, but I think like, look at your culture, look at the things. I had to do a deep dive of this last year.
Britt and I, sat there and we're like, all right, what is the team saying? What are the issues that we know we're seeing consistently? And what do we want to do to change to make this a better environment and a better space? And I feel that only teams in incredible culture, but there were things that we were struggling with. were things of that we needed to change. There were things that had shifted since I started the company. And I think you've got to stay on top of that. Otherwise, I think you can easily get outdated. So that's a quick wrap.
I think the biggest opportunities are definitely AI membership programs and then also getting virtual, like getting everything up to date and online. And then challenges of course are going to be higher costs and then staff shortages and team retention. But I honestly believe that those who adapt, those who innovate, those who listen to this and they don't just passively listen but actively implement are going to flourish. They say a lot of times the biggest millionaires and billionaires are born during times of hardship and harder times. And so I think
Instead of looking at this like, my gosh, the world is falling apart. Look at this. I'm like, this is the greatest time in dentistry. This is where you get to rise to the top. This is where adding customer service or doing unreasonable hospitality or being a different work culture will actually set you apart. Like you have a chance, like it's not all just set anymore. You have a chance to shuffle and ruffle and make your way to the top. And I honestly believe that you can future-proof your practice. You can get ahead of these trends. You can look ahead and
You can be the practice who is proactive and looked and saw where to get the worm and how to navigate your practice rather than being the one who wished that they would have innovated sooner. And so really just to call the action and truly if you want to future proof your practice, you want to get ahead of these, us. We're on Instagram, DentalATeam or email us, [email protected] I'm happy to pop on a strategy session with you, give you a free practice assessment for your practice to look at maybe where the gaps are, maybe where your blind spots are, maybe we can help you out.
And honestly check out our newsletter. We have a newsletter that goes out so you can always subscribe go to our website TheDentalATeam.com We try to keep you guys on top of this of just insights and knowledge to where we can really help you and your practice thrive And so really this is truly what the Denali team does. This is who we are This is what we love to do and if you're ready to take on opportunities and overcome your challenges reach out Now's the time I do not believe that having a practice should be hard. I do not believe that these things are just
Let me talk about it. It's time to implement. time to take action. And it's time for you to be the elite practice that you were destined to be. And as always, thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.
-
Kiera is a guest on the Dentalligenstia Podcast, hosted by Nick Zagar and Remy Isdaner. She talks about the connection between success and knowing your practice’s numbers for the following:
Production
Overhead
Collection
New patients
Case acceptance
Kiera also gives tips on streamlining workflow, working through scratch starts, startup versus seasoned practice needs, and more.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:00.16)
Hello Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and today I am so excited. I did an incredible podcast and I just thought it'd be fun for you guys to hear it, to listen to it. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast. Welcome to the Dentalligentsia podcast. I'm Nick Zager and we have Remy Isdaner, my partner, and we are Mirlo Real Estate Partners. Today we have a special guest, Kiera Dent from the Dental A Team. Welcome Kiera. Thanks guys. I'm super excited to be here.
I love what you guys are doing. I'm just jazz. And I'm glad that I didn't have to say the name of your podcast because I would have totally botched that. So thank you for taking that on for me. I love what you guys are doing. And I'm just super, super excited to be here. I love geeking about dentistry and business and all things. So thank you guys. I'm really honored to be here. We appreciate that. you know, our favorite clients are typically early to mid-career dentists. And we love what you do to support.
our mutual clients and really want to know a little bit more about you and why you do what you do. How did you get into this? Yeah, for sure. Well, luckily for both of us, we love the same type of clients. So it's really fun. I actually started my career in dentistry in high school. I was offered an opportunity to either go into nursing or dentistry. And I thought, hmm, I want to wear scrubs. Like that was my end goal. And I thought, learn the whole body or learn the mouth. I'm surely going dental route. So that was honest to goodness. The reason why I got into dentistry.
I was a dental assistant for years and then became office manager, treatment coordinator, scheduler, biller, you name it. I have not been a hygienist and I'm not a dentist, but my husband, he went to pharmacy school at Midwestern Arizona. And during that time, I'm a little hustler. I found out if I could work at the college, I'd get a discount on his tuition. And so I knew there was a dental college and so I found out, got a job at the dental college.
And I was super blessed, super fortunate. And I worked there for three years with dental students. And one of the students asked me while we were in school, she said, hey, Kiera, do you want to come help me open my practice in Colorado? And I was like, heck yeah. Dental assistant to practice owner. Like, this is a great plan. I never knew how I'd be able to do this. I'm not a dentist. And I'm like, I see what you guys do in dental school. Yes, I want to say yes to this. So I went and helped her open the practice in Colorado. And we took our office from 500,000 to 2.4 million.
The Dental A Team (02:25.773)
in nine months and opened our second location. And what I found from that was I learned a lot. We built a pretty big group of practices and I learned so much from that of what not to do. My marriage was about in shambles. Her marriage was about in shambles. My health was deteriorating. I was working from 2 a.m. till 10 p.m. trying to make these practices grow and I thought, well, shoot, one, if I could help her grow a practice, I wonder all my other students that I love.
Could I help them grow their practices and give them the confidence as well? And two, there's got to be a better way to do this than what I've been doing and what she's been doing. Like, yes, we have success on paper, but behind the scenes, we're deteriorating as human beings. And so that's really what spurred my passion. I never worked with a consulting company. Everything that Dental A Team's consulting is are things that I wish I would have had when I was a practice owner, things that I wish I would have known.
things to help all of my dental students. It's fun because it's becoming full circle. A lot of those students are now buying practices and coming and working with me, which is super fun. But really the passion comes from how can I help these dentists live their best lives, get the profitability they want, but also get their team bought in because most consulting companies work with just the dentist or just the team. And I thought, but if I can get the team on board, these dentists lives become a lot easier. And so it's really fun to talk about both sides of the coin.
And shoot my last name is Dent. So I think I was destined for this career path. It's not a stage name It's just the third fiance finally like I didn't get married I just took three fiancees to get a better last name So that's kind of my story and how I got into it and truly just love love this industry and love helping dentists Flourish and succeed and help more people But nursing never had a chance Yeah, I mean the scrubs if it would if they would have cuter scrubs than maybe but
The fact that I had the short path didn't just the mouth, but it's funny. I don't even get to wear scrubs anymore. like, man, that was a short lived moment. yeah, nursing. don't think I could do rectal trumpets. That's just like, I mean, I'll take the mouth all day long versus that. I don't think I could. I have such a gag reflex. I don't think I could honestly do it. Well, talk to us about some of your favorite client stories. gosh.
The Dental A Team (04:39.725)
So knowing that like the startup to the mid range are kind of the ideal clients, I was thinking of a couple and one comes to mind. He attended one of our summits. We have one in April every year for doctors and teams. And so he attended it. And I remember he had like a really funny name on his screen because I see all the participants. I really try to make our summits really engaging and active. And I remember it was iPhone. And so I just kept calling this person out. was like, hey, iPhone, how you doing over there?
just kept kind of like razz and I had no clue there's no camera on it just says iPhone and lo and behold iPhone decides to sign up with us and he had just bought his practice and paid in full for consulting which I was always like man that's a pretty like gutsy move you just bought a practice but I also like people that are gutsy and this committed to it and what was interesting is we'll call him iPhone if you listen to this you'll know exactly who I'm talking about but over the course it's been about two years now iPhone has gone from
Being a practice owner who literally knew nothing about ownership had a pretty seasoned team when they bought their practice And went through all these hard transitions like I'm telling you this was a labor of love on both sides the consulting side and his side from needing to transition out his office manager who was really really causing a lot of like Shakes within the practice and and driving the team in a direction. He didn't want to go
So learning how to hire, learning how to lead, learning how to present treatment plans, learning how to put KPIs into the practice. Like you want to talk about a jumpstart to business ownership. And I remember he's like, Kiera, I'm not even taking home a paycheck. And those moments always rock me because this is real life for a lot of dentists. And my goal is to help them get to taking home their paychecks quickly. And so about six months, he was taking a little bit, but we started like at six months, he was able to take his full paycheck and then fast forward to
I just saw him actually last weekend and he was sharing that now he's producing over 250,000 a month in his practice, collecting home a paycheck, has a new office manager that was sitting next to him. They've shifted the culture. This office manager said that this doctor like makes for Phil Seen, Heard and appreciated. He understands his KPIs. He's got a profitability margin of 60%, which makes me so proud.
The Dental A Team (06:59.629)
excuse me, his overhead 60 % profit margin of 40%. He knows his numbers. He knows how to look at it, getting ready to possibly expand his practice. But he said, we were just meeting last week and he said, Kiera, I want to give back because Dental A Team's given me so much. so having him help coach other practices now of things that he's learned really just inspires me. But I think about this man of...
like the rocky road he went on to get there. And I think that his journey is not unique. I think this is so common for so many owners who buy practices two, three, four years in, but to be able to have him be an example of what can happen and for him to be going from about 150,000 when he first bought the practice to now doing 250,000 a month, just to give him the confidence, I think as a leader, as a dentist, to get a team bought in and on board.
the fact that he knew his numbers and it's been, it'll be two years in April since he bought his practice and joined. And I think that is one of my most favorite stories because to see him excited about life, to see him excited about his practice when there were some dark days, I remember like his name, we'll just say iPhone was on our schedule a lot of times to give more support and to review resumes and to teach him how to hire for culture and to build a culture.
That is a magical experience. And there's, like I said, so many things from KPIs to numbers to culture to hiring to diagnosing and getting patients to accept you when the other dentist was still a part of the practice and moving on. He's honestly one of my favorite clients because I think his story is so relatable to how so many other people feel. And to see him now on the other side of it, truly beaming, I think is honestly one of my favorite stories. I have so many favorite stories.
But I think he's a really recent telling one that is just a fun success story to share with people. That's super cool. And he's got a great name. I know, right? iPhone. I'm like, it's easy because I was like, who is this? Who shows up? Like, I hate it on meetings. Like, get your name of who you really are because I want to call you. There's another, she's now a client. And I was speaking in person and, you know, front row, was like, hey, what's your name? And she's like, I'm going to be anonymous.
The Dental A Team (09:13.803)
So we have a running joke now that she's just anonymous, even though she's a client now. And she's like, I'm so glad. But now she's like, secretly optimistic anonymous. So, you know, we've kind of changed that around, but yeah, it's fun to have clients show their personalities. But yeah, if you're on an event, put your dang name on there. Otherwise, maybe you'll be iPhone forever. Fair enough. I'd rather be iPhone than anonymous, but point taken. I've got a serious question.
for you based on that great story, but first I'm gonna joke. So it's on record in our company, there's a iPhone, Samsung battle and I'm on the iPhone side and Nick's on the other side. And we have it on record here on this podcast that Nick said something to the effect of, that sounds awesome being iPhone or iPhones are awesome.
So just just want to make sure that that we're all in the same page there, you know, Remy I'm happy in our company. It's the same. It's like Apple versus HP I'm diehard Apple everything connects in so seamlessly. So Remy we're on the same. Yep. I phone over here It's definitely definitely for the Samsung. I'm sick of the green bubbles, but they are getting better now I can see that you're writing I can see that it's been read. So I mean, hey, they are making some progress, but that's been like, you know decades in the making speaking the same language
Okay, as promised, I'd start with jokes and then, you know, that was a great success story and your passion is clear. Let's talk about those KPIs. So what are some of the KPIs that young dentists, newer dentists should be looking for? And I asked that question and then also add a preface. We talk to doctors all the time who have no, it's clear they have no...
connection to what the business side of dentistry is doing in their own practice. And I get it, we get it, that they didn't set out to run a business necessarily. They set out to provide the best oral health to their community. But it is a business after all. And so what are some of the things that those young dentists should be looking for? Remy, I'm so grateful you asked this question. It was not pre-planned.
The Dental A Team (11:36.073)
My passion came actually from teaching people how to run successful businesses because as a business owner myself, profits seemed elusive. I remember like, what the heck is a freaking KPI? I didn't even know what that meant. And I really love in dental hygiene, there's no judgment. And I just want people to feel safe and confident to ask those questions. And I think dentists really feel this need to know everything because you are a doctor. And I just want to highlight that, guess what? None of them know it. Like 99 % of dentists that we work with
don't understand the business, but yet understanding the business and the numbers, I feel is like your treasure map to success. It helps you see where are broken systems in your practice to fix. So rather than just trying to pump a bunch of systems, let's look at the numbers to see which system we really can impact. Also, when you know your numbers, you can make smarter decisions of who to hire, when to hire, things like that. And so for people who don't understand KPIs, like I said, someone told me that I was a Dr. Seuss of systems. So I take that.
as a huge compliment to try and make it so simple for people. I believe KPIs are like the vitals of your practice. It's like when you go to the doctor, they always check your like height, weight, your blood pressure, your temperature. They're gonna check those things because if any of those things are out of whack, we're gonna have like an immediate plan. And I feel like that's similar to KPIs within a practice and KPIs can get a little extensive. So if we're talking about a brand new practice, things I start small and then we get bigger.
And so like main things that are really going to give you a nice suck on your business, if you're not careful are going to be your cashflow. So that's going to be your overhead. I'm watching your production and your collections because oftentimes the practice is producing enough, but your team's not collecting that money. So we want to make sure we have a 98 % collections ratio. I'm also going to watch your AR. So AR is your accounts receivable, checking from patient portion and insurance portion, because a lot of times practices actually have the money in their practice.
but they're not collecting, it's just kind of sitting there in overdue payments that are due to you, whether that's from patient or insurance. If we can look at those, we can figure out where's our collection problem. it we don't have clean claims sending to insurance or we're not collecting from patients and we're sending statements or we're not even calling. So I'm really gonna watch those super, super tight. And then if you want to go, excuse me, further down the line and things that I'll watch are gonna be like your lab costs, your supply costs, marketing can come into place.
The Dental A Team (14:00.685)
scheduling, we can look at your scheduling and see like number of new patients coming in. That's a big one that I really like to watch because if we're not getting enough new patients or on the flip side, we're attritioning, AKA we're not keeping them in for re-care and reappointment percentages. We can get a leaky bucket and just keep filling with new patients but not retaining the ones that we have. So I like to watch your attrition rate. I also like to look at your case acceptance. So what are you diagnosing and what's being accepted to see is it a diagnosis problem?
or is it an acceptance problem? Whatever doctors wanna make, there is a study and a standard of three times what you wanna produce is what you need to be diagnosing. So if you're not watching this diagnosis amount, you might not be diagnosing enough to be able to get what you want on your schedule for your production. So I like to watch that. And I like to watch your case acceptance of dollar for dollar. So if you're presenting a thousand dollar treatment plan, how much of that thousand is actually being accepted? Are we accepting 100 % of that? Are we accepting 50 % of that?
and then asking questions of why, because case acceptance is usually one or two words from our exam to our treatment coordinator. And then I like to watch your hygiene percentages. So what's your hygienist producing per hour? I like three times pay for PPO practices, and I like four times pay for fee for service practices, and that's on adjusted production. So let's not go off of gross, let's go off of adjusted. Gross feeds the ego, net feeds the family.
So let's not be feeding our egos. I know it feels really good to say you're producing 260, but if you can only collect 150 of that, let's live in real life world. So those would be some zones. And then like, again, if you want to go like next level, you're already doing that. Some things we found over the last year of tracking hundreds of offices were open time in a schedule and your dollar per hour production, because a lot of times just open time in schedules, we found you could actually hit your goal.
if we could fill those spaces and then figuring out protocols for your team just to keep that schedule full. So I said a lot of KPIs for you, but really your main ones, you've got to be watching our production, collection, overhead, new patients and case acceptance. If I could only pick five, those would be my top five that I would start with. And I'm going to give six, like your reappointment percentages. Cause if we're not reappointing, that's really going to kick you down later on. And it's going to make a lot more work for you. And I think those are some pretty easy ones to watch pretty quickly.
The Dental A Team (16:18.733)
but then also hopefully giving a lot of other ones for you to be able to watch in addition to that, that depending upon where you are in the journey of your practice, things to be looking at and doctors, you don't have to track all this. You get your team to track this for you. And then you get this lovely report that comes to your desk every week or every month. You review it, you assess it, and then you make the changes accordingly.
How do you help the practices that you're working with refine their systems to streamline their workflows to ultimately maximize their productivity? So Nick, on that, I'm just going to sound like a broken record. I literally look at their numbers, because whatever their numbers are looking at, these KPIs, that's going to tell us where the system's broken in addition to what your team is saying is a problem. So usually it's like communication or it's
low case acceptance or overhead or cashflow issues. And so what we're gonna do from there is we're gonna look to see what is the system in place. So if we're having an overhead issue and cashflow issue, well, I'm gonna look at the billing system. Like, let's look there, because that's where the money's at. So let's figure out what is our process, who's doing what, and where is the breakdown, and then we're gonna refine the system. I don't believe teams like to do hard things, and I don't like to do hard things, and so.
everything we implement should be easy because teams will gravitate towards ease and also not making someone remember things. So that's a true system. So we'll put in things like we can put automated notes or we can change our note templates if we're consistently missing something on our claims, we're gonna fix and adjust that system. We're also gonna look to see running certain reports that we put on an automated system for them. It's on a sheet for them. That way they don't have to remember to do this.
We create handoffs where it's on their route slip. So no one has to remember, like just with your memory, it's already built as a true system. And I think a lot about like McDonald's or Chick-fil-A or some of these companies that are able to mass produce and give you the same experience wherever you go. Well, let's build that and let's make a very simple system that everybody can follow rather than hoping and praying our team members remember and they don't drop the ball. So I'm going to look at those numbers. I'm going to look to see where the gap is and then dig deeper to find
The Dental A Team (18:33.461)
root problem and then add an automatic system as much as we can to fix that problem forever. Are you dealing, how much of your business are startups, scratch startups versus acquisitions, also new practice owners through acquisition versus, you know, I guess that's the question, those two paths.
I tend, and I think it's just due to who I am and the things I did, I tend to attract more acquisitions in our company. So we're probably 75 % acquisitions, 25 % scratch start. We've worked with a lot of scratch starts. We've done a lot of pieces with scratch starts. But for me, I'm of the opinion, it's already there. My job is just to come and be the miracle girl on a practice that's already there. I know that I can successfully add hundreds of thousands to a practice very quickly.
adjust their overhead and make them profitable within just a couple of months. Scratch starts, we can do the same thing, but there is more of building that base to get more people in to build it. However, you don't buy someone else's problems when you do a scratch start. So in Dental A team, again, I think it's due to my experience, the things I've done. Like I said, I took a practice from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months. I know which systems to quickly shift and adjust. I like to say that we're...
We're a miracle girl for practices. You just sprinkle us on and we watch it bloom. Scratch starts, like I said, usually I'm about six months to a year before we're gonna start to see that churn and burn. And it's just due to building that patient base, which doesn't exist in the scratch start typically. But again, we've had several scratch starts. We've had several be a very successful, but that would be the reason I think why. But again, I don't shy away from scratch starts. I've done plenty of scratch starts and I do love that you get to build everything that you want and it's brand new.
You get to set the systems up from day one. I just think I like to. It's already in place and now my job's just to optimize and magnify it and make it even stronger for them very quickly. But I'm a fast results person. I like to see results quickly. Scratch starts long term have amazing results. Short term they're a little bit harder to get that churn on. Sure. Are people, are dentists typically onboarding you during the acquisition process so you're already known to them and their, you know, their,
The Dental A Team (20:55.281)
They're acquiring with you on board versus an acquisition where things are just not, things don't feel right and they're not turning out the way the doctor planned or not as fast as they had hoped and then they're onboarding. So I think the doctors who do the best are the ones who bring us on usually month one or two before they open a practice. And I always say when you open a practice, it's like having a baby.
people nest the two months before they have the baby and then baby comes in, it's like screaming mayhem for about six months until you figure this out. And I really do believe that that's how practice ownership is. So the offices who I found do really, really, really well are the ones who bring us in one to two months before they actually add us into their loan of their additional cashflow that they need. So it's part of their purchase. That makes sense. Versus the ones that are like, Hey, I don't have cash, but I need help.
because every office does this, literally every single one of them they're in and I call it the six months shakeout. As soon as you buy a practice, it is bananas for six months. Like you have high costs, you have high expenses, nothing shaking out. You're trying to win over all these patients or bring in new patients. Like it's mayhem. And that's actually when you need consulting the most. Like you need someone to pull your head out of the sand, tell you do step one, step two, step three. This is where you actually need to focus rather than just being psycho and trying to like do all the things, but never getting anything done.
So I really love when they come. Otherwise, and I'll say, I'm really pro, of course, being a consultant, I'm pro this, I'm really pro hiring a consultant that can actually like put money on your books. So a lot of things people buy when they're buying a startup, they actually don't add revenue for them. So it's just a lot of cost without a lot of adding to it. And so there's lots of great consultants out there, but I'm really pro find someone who's done what you need to do successfully multiple times.
and bring them in because a consultant for us, our fee is guaranteed covered every single month. Like I'm never worried about that, but we tend to do two, three, four, five times our fee, adding that in in production and reduction of overhead for a practice very quickly. So I never worry about, I understand the owners do worry about fees because it can feel scary with everything you're adding on, but be intentional with what you're purchasing, what can add money to your books rather than just taking money off of your books.
The Dental A Team (23:19.462)
Go ahead, Nick. Well, I was going to switch gears into talking about building and developing a strong team, since you just mentioned that. And I wanted to start by actually saying that when we're working with a client and they're looking for, you know, to a relocation option or they're looking to buy a building or just a general lease, mean, these are all super negotiable things inside, you know, inside of their
you know their business world but you know the the You know the highest expense that they likely have is payroll and so they can't really That's not something you're not gonna retain high-level talent by you know negotiating like a like like a madman like you would with a landlord for example, and so I wanted to talk to you about what are key qualities that a you know a dental practice owner should look for when hiring
key team members. For sure. I'm so glad that you said that rented landlords are negotiable because I think people feel like it's fixed. And I'm like, no, listen, listen, this is why you need Nick and Remy. Talk to them. They'll help me negotiate this down. Agreed teams are a bit trickier to negotiate down here. You're not going to probably get the best people. No one wants to feel like they're being bought on sale to come onto your practice. but as a landlord, yeah, I want the best deal. My labs and my supplies, I want the best deal.
But for teams, so I'm gonna kind of give two different answers because I think startup practices versus maybe a little bit more seasoned in their career actually have two different needs typically. As a startup, I'm really pro them hiring basically an office manager that knows how to do a lot of the things that they don't know how to do. So we need someone who's strong with case acceptance, strong with billing, strong with leadership, strong with hiring, and it's going to be an expensive hire. But what that...
that expensive hire is going to do is going to exponentially grow your practice for you. While dentists are in the back doing dentistry, you have someone who's really your yin to yang in the front office for you. So I'm really pro and I'm really pro not hiring just one person, but two people in the front office. I've seen a lot of embezzlement in my time. I've seen a lot of just funny things going on in the front office. And also if you only have one person up front, you're literally like SOL, which stands for so out of luck.
The Dental A Team (25:38.758)
Um, in my opinion, like you really will be S O L if that one person leaves because you know nothing in the front office. So I'm super pro hiring those people and hiring really good talent when you're a startup. Now, if you're a little more seasoned, figure out what's going to be your yin and yang. If you've got a good biller or you can outsource your billing, um, maybe you don't need as high quality of, or as expensive of an hire that way. But what I have found is typically I like to see payroll around 30 % of your collection. So we're collecting a hundred thousand.
about is going to be spent for payroll costs, not including doctors. And so for that, that's also your fringe benefits, your 401k. And what I've seen with a lot of doctors is team members are only listening to their dollar per hour, but doctors, you're paying a lot more than just a dollar per hour. So we've actually created a really beautiful form for our offices that's kind of like their total compensation package that we recommend giving like once or twice a year to your team so they actually see what they're producing.
Now, hygienists are coming in as a really hot topic, depending upon the area you're in. And a lot of those are like, they're kicking that overhead, the payroll amount really high, but you need a hygienist because they're a producer. And so what's happening, we have a couple of hygienists on our team as consultants. And what they're recommending is let's have a really good base, base plus commission. And then looking back at your hygiene schedule to show this hygienist based on what we've already done. I don't like to live in like theories.
because no one wants to live in theories. They want to feel confident. So if I can hire hygienists for X amount that is fair within the market rate, but give them a commission, so anything they produce over that, showing on historical trends of what my practice has been doing, that's gonna help me keep my payroll costs lower, but I'm gonna be able to pay this hygienist more and be able to actually offset my payroll costs because they're producing more, but I can keep my payroll lower. So that's where I do think you can quote unquote negotiate.
But I really feel strongly, you've got to show them with confidence that they can do this and you've got to have an incredible culture. Culture and time tend to be the currency of hiring great team members right now. And so if you don't have a great culture, if you're not a great boss, you're not gonna hire great talent. I've seen offices paying their employees less than other people in the market, but they have such a great culture that team members want to stay. And then also looking at this time off, PTO is becoming a really hot topic and I feel like since 2020,
The Dental A Team (27:57.872)
We're seeing more of this lifestyle that people want to be living more so than like the 401k traditional benefits, depending upon the age of the person you're hiring. Cause I do think there's two different age groups that want two different things. And so being aware of that and cognitive, think you can get creative with what you're doing. So I think that's a lot of great ways to bring it on, but you've also got to be clear on what your culture is and what your tip is. And you've got to be careful not to hold onto those sour apples that are truly destroying your practice.
One of the best quotes I heard is, the worst thing you can do to your best employees is tolerate the poor performance of your worst employee. And so really being cognitive, and I know that's hard, but trusting and believing that you can bring these great people in. So we put awesome ads out. I tell people to write to their ideal person, figure out who they want of their ideal person, and then posting those ads consistently and following up can be really good ways to get it. And then like,
Great culture does not mean you give everything to your team. It also means that we hold them accountable, that we have structure, that we have systems in place, but giving them the autonomy within that to create what they want to. I think are some hopefully simple pieces based on where you are, of who to hire, how to keep those costs lower. Also, what a good framework of what your payroll should be. And then also realizing the amount of payroll you've got, that should be producing. So make sure that you're.
payroll dollars are actually giving you the production that you should be getting from it. And if not, maybe it's time to make a couple of changes that way too. Yeah, one, one always is, is trying to kind of create a culture that promotes accountability and collaboration and continuous improvement. And you can probably, you know, inside the mission statement of the, of the, of the practice kind of address some of those things so that you have some ground rules. But ultimately at the end of the day, it's about
the leadership and also needs to live those values as well. Yeah. And on that Nick, am really pro core values. When I first started, I heard a explanation of core values and they said, usually when you start a practice, you have three core things that really were the core of why you started this practice. So think back to what those three, those are like your true core. And when I thought back, I was like, yeah, for me it was do the right thing.
The Dental A Team (30:16.272)
have a ton of fun and make it easy for clients. So like those are my three. it's do the right thing, fun and ease. And then we have aspirational ones in addition to that, but really truly like our core values go on our job board. So like when we're hiring people, we say these are our core values, this is our company. Every Wednesday we're highlighting out team members that have been exhibiting core values within our company. So each team member shouts someone out about the core values. And I really have found that
That's how you build culture. Culture is a slow burn, but it's a consistent burn. And so if you have that and you really live, breathe and bring that in, your culture, it will take a little bit of time. say it's kind of like moving the Titanic, but the consistency piece will start to shift it to where you have that incredible culture. And then if you have someone who's not, have the one-on-one conversations rather than the full team conversation. Get really, really good at having uncomfortable conversations. I love the quote. I've added my own little.
sprinkles to it. I say your success and happiness that's care is added is directly proportional to the number of uncomfortable conversations you're willing to have. And I like adding happiness to it because I think like my success is one thing, but my success and my happiness, I want to be happy when I go to work. I want to have a great time. And so just getting really good with those uncomfortable conversations. And I say, it's a conversation. It's not a confrontation. And like, let's get to the root cause. Let's solve the problem rather than the person.
and let's move that forward. I think those are some hopeful quick tips for people to start to change that culture because it can be done and it's paramount for bringing in great team members as well. Well, that's a really important piece of the puzzle is communication, especially since everybody has a different communication style. you know, I wonder what your guidance is about how somebody who owns a practice can, you know,
can become a better communicator or overcome some of those challenges to be able to kind of understand how to communicate to different members of their staff or what have you. For sure. I'll give a couple of books. I believe there's so much wisdom found in the minds of men and authors. And so The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lanzione I think is a great one to figure out how to build that trust and healthy debate between you and your team members. so encouraging that.
The Dental A Team (32:43.974)
and digging down deep into that. Also, there's a lot of personality traits, tests that are out there. I really am pro disc. There's also a company called Culture Index, and I think they teach you a lot of how to communicate. And something I learned early in my career that I try to pass on to our clients is hire people who are complimentary to you, not necessarily the same as you. Your biller is going to have a very different personality than your scheduler.
I want a bubbly outgoing scheduler who just makes my patients feel incredible. And my biller, do not want them being the party scene. I want them to be the person who's so detailed on every single number. Well, those two personalities are also going to be different communication styles. My biller, can probably be a bit more direct with. My scheduler, might need to have a little more finesse with. The five love languages at work is another great way to see how do people prefer to be communicated with. And then also just asking. I think asking people of,
hey, like some people really wanna be direct and just told directly, other people need like the sandwich, the compliment, here's what we need to work on, the compliment, because otherwise they're gonna feel like they're an utter failure. And so I think as leaders learning, I used to always communicate the way I like to be communicated too. And I feel like that was so naive on my part, because that's how I prefer, does not mean that's how other people prefer. we have, when we hire new hires and we recommend this for our offices,
We actually have them take a quiz within our practice and it tells me their favorite things for appreciation. What is it? If I was to get them a gift, what would be something very meaningful to them? How do they prefer to be communicated with? Is it direct? Is it collaborative? And then we have them read the same book so that way we can speak in the same communication language with each other. And then coming in to when it's an uncomfortable conversation, owning that and saying, hey, like this is uncomfortable for me to say.
We address the root problem and then we ask for feedback of, Remy, how did that land? I want to make sure that what I was trying to convey is actually how you heard it. Then Remy can come back and say, Kiera, I felt like you thought I was a jerk and that I'm not working. And I'm like, my gosh, thank you for saying that. That's not at all how I was saying it. What did you hear? That way I can change this to make sure we're on the same page. That communication takes finesse, takes time, but I will say I would rather invest in that skill than having the constant turnover.
The Dental A Team (35:06.96)
train that's going on. And if you're in maybe a bad culture right now and you don't know how to fix it, anonymous surveys, we send them out for a lot of our clients when they're in this particular spot and start to ask honest feedback of what does this doctor or team need to do to change? What's causing the turnover? What's causing the breaks in the practice from the team members perspective? And then adjusting our communication styles accordingly to really try and help that communication. But I really love asking for feedback of how that landed.
I think that's one of the easiest ways to get that feedback very quickly on communication. So we've talked a bit about communication, I guess, with your own staff, but paramount to any successful dental practice, they need to have strong communication with their patients because enhancing a patient experience, I think, really kind of goes hand in hand with growth and all the other
types of things you need to consider to raise the, do better, I guess, for lack of better word. So. I think patient communication, you're right, it's paramount. And learning, I think that's handoffs. I think that's having everybody speaking the same thing, doctors giving good exams on that. But then also finding out what your patient drivers are similar to a team driver. What is ultimately their number one objective? Is it cosmetic?
Is it function, is it cost, or is it longevity? I said those in a very important order. believe order matters. Because if I put cost first, I'm highlighting cost. But if I put these in a very strategic way, I've done this with hundreds of offices, and we've asked thousands of patients, I will tell you 99 % the time it's not cost. It's usually function, it's longevity, cosmetic, how it looks. And then of course, figuring out within cost. But if you can figure that out from your patients and learn to communicate with them in their style, utilizing disc profiles as well.
You're exactly right, Nick. You'll get higher case acceptance, you'll have a better patient exam. If you have handoffs where everybody's speaking the same language and we're passing the baton off from person to person so that way nothing gets dropped, you will be shocked. We've increased case acceptance. I had a practice, they were getting about 25 to 30 % case acceptance and we literally got 100 % case acceptance that day just by changing a little bit of how we communicate in our handoffs.
The Dental A Team (37:27.462)
The patients would walk up to the front and say, doctor wants to see me back in two weeks for a crown for an hour, I need to get that scheduled. And if your patient is that clear and your communication is that clear, you can only imagine what that does for your practice and your production and your reviews, because that patient's not confused anymore, they literally know what to do.
The Dental A Team (37:50.822)
Can you share any practical tips on how dental teams can educate their patients more effectively about their oral health and treatment plans? Yeah. So I'm really pro hygiene. The hygienists have hopefully an hour with them. And so I'm really big on visuals. And so we work with our practices to build kind of like explaining it helping these patients see like on x-rays where you can use, there's a lot of AI softwares out there. I love Pearl. I love Overjet. They can help educate the patients of what's going on in their mouth.
And what I found for patients is there's a lot of mistrust. And I know dentists hate this analogy, but it is kind of like a mechanic. And so we're looking under the hood and the patient's like, I see nothing but black and white up on there, but you're telling me to like squint my eyes and there's a little cavity right here. So I think also helping train your patients of like, this is a good tooth. And this is a tooth where there is decay, showing intraoral photos for them, helping them so that way when they're going through their teeth, it's like, okay, tell me what you see on this tooth.
the more the patient can actually grasp it and understand it, the more they're going to actually accept that treatment. But in addition to that, one of my hygienists that's a consultant on our team, she gave me some really good advice and she said, never ever, ever use little league words for major league problems. I think oftentimes we don't want to offend the patient or want to make it feel better. And so we're like, well, there's this like little cavity. The tooth is bombed out. Like, why are we saying it's a little cavity rather than telling them like, this is what's going on now.
Yes, they're still finessed, so we don't wanna make them feel bad about it, but we also need to help them see the severity. And what I found is when you're confident in your diagnosis, when you're confident in how you're presenting treatment, your patients are actually buying your confidence, they're not buying the treatment. And so you being confident, and I've helped hundreds of them practice, I literally have an office and we've added multiple millions to their five locations by simply helping them present treatment better and stronger and more confidently, because truly the patient is buying your confidence. And so now, never over diagnosing.
but getting that patient to see it and truly telling them what's going on. And then I always love to say like, here's a comprehensive exam and the good news is, this is how we're going to get you like great back to great oral health and using the good news is, or the great news is that way the patient feels like there's hope and optimism and then giving them a really clear plan of where you want them to start. That way it doesn't feel overwhelming or daunting. Cause you can teach a patient all these things.
The Dental A Team (40:14.448)
They just need to know where to start and how you're gonna be able to help them get the success that they're looking for and to get back to oral health. Not all patients have it. And I say that not like these problems did not happen overnight. So it's not gonna get fixed overnight. Our bodies are always decaying. Like we're always like aging is as fun and thrilling as that is. Same thing with our teeth. And the great news is this is how we're gonna get you healthy.
We've talked a bit about, you know, communication and creating a strong relationship, I guess, with your patients. Talk to us a little bit about how dental practices can develop a strong presence inside their local community to build trust and attract more patients. Yeah, there's an office that I really love. We were just chatting with them and something that I think this office did so well is they have the goal to be
the hometown dentist in their city. That's the vision of their practice. They want all of their patients to feel that way. So it's a very large practice. They have 15 operatories and they've still been able to maintain that hometown feel and they're very connected to their community. Another practice they said that our goal is to change the way people feel about going to the dentist within our community. And so I think the way that you can get this like stamp in your community is one, having that be part of your vision where you want to be
that local dentist to your patients where it's that hometown dentist feel in your practice, then your practice, your patient experience will feel that way. But then these offices, the two that I explained, they're very involved in the Chamber of Commerce. They're very involved in the little league sports. They're very involved in giving back and providing for these communities. I have another dentist and she created what's called the Thrive Home, where it's literally being able to give back to the community with all the different specialties like OT.
PT, dentistry, to give back within the community. And I really think if that is something that is your MO, treating your patients that way, asking for their referrals and their reviews, and then also being able to have that presence. I know growing up, for me, our chiropractor was so well known, that chiropractor was everywhere. They were at all the football games, they were all the high school events, they were at the town hall, the chamber of commerce, like.
The Dental A Team (42:30.106)
Everybody knows that Ellison Chiropractic is the number one chiropractor in the area. And I will say it's because this family was so involved in the community. We saw them everywhere. And so I think how can you also do that and giving back to it? But I think my biggest recommendation, if you want to grow patients based on your community, I think it comes from genuine care and genuine authenticity that you actually love this community that you want to give back. If it's just to pull new patients in, there's other ways to do it.
But I think really, truly, you want to give back to that community you want to serve. I think patients will feel that when it's true and genuine and authentic. We understand how important marketing is to a practice and how it gets teeth through the door. And it's expensive, and it's money we're spending. But I think you hit the nail on the head. In addition to traditional marketing, there's so much more you can be doing in
involvement really is the key. The more involved you can be in your community, the better. Whether you want that hometown feel or you're focusing on productivity and efficiency and I think getting yourself out there and being a part of something is invaluable. That's great advice. When our clients hire us, it's normally because they
They feel totally lost. They're beginning the journey of practice ownership or real estate ownership. They have a lot of student debt. They are about to borrow a lot more money. And it's really scary. we try to really hold their hand through that process to kind of give them those tools so that they can ultimately make the right decisions.
for their practices real estate. And so it's really cool to hear you and how infectious your energy is and you have really good support systems for your clients to really ensure that they're not missing anything and are really maximizing their potential. And so that's really cool to...
The Dental A Team (44:54.078)
to hear from you. Switching gears a little bit, I want to talk about the future and industry trends to see if there's anything that you're seeing or anything that you think your clients are going to face in the next five to 10 years that they should be preparing for. Yeah. And Nick, thank you. I just wanted to highlight what you said because you're right, it's terrifying. It's terrifying to go into that much debt.
I remember I used to call my dentist 2.5 because we were 2.5 million debt. And I was like, that back straight because you need to keep these hands and that back good. And I would just always say like 2.5, 2.5 because we were 2.5 million debt. And I think that that's where my passion comes from profitability overhead systems because I know how daunting it can be to be an incredible clinician, to be an incredible business, to be an amazing practice, but not to have the cashflow to support what you just went into debt for.
And so that's really where I'm pro like know your numbers, use the systems, utilize your team because, and I will say this again and again and again, a dentist who is financially successful and secure is the best boss to have. And health health teams, want your dentist to be successful and profitable because they're more solid, they're more stable and they're not stressed out, which is going to make a better boss for you. And so agreed. It's very daunting. It feels very scary, but I will promise you if you know your numbers,
It can feel awful at the beginning, but it can actually make it so much better for you. So thank you for highlighting that Nick, because I think I've just seen so many students so stressed about cash and staying up at night. I've had it myself. And so speaking from real life experience, giving you the tools out of that dark hole, I think is one of the greatest gifts we can give to these dentists who are already giving the gift of smiles and confidence to all their patients. Being able to do that same for dentists is such an amazing thing. And now,
Speaking of like what's in the future, shoot, DSOs are on the horizon. I think an AI, like these are two hot conversations. My doctors tell me that they are probably getting a DSO offer at least three to four times a day. And that is ratcheting up. They're getting so many offers constantly from DSOs. They're finding them. And I don't blame them. I think Wall Street is smart. They've realized that dentistry is a great business to invest in. mean, we're hearing 50 % overhead. So we've got exponential profit within.
The Dental A Team (47:19.474)
Dental practices are profitable, typically speaking. And so I think that these are some things for doctors to be aware of. And I think educating yourself on making sure that you're selling or you're living your life the way you want to, rather than like just getting an offer on a bad day. So I think the DSO offers are dangerous because when you have a bad day in dentistry, it's very easy to look at that EBITDA number and say, I just want to sell. I want to get rid of all my problems, but I want to also caution and advise.
to know exactly what you're getting into because I've had some dentists sell. I think DSOs can be great for a lot of practices. I think MSOs can be great. I can see legacy practice and partnerships being great. There's so many amazing things and I don't think there's really a wrong route to go in dentistry. The wrong route I think is when you make an emotional decision that's not going to impact your life the way you want to. And so being very cautious, I think of when do I wanna sell and also what really is a good deal because I had a doctor and their epita,
They talked to some DSOs and he's like, cure it. It's going to be great. I'm going to get five mil for this. And I said, we'll call this one hometown. Like he's not the hometown, but like, we'll just call him. I got iPhone anonymous hometown now. So I was like hometown. I just want to point out that next year you're going to produce 5 million based on our block scheduling and also on the expansion of your practice that we just did. You are going to produce 5 million and they did. So I said, you're going to actually get short changed on this DSO deal. If you're like.
But if you're done with dentistry, it's a great deal. But also you're going to have to work for this person as an associate when you're going to make five mil next year, just in producing on your own and you don't even need to sell. This hometown does not want to be done with dentistry for about 10 years. So I said, you are shortchanging yourself where you can build this. You can exponentially expand into this, but you've got to make the decision of where you want to go and what you want to do. But the five million sounded so attractive to this doctor.
when they didn't realize that their practice was already producing that and would produce that with ease the next year. So I think like being really cautious of that, that you're not making, I feel like I'm so passionate because I feel like your business not only is providing for your life right now, but it's a long-term asset. And like what you guys do with the real estate, these are long-term assets that are building their wealth portfolios. Let's not, let's not do botchy investments, kind of like stocks, right? The stocks we all know just like dropped like, shoot, if you're watching that, you're going to freak out and you're going to want to sell everything.
The Dental A Team (49:40.68)
but they know be stable through your investments, stay steady and not make those irrational decisions I think is so paramount because the DSO offer seem very appealing right now, especially on those like hard dental days. So that's one that I think dentists really need to be cognitive and aware of and knowing what your end goal is, what your retirement goal is, what you ultimately wanna sell out for. So that way when these offers come through, you can be educated and educating yourself more because I promise you.
I do not believe DSOs are going away. think in the next decade to two decades, we will see dentistry become more similar to healthcare. I know I'm like very hated about this. I've had this opinion for several years. My husband works in standard medicine. He works for hospitals and I'm like, gosh, like what was going on in the hospital scene is now what we're starting to see in dentistry. It's not gonna be too long before they're all bought up, but I'm also watching standardized healthcare now trying to shift into private practices and get out of the DSO.
like with air quotes around it. So I think just being cognitive of what you want to do and what you want your legacy to be. But also I don't fault you. I mean, a lot of these dentists are going to be able to get incredible retirements that they may never have been able to get similar to people buying homes in COVID. Like they're getting insane value, insane interest rates. it can be a very wise financial investment deal for you, but just do your homework. Cause I've seen some DSOs go under and people have lost pretty much their entire retirement. So that would be something I definitely highlight on. And then also watching AI.
The doctors are not into AI, they've got to get into AI. That's where I mentioned Pearl and Overjet, they're helping with diagnosis. I can already see they're riding on the wall that insurance companies, guarantee you, are probably already using AI. And so making sure that you are staying at least up to par with insurance companies, if not further ahead. Utilizing virtual assistance, think staffing costs are going to continue to be skyrocketing. And so for that, what other things can we do? like...
Opportunities force innovation. And I think we're in an opportunity zone to force some innovation and to be on the cutting edge of that. I do think right now, doctors who are not online, depending upon where you are in your career, if you're not online, having a presence on social media, if you're not getting involved in AI, I am going to caution that I think those practices very easily could get left behind unintentionally to where it might be hard for them to come back. So just even dabbling in it, getting some team members that could help you with that, I think is super important. And I would say this year,
The Dental A Team (52:04.51)
I would add some sort of AI to your practice. Whatever you choose to do, just so you start to experience it, use it. There's so many things and I think honest in the next five years, I think AI is going to radically disrupt how practices are operating that I think it's important to like at least be dabbling so you're not completely left behind on accident.
You think the AI is, I mean, it's mind blowing and the applications just seem endless and hard to keep up with. you, so are you, if I hear you correctly, you're talking about AI integrations on like the practice management side of things versus patient care, right? Like patient care, so yeah. Yeah.
I think patient care is going to be tricky. I think until they get robots who are amazing, do think like the clinical side of dentistry probably will maintain pretty accurate. But I do think your front office and a lot of your systems will get changed. And I'll just highlight, there's a practice that we work with and she has, it's a pediatric practice. She's got incredible- call them? Sorry, what? What are we gonna call them? this one, we're gonna call this one, we'll just say jammin'.
so this one's jammin. I do like that we're naming all my offices. right. So jammin jammin has a pediatric practice. She's got an entire amazing team, but she has like eight support virtual assistants behind the scene for this practice. In addition, she has made her own AI bot called Amy and Amy. That's actual name of the AI bots. That one's real. didn't change it. mean, I should have called it like Joker, but like that's not really going to work jammin and Joker. This was actually called Amy. but Amy.
responds to to Jammin's practices day in and day out to make sure patients are happy. Now they live in a very affluent area, so it's very fast paced. But what I love about this doctor is she realized in order for me to keep my patients happy and to meet their demands, there's AI and I can create an AI bot that responds exactly how our practice would, but I'm actually not having to pay a team member, an actual human being to do this. And they're able to get all the needs met. That's what I mean by.
The Dental A Team (54:13.37)
looking to see where can AI integrate. And I think it's going to hit your front office faster. But I think like software is meh, like that one's tricky. Software's are tricky to me, but I'm like billing. I guarantee you AI is going to take that over for sure. Hands down. It's going to take it over. I think answering phones and scheduling phones, I think are, the way we send out claims for sure. Like that's all within your billing realm. there's some softwares that are trying to act as office managers. think reading X-rays are going to definitely be taken over by AI.
hands down and I am curious and I don't have an answer for it, but I'm super curious. How is that going to impact diagnosis? I work with some practices in Canada and Australia and they're more streamlined. There's not really a lot of change. Like it is what it is. It's standardized healthcare over there. And I'm curious with AI coming in and I know I'm going to be like, I might get ripped on this. I'm welcoming the reviews because I think it's worthwhile to talk about. I'm curious how AI is going to impact diagnosis.
And what can be diagnosed and what can be actually built out which leads me to believe similar to medicine That's why there's bill like they bill out every single possible code that they can't I mean for the gauze for the cotton and I'm super curious that I don't know I think it's worthwhile to look into is that gonna impact our diagnosis and how we're billing should I maybe be looking and knowing those codes more thoroughly? Depending upon how it's gonna be. I don't know. I think that that's huge speculation on my part, but I
I can't help but think that AI is going to impact our diagnosis in a big way. We're insurance companies, which then leads me to think companies might be leaving insurance. right, like we might be going more fee for service. So then you got to ramp up your marketing. But I think that's going to be a big spin that's probably going to be hitting us in the next couple of years.
The Dental A Team (56:02.27)
It's scary and exciting. don't know what else to Scary and exciting. It feels wild, right? But I'm like, don't think dentistry itself is going to change much. I still think we're going to have our craft. It's a very, very humanistic, very crafting. But I'm super intrigued. And I think for me, I'd rather take it on as like, let's be excited about it. Let's get into it. Let's see. How can we dabble? How can we influence it rather than being told like, is what's going to happen now?
I would prefer to be a pioneer through it and I think first office is to innovate. I I prefer to be like second, third, like I'm not gonna be like right on the first in case everything botches, but like second, third, get in there because these things, I don't think it's going to go away. I think it will adapt and morph, but I think it's here for a while. I hate that I didn't ask you this way earlier, but are you also, are you working with all different specialties or are you strictly general?
That's a great question. We actually work with all. So we have pediatric, GP, oral surgery. The only one we don't dabble in is ortho. I think there are some incredible consultants out there that do ortho. Ortho has its own software. It's its own beast. It's its own animal. I do work with ortho and GP, so we're very familiar with it. But ortho, I just think there's consultants that rock the ortho world, but all other specialties. We have clients within all of those and really love them in all their areas. We tend to specialize GP and pediatric, but we have clients of all.
all specialties minus ortho. Yeah, I The reason I asked is that I was speaking to, you know, an endo group who was actually starting to transition to fee for service. And I don't know, maybe that'd be a good introduction. Yeah. The fee for service world is weird. I really, offices want to cut. They want to just cut the insurance right now. And I'm like, hold please, before you do that, realize it's a retention piece for your patients. And if you don't have a great experience and you also don't have great systems in place,
and you also don't know how to maintain these patients, I had a practice to do this and they almost lost 50 % of their entire practice. So I'm really pro, like you can drop insurance and I'm not here to say not to, but I want you to be very thorough and educated on it and know worst case scenario, best case scenario. I think fee-for-service is gonna dip in a lot more, but if you're not careful, fee-for-service patients are free agents and never forget that. So they can go anywhere at any time. They're not tethered to you like they are with insurance. So making sure.
The Dental A Team (58:25.202)
before you start cutting and get all excited about fee-for-service, I'm here to say do it, but do it correctly. Because I think there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. And I've seen it hit practices really hard if they don't do it correctly. Good to know. The time we spend with people like you is meant to help dentists and really end support staff all around. And they all offer different types of great information and feedback.
But I have to say, I think you've provided a ton of detailed, thoughtful benchmarks and takeaways that I think will provide great benefit and value and hopefully interest people to reach out and get in touch with you. Because I think this is a lot of great content that people can use immediately. So at least to start to think about.
Thank you, Remy. I hope it bleeds through the passion that I have. And at the end of the day, I want the best practices to win. want you to serve patients at the highest level. so that's why I love to just share. I love to give. I love to educate. And if we're a good fit for you, amazing. I'd love to chat with you about that. But truly, thank you. That was a huge compliment, Remy, and I really appreciate that. It's our pleasure having you.
Yeah, on that note, if you have time, we have a few more questions that aren't maybe as practice related, but maybe a little bit more personal. We want to know what is the best advice you've ever received? gosh. This is, I do have time, so thank you. And the best advice I've ever received, gosh, I've had a lot of good advice. had a lot of really good mentors. The one that's popping into my mind right now, I think I'll just tie it all in.
Like, don't lose money. I think there's, I know that sounds so cliche, but I'm really pro on, I remember I was talking to a girl who wanted to start something and she's like, it's okay if I just break even. And I'm so glad I have this like tucked back in my brain of, no, businesses should produce profit. You should be making more than you're making as an associate. I understand it could take a year or two.
The Dental A Team (01:00:41.474)
But don't lose money. Like figure out ways to be profitable. Figure out ways to make sure that your business is serving you. Otherwise go be an associate. And I think like that one just has stuck with me for years and years and years tethered to always provide more value than you ever received back. Give and serve that comes from the go giver. I'm obsessed with that book. That one's what I started my company on. But always, always, always give more value than you, than you get in return.
And I think those two things married together will probably produce and ensure profitability and success for you long term too. That is a great book. Describe your perfect day. Are we talking work? Are we talking life? Just in general. Life. In general? I am a travel junkie. I love to travel. So a perfect day would be hanging out with my husband. We have a great time. I'd be traveling somewhere. So I prefer to be at a destination.
I love beach. know I have very fair skin, so the beach does not love me. So between the hours of 10 and two, I would definitely be taking a nap. So I avoid the lobster burns. But it would be, it'd be beaching. be with family. It would be just hanging out, having a good time. Or it would be like, I live to be on the water. So my husband and I, call it wake weenie Wednesday. People always giggle cause we do a weenie roast on the back of the boat. Like it's tons of fun. And I just think it's a funny like little.
play on words on that, but I love to wake surf. Like any day on the lake is my best freaking day of my life. And especially when we have friends, it's like summertime, you've got that like, it's like dusk and we are like roasting hot dogs on the back of the boat, having a good time with friends. That to me is heaven and pure happiness in life.
And yes, you can come for Wake Weenie Wednesday if you're out here. It's a great time and I think everybody should adopt it. It's a good time.
The Dental A Team (01:02:32.023)
Remy has a favorite question that he seems to Yeah, I hoping. try to give it to Nick periodically, but I appreciate that, OK, so some responses are pretty straightforward and others are quite wacky. So if we asked your parents what you do for a living, what might they say? Oh, my parents would tell you I do dental consulting. They'd tell you I ran a business for dental consulting.
And that's not half as hard as I thought it was gonna be. I thought you were gonna say, what would your parents describe you as a child? And I'm like, please don't ask that, because I was a heathen. That one is full blown. But what I do for work, they would tell you I own a dental consulting business. That's pretty good. We've actually never had anybody that we've talked to that parents actually really knew. Like my mom, for example, she might just call me right now and...
And then I can't answer and she'll be like, why can't you answer? Like, I don't understand. Like, what do you really do? what do you do that's so important that you can't so, you know, I mean, we get all kinds of things. What if you could I do lean on my parents a lot though. My parents know the days in and out. I'm the second of seven kids and I'm very close with both my parents. They live close to me too.
So I've been like, dad, I need you to watch the house. My dad though, he does think he should be my marketer for our company. he's like, here, I'll just fly around. I'll get all these clients and go golfing with him. And I'm like, dad, you will not be like doing any business. You'll just be shooting the breeze with them on the golf course. Like that's all you want. You want me to pay you to go golf in awesome places. that's what he, that's what he'd tell you. He's like, and she should hire me is what he would tell you. My mom on the other hand would, she would know where, I mean, I talked to my mom almost every day. So they would definitely know.
If you could go back in time and talk to your 20 year old self, what would you tell her?
The Dental A Team (01:04:27.703)
I would tell her that she's freaking killer and not to need the, that's what makes me emotional. Not to need the like approval of everybody. I think for a lot of my career, I was doing it to prove to my siblings. I mean, I was the second of seven kids. So very, a very successful family. My siblings are all really smart and I'm the only, I think I'm the only one in my family that doesn't have a master's degree.
I'm the only one who owns a business as well. But I think for so much of my life, I was trying to prove my worth to my parents, to my siblings, to my husband, to, I remember, we'll call this Dr. Jerk. That's that person's name. They told me that I would never be anything more than a dental assistant in my life. And so I think for so much of my life, I tried to prove, and I think trying to prove caused so much burnout for me too. Last summer was actually a really hard summer for me and I felt like I just,
The whole weight of the business crushed on me. I loved what I did. I love the passion that I have, but I think trying to make everybody happy, I forgot what made Kiera happy. And so it was good. I took a nice two month reset. was wake weaning Wednesday, every single day. So that was a positive. But I realized like, I like who I am and I'm incredible of who I am as a person and I don't need everyone's opinions. And I just saw a thing of like those who talk.
about you behind your back should stay behind you. And I've thought about that a lot of just knowing your worth intrinsically rather than needing the external validation, I think I would tell my 20 year old self, because I think it would save her a lot of heartache, a lot of undue stress and pressure and probably add a lot more sprinkles and happiness in life to listen to that advice. Kiera, thank you so much for opening up and sharing and giving all this great guidance and advice for our mutual clients. This was a lot of fun.
I'm super excited to put it out into the world and thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate you. Of course. Thank you for having me. And if there's any way I can serve or support, have a podcast, the dental a team, and if we can help anyone agreed mutual clients, just reach out. We do a free, like a complimentary practice assessments, like I'll happily go through your practice with you, give you tips, resources. If we're a good fit for you, amazing. if not, it's just amazing free value for you to just help you.
The Dental A Team (01:06:49.088)
truly be so successful. anyway, I can help you guys. This was truly so fun. Thank you for having me here. I truly, truly enjoyed it and just love what we're both doing for dentistry. pleasure, Kiera. Thank you. Bye.
-
Tiff and Kristy give listeners examples of different practices that have different definitions of ‘thriving.’ They then provide questions each practice owner (or even team member) can ask themselves to identify what success looks like for them.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:02)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. My name is Tiffany. If you've never heard me on this podcast and you haven't been listening for long enough, then go back through, sift through. We've got so many episodes with so much amazing content and information for doctors and teams alike. There are very doctor-specific ones and very team-centric ones, but I do tell you this. Doctors, listen to them all because I want you to always know
what your teams are doing, what they should be doing, or what they could be doing. So there's a million different ideas in here. Please make sure you listen to all of them. We love you for that and we value you as a listener, client, prospective client, or just listener. Thank you guys so much. Kristy, I've got you back here today. I have stolen you today for quite a few episodes and I am so, so thankful for you carving out this time in your calendar, making sure that we could be here together.
I know we both really love this time together and I'm just super appreciative of it. So Kristy welcome and thank you for being here. Yeah. So I'm excited for today's podcast. One, because there's not a lot of structure to it. So it makes it fun for me. Cause I, you know, I just like to ramble sometimes. So just be here with it.
Kristy (01:05)
Thank you.
The Dental A Team (01:19)
I'm just kidding, but I am excited for today's podcast because I really love telling stories and I really love to utilize experiences that we have had, and teachings that we have done with other clients or things we've learned along the way. love utilizing those things to just provide more valuable information to the world. And today I want to, Kristy, just have conversation about the difference between surviving.
and thriving in the business owner world. And these two words, I love them because you know, they almost rhyme and that makes it fun. And I think our marketing department enjoys that. But I really love it because it's such a wide definition for anyone, right? Just surviving could be someone else's thriving. And someone else's thriving could be someone else's I'll never get their dreams.
Right? I think it's really interesting to chat about a subject like this because it is so in like independent, right? It's so dependent on the individual's dreams and what it means to them specifically. And Kristy, I think you have a really wonderful ability to articulate yourself really well.
and to see into spaces of life for people and with people. And I just think it's really cool that you can take a statement and really see further into it than maybe your average Joe might be able to see. And so I want to pick your brain a little bit on this and the idea of thriving or surviving. And it kind of makes me think of, you know, our onboarding call when we get a new client and we ask them, you know, what does success mean to you?
and what are your goals? mean we take them through this goal build out and Kristy what is this thriving or surviving like where does it take your brain? What do you think of and how do you think it relates to just dentistry right now?
Kristy (03:26)
Yeah, I'm with you. It is a vast subject, if you will, and it can mean different things to different people. Surviving could be that they just worked really hard and they're kind of burning out. They don't see the spark anymore, right? Yet, it could also mean that they're fearful. They don't know or they're unknowing of the next step. They don't know what's next.
for them. They feel like they want to do more, but they don't know how to do it. I think asking more questions when we get on these calls. And I love that you say that onboarding because they obviously come to us for a reason, but sometimes I think they are just surviving and they don't really even know what they're looking for yet. And same with thriving. mean, thriving, it almost sounds like it has a little more positive spin on it, but yet sometimes
The Dental A Team (04:16)
Yeah.
Kristy (04:25)
Our docs don't feel that way when they're thriving. They feel burnout as well. So it is a big topic on both sides.
The Dental A Team (04:29)
and
Yeah, I agree. And I think the difference there, right, or the space to find is the definition. And so, Docs, I think...
Figure out what thriving means to you. What is it that you're going for? What is it that you're here for? If we don't have a purpose driven behind us, right? We don't have anything driving us to our goals, then you could make that $300,000 this month that you wanted and it still might mean nothing or you might just be surviving because like Kristy said, you're burnt out. So what does thriving mean?
And I have, you know, I told you that we do this on our onboarding call. We chat with our doctors. We do this with every doctor that we work with. It's what is your business doing for your personal life?
How is your business projecting your personal life and what do you want your business to afford it? I work really hard with every client that I have and Kristy, I know that you do too because we believe, both of us believe so strongly in this. I want your business to work for you, not you to work for your business. And I want your business to be providing that life for you. And...
I've worked with a lot of clients over the years and Kristy, you've worked with a lot of clients over the years as well. And I have a few that really just come to mind for me. And my...
one of my all-time favorite practices that I have ever worked with and I will say that from the freaking rooftops, from the mountaintops, from everywhere. They're incredible human beings and I want to tell their story today because I think it's a really incredible space for everyone to find themselves a little bit in what this practice went through and where they are today.
And when I met this practice, they were pretty new to ownership. I think they were about three years in, a doctor and his husband. And they had just decided that his husband was going to leave his job, which is not in dental whatsoever. He has no dental knowledge and become the office manager.
And they decided this because it was the easy route and that it just kind of really made sense for them personally in a lot of different ways. So it made sense and it was all good. And they had a lot of ambition. They had a lot of change that needed to be made. And then they had a team that was just kind of upside down and at each other's throats. And they were three years into having taken over a practice and they really didn't lose a lot of team members in that takeover, which was impressive, but
We had a lot of cattiness going on in that practice. And one of the first things that I had them work on, they had been working with somebody already who was working on their numbers and telling them, gosh, you need to expand and you need more room, you need more space, and you can do so many cool things. And I sat them down and I said, yeah, absolutely, you can do all those things. That's not a question in my mind. But do you want to do those things? Why are you doing those things? Why did you become an office manager? Why did you become a dentist?
And how do we know when you've reached it? What does success look like to you guys? And I made them sit down and I made them figure it out together as a couple. And I made them figure it out individually within their own positions. And this process of really figuring out the impact that they needed and they wanted to make on the community.
turned into this incredible space of this dentist wanting to serve a community who is unserved and unseen within their
rural town community and it's just really impressive and so amazing and this community thrives with him like they just they know him for it and he's been able to make his name out of this this space because he really believes in it but really what it did was it allowed them to not only see the community aspect but to also see the team aspect and it
we worked together, Osmander and I have worked side by side for many years now and he is this incredible human that just said he wanted something different. He wanted to go home feeling different every day. He wanted his team to feel different every day and we worked through a lot of personal development spaces, a lot of leadership spaces and he has come just, I mean he's achieved so much but in the early stages it really was about him being able to see what he wanted his team to say about
the practice when they weren't at work. So when they're in the community, are they recommending my practice? When they're in the community, are they thinking about the office and are they representing the practice or are they just done working? And he wanted to build a community within their team. He wanted to build a place where his team felt loved and welcomed and all of these things. And that was to him what thriving as an office manager would be.
he would feel less stressed obviously and feel more in tune with his position. But if he had a team that could stand behind him and he had a team that he could say they were thriving, they were reaching goals, that to him was success. And we worked through so much leadership.
Gosh, tenfold with this team. got his entire team. They both did got their entire team invested in the leadership like space and in learning the leadership. Now doesn't mean they had leadership. They had a leadership team. They had a team that was invested in themselves and learning how to lead their own positions. And gosh, Kristy, they did it to do the add on. They did the add on within two years. They did the add on.
They did a full remodel of that practice within three years of us working together. I believe is what that was. We got the owner doctor to, he's in a space now where he's mostly surgery. He's got a thriving associate that he has mentored the heck out of and really, really done well on leading him to be a successful dentist and refers to him for his GP dentistry. gosh, recently purchased, they,
purchased a building that they also have suites in there that they're renting out to other people and that's this whole property management, but they've been able to because they wanted to make such a massive impact on their community. You guys, like they built this place for their community. They've built out a 16,000 square foot practice in their rural town.
And it's beautiful. is gosh, it's so beautiful. But the entire process, I have to say, the entire process was built around what could help our community. There was even talks of like
Kristy (11:04)
And, you know, it was a thank you.
The Dental A Team (11:18)
a gardening area there so that it can be, they want things to be more green, Like green, like reduce, reuse, recycle green, right? And they thought, gosh, if we had an area where the community, the local community could have herbs or gosh, they're here for their appointment and they needed some oregano for dinner tonight and we've got herbs over here that they can just pick and take home with them, that would serve our community. they, and every space it became, their thriving became a space of how are we serving our team and our
community in the best ways possible. I can't even tell you, think you can imagine 16,000 square feet, like what their revenue needs to be, what their profitability needs to be, like they have exponentially projected their personal lives and their business is working for them. And Kristy, it's just been so incredible to watch them come.
from the space that they were in, but really learn and be able to express what success looks like for them. And I think success doesn't have to be a 16,000 square foot building. Like it's beautiful, right? It is gorgeous. And I have other practices that are like, gosh, Tiff, no, like I want to work three and a half days a week. I have four operatories. I want two hygienists a day. And I want to work out of the other two operatories. And I hope that dentist is thriving.
And there are days he calls me and he's like, I'm only surviving. It definitely will come in waves and it has its ups and its downs, but he knows what success looks like for him as well. He knows what he wants to accomplish and he knows if he can do the amount of dentistry and impact the community in the ways that he wants to on three and a half days, that propels his personal life. He gets time with his kids, he gets time with his wife, he can take vacations, like all of these spaces. So two drastically different.
practices, but the point there, are you surviving? Are you thriving or just surviving? Is that they know the difference between that. And it is financial, they do have financial goals because that's how we we gain the profit. But in order to get to those financial goals, Kristy, we had to invest in the leadership and we had to define
those words, we had to know what does it mean to be thriving? What does success look like? And in the on the days when it's just surviving, what are we looking forward to? What are we looking towards? That gets us back in that thrive mindset. And it's just been so much fun, Kristy and I
Kristy (13:47)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (13:52)
I just love it and I wanted to make sure you guys heard those stories today because it's so incredible. Kristy, you have so many clients too that you have worked through as well. And what do you feel like when we have clients define and when you've worked with clients previously, when they define that success marker, what do you feel like the commonalities are that you see when people are like, yeah, that would be success for me?
Kristy (14:17)
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head and that it's different for everyone. And I think that you truly have to get down to your emotional why, if you will. Because even though, I mean, we don't really work with any nonprofit people. So we all know that we have for-profit businesses. That just is a given. If we're not making a profit, then our business isn't successful.
in every one of our clients, it's so much more than that. It's what is it going to give them? And just like you said, I mean, we have the ones that work five days a week, and we have the ones that work two and a half, and they're not ever gonna work more than that. And that's okay. But it's, what is it giving them? And like you with these guys, it's about the community.
And for other ones, it could be about them spending time with family, right? And so everybody's why is different, but I guess the common theme, and when I really see, because we're going to use the words, thriving, not just the dentist, but the team, they have articulate, the dentist has articulated their why down to that emotional aspect, so clear that everybody knows what we're going for.
The Dental A Team (15:26)
Yeah.
Kristy (15:41)
And I would also say it's also taking a step back and investing in your team to find out what their why is. Because they're coming to work for a reason as well. And when we're all thriving and going in that same direction and it's meeting those needs for everyone, that's when you get that synergy and it just shines through. I mean, when you have a bad day, you know the why that you're working for on the good day.
The Dental A Team (16:10)
Yeah.
That's beautiful. I love the team aspect that you brought into that because it's so true. And I think I would just challenge everybody now to define those spaces. Like what is thriving? What is surviving and surviving you guys, especially when there's only the two words, right? It sounds like well, surviving is fantastic and surviving or dying. Like, that's not it at all. Surviving is sometimes I'm like, no, I'm happy to be surviving right now. Like I'm good. I am good. And surviving for me today is thriving. So
Kristy (16:30)
you
The Dental A Team (16:41)
find all of those spaces. What is thriving? Like what does success look like to you? What is surviving? What is that space? And what is the this is a panic button space. And I need I need to get out of here. I think
Define all three of those and really like Kristy said, go through that emotional space. Tie it to something that's insanely important to you because when it's insanely important to you, you won't let go of it. You will dig your heels in on those days when you're like, this is panic mode. I need to get back to surviving. How do I get out of this? You're gonna do it. You're gonna push it and you're gonna get all the way. You're gonna surpass surviving and get straight to thriving. So action items, you guys. What is your mission and vision?
What are they tied to? Because your mission and vision, especially in the dental world, can get a little clinically and it's like...
Kristy (17:30)
you
The Dental A Team (17:31)
I know,
just chat GPT, give chat GPT your, I always tell it like a millennial flair, like give it your tone. What do you need this to say? Right? Just make them not so stuffy, you guys, number one, but do your mission vision. Why are you here? Why did you become a dentist? What is it that you're after? Why do you own a practice? What are you trying to accomplish? And then what's your why behind that? What is it pushing for you personally? What is it doing for you in your personal life? What is your business affording you? Why are you
going to work every day. And then I would look at your core values. Do your core values align with your mission, vision, and why? And do they create a culture in your team that will project those into the?
existence, right? So if our core values are like totally off base, and not creating the culture that you want, tackle your core values and do those simultaneously with your team. I would say work them up on your own, know what yours are, and invite your team share them with your team and invite your team to give feedback to
Kristy (18:18)
you
The Dental A Team (18:35)
answer more questions to provide different angles, different points of view, and maybe even for them, I've had many teams really work their own personal core values. So if I know my core values as a human being, like who I am as a person outside of work, what my core values are, makes it very easy for me to be able to see how I align with the practice that I'm working with. So
Actionable items you guys to really be able to see this space doesn't have to and the reason I did not Have you office the reason I did not take today's podcast. Are you thriving or surviving? I could have talked financials with you guys. I could have said so many
thriving practices who see millions of dollars a year and 20 to 40 % profit in some practices, I could have taken you down those roads and let that be today's podcast. But I believe with my entire heart that that is not
the only reason that you could you could say you're thriving. I thriving is different for everyone. And that's the reason that we took today's podcast in this direction. Figure out what thriving means to you. If thriving means a $2.5 million practice per year, then fantastic. Let's get you there. But I still want that why I still want to know what 2.5 is going to do for you. I still want to know what that extra operatory is going to do for that practice and why we needed to remodel and why we needed a new building. I still want to know why
because I want to make sure that whatever it is that you're doing that you're spending your money on makes a difference in your life. So we could have talked financials and I can give you all those if you want to know, but I'm not here to give you a space where you can compare yourself to someone else's success. I'm here to say you've got to figure out what that success looks like and I will always ask you why every single time like the annoying little four year old that only knows the word why. So, Kristy, thank you so much for taking this
journey with us today. This was a really fun one for me. I know we both love the like leadership introspective personal emotional tie side of life so thank you for for taking that journey and will you will you wrap us leave the leave everyone with your take and and your perspective. I love when you do that for us and I'm here for it today.
Kristy (20:58)
Yeah, you know, I love that you didn't take the money route because I've had clients come in that are You know collecting six million dollars that aren't thriving, right? And so you're you're absolutely right But I think the last takeaway would be as you're defining those core values really get clear with your team I'll give you an example I had a doctor that one of his core values was lived by the golden rule and that can be I mean you would think it's pretty
crystal clear, but always explain what that looks like to you as the doctor when you're setting those. And then I challenge you guys as teams to what are some daily things that you can do that help achieve that? You know, so we're all rowing in the same direction. So give it a little bit of clarity, not just to find it, but explain what it means to you and share that part. Really, that comes from the heart.
Your teams appreciate it and then teams, you know, let your docs know what you will do to make that live, you know? So that would be my advice.
The Dental A Team (22:03)
That's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Kristy.
I hope that you guys loved this podcast today. I hope that you really listen to it and that you share it with the world. And I want to thank you for listening to us, for trusting us, for being here, for supporting us. Dental A Team is nothing without all of you. So thank you for being here. [email protected]. If you need help with anything or if you need help working out those goals or those definitions, we're here for you. And as always, drop us a five star review below. We'd love to hear from you guys and we love to know that this content matters.
The Dental A Team (22:39)
So till next time, we'll catch you later.
-
Have you noticed signs of apathy in your practice? Does your job feel insurmountable? Kiera talks about telltale signs of burnout, how to help people bounce back from burnout, and ways to avoid burning out in the first place.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:01)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I am so happy you're here. I'm so happy that you're spending your time with us, that you are truly here committed to making your practice, your patient experience, your team experience that much better, which ultimately impacts your life. It ultimately impacts your profitability and it ultimately impacts the success that you have in this world. This is one of the greatest opportunities for you to truly live your dream life, to truly have everything and more. And that's what I love and I'm so passionate about. And so today,
I just wanted to talk about some telltale signs of burnout and what to do if you are a practice experiencing burnout or what to look for to avoid burnout. know burnout is one of these hot topics and I was talking to an office today and I thought, you know what? I need to podcast about that because offices feel alone. Offices feel like I'm the only one who's experiencing this. I'm the only one who feels this way. Like, gosh, I don't even know what to do. And so I feel like it's just a really...
important topic that I'm super passionate about that I am excited. So today, it's going to be a quick tactical one of what to do for burnout. What does that look like? What are some symptoms and then what to do to help with that? Because I think all of us can be in that space at one time or another. And so just noticing being able to have it, I've done some other ones. There's been some other doctors that have been guests on here. But I realized that today when I was talking to this office, I realized, my gosh, this doctor is just struggling from burnout.
And I don't think that they even realized that. And so just giving you some quick, like, these are some things to be aware of. But then in addition to that, I always love like, but what's the solution? How do I get out of this? Because burnout, think is a little bit of a buzzword. What are truly the steps out? So I'm really excited that you're here. If you're a part of the Dental A Team family, I'm so glad you're a part of it. I love our clients. We are a consulting company that works across the nation. I'm really trying to bring.
dentists and team members together because I think it's so tricky when doctors are consulted but the team's not or the team's consulted and the doctor's not but getting both parties on the same page to where we can really truly thrive we can gain a lot of traction and momentum within our practice having the best team and patient experience because I honestly believe that building a dental practice should be easy building a practical building a practical and profitable practice should be easy so with Dental A Team that's what we do that's what we're here for we're the masters at team and
and practice success. And really we've been there, we've done it, we've done it successfully many times and I hope to be able to help you in your practice. So today talking about burnout, this doctor called in and they were saying, Kiera, I need some help. I was like, all right, great, let's talk. And this doctor, what I started noticing was there was a lot of apathy. As they were talking, they just said, I know I should be doing this and I just don't. I know that I...
Like these are some issues that I'm struggling with and I've just said it a lot of times and I've just kind of given up asking for it. Like when I have patients there, like I know I should be diagnosing this and not that I'm not diagnosing, I'm diagnosing, but maybe I'm just not presenting all of it because I honestly don't want to tell the patient like you've got seven crowns. So you know what? This one, I could watch it. I started hearing and I know some of you were like, my gosh, I don't want you to judge this office.
Because guess what? hear this from a lot of practices and I'm not sitting here judging. I never sit here and think, wow, that doctor's crazy. I think, wow, that doctor is burnt out and we need to figure out why. Doctors at the end of their careers, they get this way too. Doctors when they are at different areas in their life, they get these things. And I really hope that today we come to this with love and empathy and no judgment and no judgment of yourself.
and no judgment of these offices. I'm mixing and mashing a bunch of offices together so that way you can't figure out who I'm talking about because I hear this from so many practices. But it's apathy. It's saying like, gosh, I just feel like I can't find the energy. I'm tired of just asking for this to be done. It's the insurmountable to-do list. It's the, I think like as I just took that breath, I think that's how they feel. It's like I have this never ending to-do list.
I don't quite know what I need to do. I'm tired. I've got things going. I know I could be doing better. Do I really want to? And it's just kind of like this swirl. I also notice when officers are really at a good burnout space, they swirl. They swirl a lot because honestly, I think that their mind is swirling and they're just like, I know I need to do this and I know I need to do that, but I'm so tired. Or gosh, like I just like, no matter how many times I like tried to take a step forward, I've got 10 steps back. And what I look for when I'm
when I'm seeing a practice, the first thing I'm gonna ask when I have a doctor who's in this space, those are some telltale signs. And then after that, we just get to a workspace where we actually stop caring, where you don't wanna come work, dentistry is not fun for you. And so what I get excited about is like, when I get to catch a doctor before they get to that where they've lost the interest, they're not excited about it, they still have a little bit of that spark and sparkle and they're like, hey,
I know I need some help and they reach out. That's like the prime spot. I love to catch them even before that, but hey, we can catch you at that spot. Fantastic. Because otherwise, like I said, you go into complete and total like shutdown and it's things. It's almost like the world loses its color. Food loses its taste. Things that you used to love. They just don't inspire you anymore. You start to detach. start to, it's hard to find the energy. It's hard to find the motivation. It's hard to get excited for things. You really are just sitting in this space of
I feel like it's almost complete overwhelming. So your system is just naturally shutting down and it's like, all right, we're just gonna like put a, we're gonna put a blanket on that. Like it's a fire and we need to put the fire blanket on it and just like put everything to baseline zero. So we're not having highs, we're not having lows. We're just gonna settle. And I think when I look at practices like this, that's the part I don't like because you got into dentistry because you love it. And so when I find doctors like this, one of the first questions I'm going to ask is, do you have a great office manager or right hand?
And a lot of times I will hear, and office managers, this is nothing on you, office managers, I hope if you're listening to this, you are picking up, that's why I do this podcast. So doctors and office managers can have conversations. You can talk about this. You can say, my gosh, like, hey, these things are things we need to talk about. And so with that, what I found is usually the office manager has been there for maybe a while, but the office manager is not truly managing. And so,
What I like to highlight on this to these offices is like this doctor, they'll something like, Kiera, just, I know I need to hire this person, but I can't get the ads. And I'm like, that's what your office manager should be doing. They should be placing the ads. They should be interviewing. You can help with the compensation, but they should be bringing that to you. Like literally owner doctors. That's what you should be relying on your office manager for. And office managers, this is what you are supposed to be doing as an office manager. And I know there's no rule book for office managers. So a lot of times it's just.
You didn't even know that this is part of your job description. So things like payroll, things like website, things like marketing, things like tracking our cases, things like figuring out new softwares in the practice, things like listening to podcasts. So kudos to all those office managers out there. Doctors, if you're office manager listens to the podcast, or if they haven't started, have them join us. It would be great. We try to talk about these things so you don't have to have the awkward conversation. We have it for you. But so many things that when I look at doctors lists, I'm like,
well, high five, all of these things that you're doing for the most part actually should be delegated out to your office manager or your leadership team. Now again, pending upon the size of your practice, but the reality is doctors, you're an owner. And so your job is to do dentistry and be an owner and a CEO of your practice. That's what your job is. It's not to be the manager. And so oftentimes I find that the burnout for a lot of doctors comes because they don't have a strong office manager next to them. And even if...
because a lot of people are like, Kiera, can't find an office manager or I don't want the office manager title in my practice. And I'm like, that's fine. So we can hire a personal assistant. We can hire an office manager. We can hire a front office lead. We can build you a leadership team. The point is you need more people to help run this ship because you are the one who's producing dentistry. And without you doing dentistry, the rest of these things aren't getting done. And so that's where you just feel this insurmountable. It's like the laundry got piled on top of you and there's no way to get this laundry off of you.
And so what you do instead is you just fall asleep under the pile. That's called burnout. And so when I look at this, I'm like, fantastic, let's look at your team. And I'm not here and in our consulting, it is very clear that we do not terminate team members. We give them an opportunity to rise up because like I said, a lot of office managers don't even know this is what they should be doing. They don't even know how to do it. They don't know how to have the conversations. They don't know how to run the meetings. Doctors get so tired of trying to implement a system and then it falls off. They get tired of trying to like be like,
broken record and just keep telling this team member, hey, I need you to do this. need you to do this. Doctors, it's not your world. It's not what you're there to do. It's not your job. Even as an owner, that's not your job. That's your manager and your leadership's opportunity. That's what they should be rising up to do. And so what I found that I really love is when we meet these offices, that's where I love coming in and being able to help out. Because what we do is we now get to help coach your office manager for you. We get to help say,
Great, tell me everything on your to-do list. This is who in your practice should be doing this project. This is who should be able to take care of these. This is how we start tracking your numbers. This is how we help you look at your numbers to make decisions on who you can hire, on what your overhead and profitability should be. Because a lot of times the burnout also comes from not knowing your numbers, not knowing what systems to put into place, not knowing what your office manager should even be doing, not knowing what you can hold your team accountable for.
And I think the hardest thing is I watch so many offices and so many doctors is you feel like you come out of dental school expected to know how to run a business as well. And we hear it all the time. We don't know how to run a business. We know we don't know how to, but no matter what, you're doctors. And so you think like, gosh, like I've got this doctor degree. I'm supposed to know how to do this. And so I feel like instead of stop, like stop thinking like that's what you are supposed to do. Let's come into reality of what you really do. So for doctors, what I really need from you is I need your vision.
I need to know what life you want to be living. And I need to know, we're gonna need to know your numbers as well. So we're gonna need to get that with your CPA. You don't even have to give it to us. We can work with your CPA. But those are the main things. And then I need you to be a great producer. I need you to be great at diagnosing and I need you to be great at taking feedback on your case acceptance. I'm not here to be a dentist at all. You get a diagnose, but I am here to teach you how to get more patients to say yes. So you being open to that, fantastic. And then be the eyes and ears. If things aren't going well, tell me. Tell us as your consultant.
how we can help you. But really doctors, that's your main thing. Set the vision, get us the numbers. Yes, you need to be good at spending your money. So like, let's make sure we don't go wild on that and then be a great producer and like, let us know if things aren't going well. You also have to be willing to communicate those things and letting us know what your dream life is. Because once we have that information, amazing. Now we get to take it to the team and now we get to figure out KPIs, tracking, teams, systems that need to go into place to get these things into play. And so what I like point out is
Doctors, you're kind of like Walt Disney. Your job is to set the vision of what you want your practice to be. And then your team's like Roy Disney, and they're gonna go put this into place. We just need that information from you. So I hope that that gives some reprieve to these poor offices that just feel like they're under this laundry pile of, gosh, we have so many, like, I don't even know where the socks go anymore. I know I put them away for years, but like, you're just so inundated with so many things, trying to be a great dentist, trying to be on all the time. Doctors, your job is hard.
You're doing dentistry, you're working in a finite space, you're trying to win patients over, you're diagnosing, you've got to make sure your team loves you. You work in very small proximity. And then on top of it, you've also got to do all these other things that realistically your manager should be doing for you and your team should be doing for you. And so being able to have those conversations of like, amazing, this is what my office manager should be doing and this is how they can do it. But I think doctors get so nervous because like, well, I don't know how to do this. How am supposed to tell them to do it? That's why I love being a consultant and a coach too, to office managers.
we get to coach that office manager on how they can have these conversations, on how to track these numbers, on how to look at the business. Because guess what? Office managers have also never been taught this. Even if they come from other practices, it's like trickled down through the grapevine. And so working with so many practices, we're able to see this is what elite managers do. This is what basic managers do. This is what leadership teams do. This is what a very junior leadership team can do. And then we grow them into more advanced. So wherever your practice is,
no matter where you are, if you're already there, helping them take on more tasks and duties and utilizing the numbers and really looking at the business as a business to make decisions that help you and really truly help you grow. But I really just hope that we've inspired doctors of these are some of the signs I see consistently. This is what you need next to you. And if you don't have that person, there's a great doctor that we work with that didn't have their right hand when we started with them.
And we worked with them and it was a good like six to eight months before we were able to find this right hand. And it was interesting. I saw this doctor and they told me, said, Kiera, I'm so grateful for your guys's guidance because I didn't even realize what could be possible. I didn't know what it would feel like to have an office manager who actually was a true manager, not just by title alone. Like I didn't even know how to tell them what to do. And you were able to be their coach just as much as you were able to be my coach. You're able to help me see the numbers to make decisions.
but you're able to help the manager have the uncomfortable conversations with team members. You're able to help them know how to put meetings into place of how to track KPIs and track numbers and get the whole team on board of how to present treatment plans and schedules and block schedules and all those things you hear about. Like you guys were actually able to teach my manager and you were able to be that resource for my manager when they didn't even know. And so really being able to partner in, I think it's just important for you to realize this is real life.
for so many practices. This is what hundreds of offices are dealing with. And my heart goes out to you because you don't have to live like this. There are other options. You can actually go home at the end of the day and be with your family. You can actually have a team that looks at the numbers and makes decisions that you don't have to make all the decisions. You can have a team where your office manager holds them all accountable and you don't have to. You can have a team where they literally rise up. And the great news is teams want to rise up. Teams want to make you so proud. Teams want you to go home.
I was talking to someone the other day about my personal life and they're like, Kiera, this is the best news ever. Like, this is what you've been working for. Now you get to go enjoy this life that you've worked so hard for. And hearing that, I just thought that's what your teams want for you doctors. They want you to be living this dream life. They want you to be home with your babies. They want you to be flourishing. They love you so much. And so realizing that there's another option if you want it. And so I just wanted to pop on of the solution is
helping your team take on the responsibilities of what they can do and what they should be doing, giving them the tools and the resources, hoping to highlight a lot of the tasks that doctors, this is what you should be doing and this is what your manager and your leadership team should be doing. All those other things, supplies, ordering, budgets, all of that, those go to team members. Doctors, yes, we teach you how to look at the numbers so you can make sure that your business is profitable and you can make decisions from there, but we do that in tandem with your office manager if you want.
I understand some people don't want to share all their numbers, but I will tell you having someone to shoulder this weight with you really is just going to be able to give you so much freedom and so much happiness. And so I felt like, man, I hear this all the time and maybe you don't realize that this is normal. Maybe you don't realize that these are signs that you're, you're headed towards burnout. Maybe you don't realize that this is the solution out of maybe you're sitting there and you're listening to this podcast at seven o'clock at night because you were hanging out at the practice because
You had to check the charts and you had to check this and you had to check that. like, you got to make sure it's all set up. The answer is no, you don't. There's other team members and other people who should be that want to, that want to rally with you. They may not just even know what it needs to be. And you don't know. So guess what? We've got the blind leading the blind. Neither of you know what you're supposed to do. Neither of you know where you're supposed to go. So it feels really hard to get out from underneath that tunnel, but I'm going to come in and shine the lantern for you. I'm going to come show you there is light at the end of that tunnel, that there are ways out.
that these things are possible for your practice and really truly taking it on, giving yourself that gift because running a practice doesn't have to be hard. Going through burnout doesn't have to be your reality. Being able to go home on time, be with your kiddos, be with your family, be with your friends, go and live your life, work as many days or as little days as you want, those are reality. And so knowing what that is, then we just work backwards. We get your team on board. Things that you love to do, fantastic. You can keep doing them. Things you don't like to do, fantastic. We take those off and we give that to someone else.
And we train your team of who should be doing what and how they can be doing it and really empowering your team to take this on as well. So that resonates with you. Take it on. This is the time. Live that life. It doesn't have to be hard. And if we can help you in that, please reach out. I'd love to help you with your practice. I'd love to take a look at it. I'd love to do whatever we can to make sure that you are living your best life because your life is important. You are worth it. You don't need to be sitting there and stressed out, apathetic, loss of life. The world doesn't seem to have as much color as it did. You don't need to live there.
Burnout's real. These problems are real and the solutions are also real. And so I'd love to chat with you. If that resonates with you, reach out. [email protected] DM us on Instagram, dentalateam. We're happy to help you. And even if you're like, gosh, I just don't know, maybe I'm different, reach out because I promise you you're not so different. And there's a solution for you. And if I can give you the solution right away, easy, I will. And if we can work with your practice and your team, we're happy to do that too.
But really, I want you to commit to yourself that you deserve to live the best life and that you are going to live your best life and that you aren't going to deal with burnout any longer. And you're not going to even get yourself to that line if you're not there yet, but you're truly going to empower your team to be the incredible team that they are meant to be and that you are worthy of that and that your team is worthy of that. Guys, I just love you and I wish I could give you a giant hug and a high five and tell you you're doing an incredible job because you are. Reach out, [email protected]
Give yourself a huge hug. Give yourself a high five. You're doing better than you think you are. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
-
Tiff and Dana walk through different dental departments and share ideas many practices have used to keep things green, including reconsidering which items actually need to be disposable, reducing paper, reusing plastic, and more.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:02)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I'm so excited to be here with you again. You know that I am just always so happy to bring Dana on the set with us and be here with you. We love sharing our tips. We love sharing our tricks. We love sharing our, I don't know, workout gear with you and all of the pieces and just sharing our lives with you. So we are both so excited to be here today. Dana, thank you for always being on board, for hopping on, for jumping in on any conversation. I know I spin you.
and throw you in some directions that you're not always expecting. So thank you for keeping up with me and knowing how to roll with the punches. How are you on this fine, fine afternoon?
Dana (00:42)
Doing good. I'm excited to be here. You know you're right. You keep me on my toes. I never really know what you're going to throw at me, but I leave with a smile on my face and having loved it. So I'm excited to be here too.
The Dental A Team (00:48)
That's true.
Perfect.
And now clients and non-clients and listeners here, you guys know that this is truly unscripted from our brains. We come up with topics, but we do riff here and we really pick each other's brains and really come up with solutions for things just the same as we do on your coaching calls. So when you guys bring stuff like this to us clients, this is how we roll. And for anyone who is wondering,
We do have conversations like this outside of the podcast world as well, as consultants are constantly talking to one another about things that we're seeing in practices, things we're experiencing when I need something, maybe I don't have an answer for it. Cause you guys, I know this is going to sound crazy and wild, but we do not know everything. I know it's a shocker. It's a shocker, but combined between all of us, we've got it pretty well handled. So if there's something I don't know,
or have questions on, I definitely, definitely throw it to my ladies and get those answers for you guys. So rest assured everyone, we're constantly collaborating just like we tell you to collaborate and we're constantly growing and learning ourselves. So Dana, thanks for being one of those beautiful ladies behind the scenes for me on so many occasions and I'm excited for today's topic. I...
I just barely prepped you with it, but it sounds like you've recently had a conversation like this with a practice and I'm excited for it. So think it's really something that has been coming around the dental scene for probably the past 10 or more even years, but really strong recently. listeners, we're going to talk today on some eco-friendly dental practice methods. And that doesn't just mean dentistry, but really a lot of the products and just what are we doing?
new out there right now to really go green and a lot of the practices and Dana with your conversation that you've just had with your practice recently I know you've got a lot of hot tips and tricks and there are other practices out there we both talked to as well but what do you have for us today on on that like what eco-friendly things did you guys chat about on that call?
Dana (03:04)
Yeah, and I think that it is just coming up with ways any ways that we can reuse, reduce and recycle things right When it comes to eco friendly offices And the biggest thing in dentistry is our disposables, right? So what are the things that we have that are disposables? Can we find a recyclable option? Or that we can reduce the number of disposable items that we're using or eliminate them altogether if it is, you know,
The Dental A Team (03:10)
Yeah.
Dana (03:31)
I'm all about sanitation, infection control, all of those things. But I think COVID put us in a little bit of like a redundancy mode in some of those areas. And so I feel like in the last 4 years, our disposables have gone up a ton. And our infection control, while those standards are great, I think even above and beyond what is really needed. And so I think it's just finding ways to navigate those things. And we tend to like put plastic over everything and just use
things that aren't super eco-friendly to keep like sanitization standards. And so we don't want to give up on those things, but there are a lot of new products and new technologies and things that we can use that aren't necessarily disposable like we're so used to them being.
The Dental A Team (04:19)
Yeah.
Yeah,
I love all of that. I totally agree with you and I hope everyone got the 90s child reference, the late 80s 90s child reference there, reduced, recycle. If everyone could see the commercial and hear the song, I would be even happier right now. I think it needs to come back. I agree. I do love the fact that you mentioned the disposable pieces and like the plastics on everything. And it's funny because I've
Dana (04:32)
Did you love it?
The Dental A Team (04:50)
I've done it myself and I've watched people put the plastics on and then take the plastics off and then like we're scrubbing everything still and so it's like gosh that's that redundancy space that is it necessary and is it always necessary for every appointment too?
know, because my implant placement appointment or extraction or perio surgery or SRP even is going to be a little messier, we'll say. It's going to look a little different than my limited exam with a PA where I'm not actually infiltrating any tooth structure whatsoever and everything's very clean. So are we taking that into consideration too, which I think leads into exactly where you said like, are we taking inventory of the disposables that we're using? Because do we need to
to
do we need to have disposable air water syringes? Number one, is that completely necessary? And do we need it on both air waters for the limited exam because they're both gonna be removed likely and tossed out after that appointment, especially if you've got.
sterile tech or another dental assistant or anybody coming into the room because they don't know what you touched and so they're going to dispose of anything that's disposable. So I think just taking into consideration too what the next appointment is.
what's actually necessary and only putting out the things that are necessary. for doctors listening, this definitely is an overhead situation. It's going to help supply cost immensely. But for everyone who's listening, this is a reduce, reuse, recycle situation of we've got to save the dang planet, you guys. We've got to do what we can to really make sure that we're not filling those landfills with unnecessary debris and that we're really doing the best that we can for the people that are.
the people that are here.
I think I still see Dana when I go in offices, I still see, you know, those dental assistants running around there. And I was this person, they just grabbed, you know, we've got a filling coming up and I just grab a stack of two by two by two. So just grab a stack or the hygienist, right? Just grab a stack instead of like, how many do I actually need? And my doctor, realistically, we only need two. If I'm cleaning off your instrument, you're passing it, you know, you, you pack the composite in there and I need to clean the instrument off before you pack more composite.
it's not going to take this whole stack. I'm never using all of those. And if I do need more, then I can get more. It's available. And same with hygiene, right? When you're going through and scaling, like you don't need a massive stack in most cases. You probably need two to four, I would assume, to really keep your instruments clean. So even just as simple as that. Now, Dana, I...
On the same subject, right, eco-friendly, what are you seeing practices do within the front office with paper? I know paper's always been a big thing. And then COVID happened. And like, I think we got paper crazy again, which was the exact opposite of what I thought would happen, but we got paper crazy again. And what are you seeing offices do now to try to combat that and switch things back around?
Dana (07:58)
Yeah, and I think it is. just going back to making sure that they're doing medical histories, like sending those to patients ahead of time and doing them electronically, doing their consents electronically when patients walk in, you know, using the iPads for new patient information, for treatment planning and presenting. So there's a lot of ways and not only, think that a lot of this is there's kind of like another benefit to it, right? We can switch everything to electronic, which is also going to save us a fair amount of time.
I was just in a practice recently and they were like, Hey, we're clocking a lot of overtime. And I'm like, front office, like, what are we doing with our overtime? And I'm not kidding you. They looked at me and said, well, we spend about two hours at the end of the day shredding. And I was just like, wait, what? So not only right, are we being eco-friendly by eliminating paperwork, we're truly eliminating work from our team two hours every day spent on shredding.
The Dental A Team (08:38)
Yeah, I knew you were going to say that. I had an office last week that said the same thing.
Dana (08:54)
then we're paying a shredding company to come and take our shreddables too. So it's like you said, it helps with supply costs and it helps with costs and it truly also buys us back time while also serving the environment and being really, you know, as eco-friendly in those instances as possible.
The Dental A Team (08:57)
Yeah.
Totally, totally agree. I literally had an office just, I think it was two weeks ago now, Trish and I went to an office and they had a massive shred pile and I was like, what are we shredding? Like, what do we have to shred if we're getting insurance verifications, like download it on the PC and then upload it into the document center, like all these different spaces. So being efficient and being innovative is gonna be huge. How can we reduce the amount of paper that we're using, the amount of ink that we're using, because those ink cartridges, they gotta be thrown.
away somewhere and they have to be picked up like it's this whole process just for ink cartridges. One space I know I work with a lot of teams on is route slips because yes yes yes yes to route slips. I want route slips but it doesn't mean it has to be individually printed every time. I have plenty of practices that do that and prefer it. I'm totally fine with it. I don't care what you guys decide to do but I have a lot of practices actually that pre-print
they'll print what they want a route slip to look like and then laminate it and they fill that out per patient. And so the night before or...
day of whatever, they fill these route slips out just the same as they would have printed them and then they're setting them on the counter. Most of the time it's like patient name, type of appointment and any balance that they might have. And then the back office is then filling out that NDTR space, the next visit date, time, re-care. And so there's really not a whole lot of extra that you need on your route slip. They should be pretty simple. If you've got, I have a lot of practices that have a lot of checklists and check systems on their route slips.
and I'm totally fine if you want them there. Again, I don't have a huge preference, but they're not necessary. I do think if you need an appointment check system, then maybe make a separate sheet that's laminated per appointment that the dental assistant or hygienist can keep and check off for that appointment, especially if you're gonna do the laminated version so the front office doesn't feel like they're filling a ton out as well.
route slips, I agree, any kind of forms or documents that you can automate and make them put them online, make sure all of your stuff is on your website, make sure that the forms are being texted and emailed to your patients prior like this is 2025. remember, gosh, I remember way back in like, how to be like 2009 2010. My doctor that I worked for was like one of the first doctors to he was always he's very innovative. So he's one of the doctors that's always got
the next best tech thing. And I remember way back in 2009, 2010, he came to me and he was like, we're doing a kiosk, Dent, a Dentrix has a kiosk, and everyone's going to check in on this little computer on this little desk in the corner. And it's going to automatically put the paperwork into our system. And it's going to be amazing. And I was like, no, it's not. And it was so clunky, and it was so hard, and so difficult. So
to my men and women of 2025 in the dental industry. If you didn't get to experience the pains of getting to where we are today, and you think today's paperwork is difficult, I have stories to tell you. It was ugly. It was so hard. Everyone hated it. It never transferred. It never uploaded correctly. Patients hated it. It was embarrassing. Oh my gosh, the day and age we live in today of automation just blows my mind. So every time
Dana (12:23)
Thanks
The Dental A Team (12:37)
I walk into a practice and they're like, it's too hard. I'm like, let me tell you and we get it done. So just go get it done guys. Dana, do you remember that? Were you one of those offices?
Dana (12:47)
yeah. Yep. Yeah. And you know, I I'm all about like being on top of tech and being but sometimes I'm like, let's let it work its kinks out. Let's let it work its kinks out before we're like, maybe man number one on it.
The Dental A Team (12:53)
Yes.
Yes.
Literally, think yeah,
I think that the the rep just got to him and we were like one of the first I swear and I was like, oh for the love doctor and I'm like 20, you know 20 maybe 23 I guess back 23 24 back then but I'm just like baby I felt like like I don't know how to do this. Like are you kidding me? barely I I
was using dial-up in high school, okay? This kiosk, less than 10 years later, is blowing my mind. I can't, I can't with this kiosk, but today it's much different. So there's everyone, in case anyone wanted to know my age or how much of a...
Grandma, I am when it comes to tech, there's your answers. Dial up and kiosks and it was a pain and today I finally feel confident today with Canva and I've been working on that for I feel like two years. So here we are, here we are. But and then.
Dana (13:54)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (13:57)
On the space of eco-friendly, I think those are really, really fantastic ways. I've also heard, I don't have all the stats and the answers on it, but I do know that there's been a lot of research by a lot of doctors on different like vacuum systems for the suctions and different, I know there's a dry and a wet and one or the other, right? They both have their pros and their cons, but making sure those two, if you do find yourself in a situation where you need to replace your system, I know I've got a doctor that's working on that right now.
actually making sure you do your due diligence and research on that because there is a way per the stats at least to save a ton of water with the dry system and so I know even down to those pieces or a lot of the new data you might even know a lot of the more stats or whatever but a lot of the new
compressors and things are more energy efficient and lasting longer. It's kind of like the Energizer Bunny, like the batteries just keep getting better. So I know a lot of those spaces as well, and the hand pieces, electric, you know, motorized and all those different spaces. So there's a ton there. And Dana, what about for, I think hygiene department wise for you, what about the
Like the giveaway bags, all of those pieces, like what are you seeing practices do there?
Dana (15:17)
Yeah, I've had a lot of offices either nix the bags all together and just kind of like bundle them or switch to like a paper bag versus a plastic bag. Also to there are a ton of eco friendly home care products coming out and I'm not advocating for them. I think do your research, make sure they meet your standards for your patient. But there's, know, bamboo toothbrushes, there are now recyclable toothpaste containers and you can be a recycling center for them. There are also toothpaste tablets that like you just refill you can just get a sachet.
The Dental A Team (15:25)
Yeah.
That's cool.
Dana (15:46)
fancy words, Hachet, of the little tablets and you put them in your plastic container. So you just reuse that plastic container over and over again. So there's all kinds of eco-friendly home care products too that you can consider switching to. Just reduce waste, you know, from a patient perspective too. So I think all of those things are worth taking a look at.
The Dental A Team (15:46)
I do like that.
Dana (16:08)
Again, making sure as long as they meet the standards of your office and what you want your patient to utilize them for, if you can opt for an eco-friendly version and it's something that you're wanting to incorporate more of, I say go for it.
The Dental A Team (16:20)
Yeah, I love the toothpaste that you mentioned. know I've seen one of the hygienists that's been in my life. does a lot of, she just does a lot of this stuff and she does a lot of posting about it. And she posts the powder that comes in the little jar, right? Like, gosh, that's brilliant because you like the sachet, right? You're refilling that jar. And so it's a glass jar that you're refilling with the powder and you're just getting your toothbrush wet, dipping it in the powder and then brushing your teeth. And you just think about how many
Dana (16:33)
Mm-hmm.
The Dental A Team (16:50)
tubes of toothpaste run through your household, just your one household, how many tubes of toothpaste are thrown away on average, right? Probably somewhere between two to six a year, I can imagine, right? At least two to six a year for every household. If you can
teach your patients and educate your patients about products like that, that do work, do your research, right? I don't know which product was, I did not do the research on it, right? I did not buy it, I will do more research, but like do your research like Dana said and advocate for something you believe in, but make sure you're educating your patients too. So maybe you've got those things on hand at the dental practice, maybe those companies have disposable ones that you can give out.
Dana (17:18)
you
The Dental A Team (17:38)
And I've had a lot of practices too that have done away with like the bags and really they each time just ask the patient like, hey, do you use the disposable toothbrush? A lot of our patients, you guys, we've sold them electric toothbrushes. So a lot of our patients aren't using disposable toothbrushes. And I can tell you, most of the time those disposable toothbrushes are used for the guest bathroom for when somebody comes and forgot their toothbrush, right? That's what I did with them. That's what I do with them. That's where they are.
Dana (17:50)
That's for sure.
The Dental A Team (18:06)
So making sure we're asking those questions and only giving those things out as necessary because eventually they do go into the landfills and all those spaces. So take a look, look at what you can do, how you can make things a little better. Like can we install, I know in the house I'm like use the fans guys, like don't turn the AC on yet. I know it's.
96 degrees today. I hear you. I'm in Phoenix. I get it. But I'm like, none of the fans in the household are on and we're cranking the AC. Come on, like how can we be how can we be more economic and eco friendly in every aspect. So I think there's a lot of space in it for the dental in the dental practice. And then there's a lot of space for us to really educate our patients on how they can carry that through into their own homes. Yeah, Dana.
What do you think, I'm gonna do this to you again, what do you think are some good actionable items, especially because you just chatted with your own practice that you consult, what do you think are some good action items, some easy things that they can consider either watching or switching out or whatever that they can take away from today's chat?
Dana (19:10)
Yeah, I think first thing is just review your disposables, right? Is it necessary to use all of the things that you use? And is there there, you know, one that you can sterilize or you can reuse alternative? Make sure we're looking at just paper waste, right? How much have we shifted or can we shift electronically? It'll just help with efficiency too. So this is a win win on both sides. So take a look at paper use in the practice and then do some research on some eco-friendly products and see if your office is a good fit for them.
The Dental A Team (19:39)
I love it. I love it.
Thank you, Dana. Thank you for taking this adventure with me today. I was so happy to hear that you had just had this conversation with a practice recently, so that makes it very simple. So thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you, everyone here for listening. As always, we appreciate, value you. We are here for all of the things and we're here to support you. So drop us a five-star review. Always let us know if there's any topic you wish that we would talk about. Dana and I will get right on it. I promise you that. We need the ideas, you guys. So thank you. [email protected]
[email protected] and we'll catch you next time.
-
Kiera and Dana chat about ways dentists can go “beyond the chair” with passive income streams, including real estate, investments, speaking gigs, and more.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00.802)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today, man, it's been way too long. I have the one and only Dana from our team. If you've known her, if you're here as like an OG, you know Dana from Donuts with Dana. Gosh, Dana, that's like way back in the archives. But if you're newer, you may have heard her as Dainey. I don't know if she loves that one. And then Dana, what was the one that I heard? I think it was like Dynamite Dana was the last one that I heard come through for you. So those are kind of when you're like morphing over time, but
Which one do you prefer, Dana? And welcome to the show.
Dana (00:32.799)
I I think the OG of donuts with Dana is probably the one that like will continue to stick.
Kiera Dent (00:39.342)
It's true. A lot of people like even at events and they see you, they're like, oh my gosh, it's donuts with Dana, which is so fun and so cute, but super happy to have you. Welcome to the show today. So grateful. You actually brought up a really interesting topic that I thought it'd be fun for us to dive into from a lot of your clients that you've been talking to of like, what are maybe some passive income ideas for dentists beyond the chair? Now let's just clarify. This does not mean that you have to actually like give up dentistry that you're not working, but
I think we have a lot of entrepreneurial minded dentists that are just starting to like get creative, want some ideas. So today, Dana and I are here to like pick your interests, just how you start thinking in different ideas. But Dana, give some more background. know this came from a lot of your clients. What are some of the things you've been seeing and hearing?
Dana (01:26.34)
Yeah, I do think that you're right. I think that if you are a business owner, right, if you're a practice owner, that just naturally comes to you. And I think that people that own businesses and people that have gone and graduated dental school and become leaders are just always looking for opportunity too. I think it's just a mindset thing in that group of people. So it's come up just on calls, like, what can I do? What are some things that I can do outside of the chair? And
some interesting things that some of even my clients do that I thought would be really fun to share, to help brainstorm and give some ideas.
Kiera Dent (02:02.542)
I love it. I love a good brainstorm session like this, Dana. So this is gonna be a little different podcast style for all of you coming on. Today it's more of a rift. It's more of a like, oh gosh, I think these are like a good think tank. My husband and I, we go hot tubbing and we call it our like tub talk. So it's not Ted talk, it's tub talk because that's where a lot of our best ideas come. today is a, it's donuts with Dana and Kiera. It's like dabbling in dentistry. Like, but I want it to be better than like,
dabbling outside of dentistry, maybe that's what it will have this brainstorm such as, because I agree with you, Dana, and I also think sharing some ideas that some of our clients do, obviously we mash and mix, so you can't really figure out who we're talking about, because I like to keep that private and confidential for them. But I think like, again, let's spur some ideas. So Dana, I've got some ideas, I know you have some, but let's take it on of what are some of the things that dentists can do for this passive income? But wait, before we go there, I also feel like it's important to say why.
Dana, you mentioned about like a lot of these offices, these dentists want something beyond just dentistry. I also think for me, it becomes an insurance policy. Like dentist, if these little hands right here, if they break, well, that's your livelihood. So I do think for some dentists having passive revenue, passive income, coming through generating different ideas means you're not as dependent upon your hands, but more able to do that out of like desire rather than necessity.
So I think it's a good morphing and it doesn't have as much stress and pressure from what I've seen from doctors that do it. But again, those are maybe just a few ideas within our dabbling in outside of dentistry talk today.
Dana (03:42.022)
Yeah, I think it's an exciting one and I will usually always preface the conversation with like make sure you have a good financial advisor too because some of the things is Make sure that the money you're currently making can also potentially make you money. So just really connecting with a strong financial advisor so that you can maximize the money that's coming into you from your practice, whether it's in investments, whether
It's in bonds, anything like that. Connect with a strong financial advisor and they can help walk you through any of these ideas we roll out today in our talk that just helps them make better decisions.
Kiera Dent (04:19.886)
Couldn't agree with you more because also it's fun when you start to make these extra passive income ones Don't forget depending upon how it's set up what it's structured what it is Well, this could also incur a higher tax bill for you. I'm never opposed to you made more money no, I've got more tax But if you don't plan and prepare for it then instantly that can become a cash flow crunch for you end of year So agreed and with all things we are not financial advisors. We are not here to give you legal counsel We're not here to give you financial counsel. We're just here to riff with you
And then you need to make sure that you take this on and get the appropriate advice for your specific needs because truth be told, it varies from client to client, state to state, location to location, and scenario to scenario. So what I do and what works for me, what Dana does, they're not the same, but again, today's a fun riff. So Dana, let's kick it off with what are some of these ideas that are brewing that you've heard?
Dana (05:06.222)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think real estate is definitely something that a lot of dentists look at as like a more of a passive. I It depends on how passive you want it to be versus how active you want it to be as far as a supplementary income. So I think real estate is one. I think silent business partner in a business that is of interest. I mean, we have a mutual client who I think is in real estate and maybe even a farm. So there's those things.
Kiera Dent (05:35.738)
huh, true, it's true.
Dana (05:39.352)
and I've got another office where she is a spokesperson for a pretty big oral health company. So she does podcasts for them. She writes articles for them. She speaks at some of the conventions that they are at. I have heard of a dentist who created webinar series on a procedure that he felt like he
was really strong in. And so I just feel like sometimes it just takes thinking outside the box, thinking about where your passions are, thinking about what you might enjoy spending your time if it's more of an active pursuit. So I think that there's endless ideas really.
Kiera Dent (06:20.226)
Mm-hmm agreed and I think like let's dig a little into real estate. Let's talk about this a little more I am no real estate professional on this there's different pieces, but we'll dabble a little bit venture out into that just so you can hear a few things because I am very passionate about real estate and I'm very intrigued by how to it started because I met some people at Tony Robbins like surprise surprise started chatting with them and I started meeting a doctor community surprise surprise because I wanted my husband
to look for ways to not have to be always working at the hospital. I think hospitals are a little more grueling than dentistry, not as forgiving. And literally there was no way for my husband to get out of it. And I thought, well, shoot, we don't have kids. I wanna travel. But you're my travel buddy and you're always at work. So I started meeting these people and we started talking. And something I really was impressed by was they actually started talking about how...
Like as doctors and dentists, we have it a little bit different. You don't have as captive an income as say a lot of medical professionals do. My husband, there was no way for him to make more money. Unlike in dentistry, you produce more, you're able to create more. And so what they do is there's actually a thing called rep status where you can actually, there's a couple different ways to do it. And again, I'm no guru on this. It's just giving you a couple of ideas to look at. But if you get rep status, so a lot of times people will have their spouse.
become the rep status. So for example, in my situation, let's say I didn't work at dental team, let's say I had a lesser job right now, I would not be the right candidate for this relationship. But Jason, he's working at the hospital. I'm a spouse, I'm staying at home with the kids, or I'm working maybe only part time, I have more hours. What we can actually do is I can take on rep status, so real estate professional status. And what I can actually do is I can offset with deductions within our real estate portfolio, all of Jason's tax within his W-2.
So it's a really good way for you to actually make more on a W-2 by offsetting. Now there's a secondary loophole on there for short-term real estate where you can be full-time working, but you can actually get short-term real estate in there and you can actually offset again through rep status. Now rep status are, there's like a lot of rules. So go read up on it, go talk to your financial advisor, go talk to your CPAs about how you get this rep status and see if it qualifies for you because like this is something my husband and I have looked into exponentially to figure out, hey,
Kiera Dent (08:38.68)
How could we offset this? Because if I can keep the taxes that I'm paying from our W-2, is there possibly a way that we could reinvest it? So now maybe you wanna do it, maybe you don't. There's also ways if you don't wanna be that involved and take that on, or you don't have a spouse or a partner that can help you with it, then other ways that you can do it are actually through syndications or being like Dana was mentioning of being a lesser buyer into it, where basically you just put money in.
Those ones, they're a dime a dozen. There's a ton of them. And so usually the best deals are found through networking. So if you're interested, odds are your financial advisor probably knows someone. I know there's quite a few dental groups. I will put some asterisks around that bet. Some of the dental groups that I heard, I will not mention names. There are some dental groups that were doing investments that actually a lot of dentists lost a lot of money on. So just make sure with any investment, guess what? It's risk. We're like high five. And the best advice I was ever given on investments was
same thing with like loaning money to people. Once that money is gone, I kiss it goodbye. Yes, I hope it comes back, but I have to be okay losing that money and it never coming back to me. So I think that there's other ways, but also let's not forget like investments, like putting money and maximize like for me, I utilize taxes and savings on the company. Those go into high yield savings accounts. I am still having true passive income off of those investments. They're not invested. They're just sitting there. I have to keep the money anyway. Why not have that?
come back to me and some returns that way too. But I think those are some fun ways to look into real estate in some different zones, which again, I didn't even realize it realize and my brother didn't realize and several people I've talked to about this real estate professional status that you can achieve that will truly offset those W-2 taxes. So looking into that might be a fun way for you to see it. I am one who I know I'm not going to be getting the phone call in the middle of the night. I'm not going to be going doing the plumbing. Jason, he built custom homes.
He still doesn't want to do it. We might do short-term rentals. And I was like, well, what are you going to do with the freaking snow, Jay? He was like, don't worry, Kiera, it will be an upfront cost, but we're putting heated driveways in. I'm never going to have to shovel them ever. No liability on us. just looking, and I know there's some really fun things, again, depending upon your area, but you can actually pick up some short-term rentals. Again, you've got to look at the areas. You've got to look at the zoning, but there's a lot of small houses that are like kit houses that are 20 grand, 30 grand, 40 grand. They literally come as a kit. You just need to...
Kiera Dent (10:59.358)
slab it and make sure that there's sewer and water to it. But those who can then rent out is like really cool Airbnbs too. Now Airbnb is hot topic right now. I don't know how much people are following it, but there are a lot of places that have been zoned for Airbnbs. Like we're even talking Dallas. I'm familiar with this because I live by Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe, a lot of those places were zoned for short-term rentals. And then after being purchased, so people have had these for years,
they're actually being rezoned into residential, which I think is totally shady. There's opinions on both sides of this of like, yes, but we need housing. And I'm like, yes, but they bought it. But again, it is another investment. So it's not an always guarantee. But Dana, I just went on a real estate rant. Any thoughts that you've got on that? Because I agree. think real estate is usually where a lot of people do venture in. I mean, there's storage units, there's short term rentals. Well, excuse me. There's like farms. There's other things you can get into a lot of these pieces. But again,
Be careful, do your homework and realize that money once it's gone, it's gone. Like hopefully it comes back to you, but maybe a few ideas in that realm too. Dana, thoughts, cause I really went on a rant on rep status.
Dana (12:05.72)
No, I love it. I think I learned something too during this podcast, which is awesome. And I agree with you. I think it just comes down to doing your research, knowing how much time you want to invest in something, knowing how much work you want to invest in something. And also too, how much money do you want wrapped up in things like that? And so I love that walkthrough of it.
Kiera Dent (12:25.664)
And Dana, as you said that, I also was thinking about Ryan Isaac with Dennis Advisors. He's my financial advisor and he reminds me that like really the biggest way to make wealth are independent businesses, real estate, and then like private equity and venture things where like you're going into venture capitalism. And so I also want to highlight while yes, we're talking about these getting outside of the chair, never forget that your business is your greatest asset in a lot of ways too. Now.
For me as a business owner, I sometimes love all my eggs in my own basket. Other times I absolutely hate that my eggs are all in my own basket. So, but never forget that sometimes even investing like hiring an associate in your practice or expanding what you're able to do in your practice or expanding your hours or opening up more chairs, that's also a way where you can get, I mean, truly, I'm not trying to like sound like unreasonable.
That's passive income. You have someone working for you. I get that you have to still own the business. You still have the liability on it. So it's not as passive as say a syndication, but you have somebody literally in your practice that's producing for you that they may be taking 30, 35%. Yes, you still have the additional overhead of your team, but that is passive in a lot of ways too. So I really want to highlight like, don't forget the greatest asset is your business, but you might want to have an insurance policy around that where you have other revenue streams, not just dependent upon the practice. Dana.
thoughts on that because I think people forget that their businesses are an asset as well.
Dana (13:52.536)
Yeah, I agree with you. you know what, too, I think that sometimes I've seen like even just getting creative with your space, right? There's offices that are doing dental assisting schools within their practices. I've got a couple offices where they've got myofunctional therapists coming in and they're renting space and they're using operatories that they're not ready to build out yet. So even if you have space within your practice, what can you do with that that can generate some passive income? And I love, like you said, like it is your number one investment and probably the
easiest, simplest way for you to continue to grow and expand your portfolio is growing and expanding your practice.
Kiera Dent (14:28.238)
And Dana, as you said that it reminded me, I have a friend who's a dermatologist up in New York. This woman was smart. There's a business that's doing it and I wish they were doing it a smidgey better. I've thought about doing it. But what they're actually doing is they're like renting out professional spaces to other professionals. So she's a dermatologist. She's only there three days a week and she literally rents her space out to like an optometrist or something. Like it's literally like someone within the healthcare field. She's like, here, I get paid to have my space.
by someone else coming and using it. So also maybe can you moonlight your practice? Who could come in? Like I love these had myel functional. I've seen some offices where they have a spa within like eyebrows, microblading, facials, like literally you don't even have to that as a service within your practice. It's just like one little nook, one little space or when you're not there after hours, obviously check your liability insurance with your building space. But I have seen a lot of offices doing that as well.
Like I think that that's so clever because I'm like, I already have this practice. I've already paid for it. And now I get to just have basically a renter within my space in a different zone. I love the dental assistant program. feel like it's a win-win. You're giving to the community. You're also able to cherry pick your best dental assistants. Like so many cool things for you to be able to do within your space. And some offices even have built like really cool lecture spaces and then they build a dental community and do study clubs within their area.
they get paid to host it at their location as well. You don't even have to be there. You can just have the space that somebody rents out from you. And hey, perk is you get all these these benefits of listening to these great speakers come in. We've done that in like several areas. We've spoken at those groups. I think it's a I think you're right. Like what do you have? What can you do? Jason and I love like we literally love in our tub talks to sit there and think of ways to make money. I will tell you door dashing is not my number one best idea. We did try it.
I was, I didn't realize like how hard it is to make money. Like it like humbled me a lot. But like there's so many little ways that you can actually do stuff outside. Like look at your home office, could you rent out spaces? Like there's just so many crazy cool things that we're able to do. I think you can create a lot of income in a lot of ways if you're creative with it. I also love the dental assistant one because you can have a dental assistant make more money by running the program for you. So you're getting the benefits, the assistant's able to grow and you're coming like
Kiera Dent (16:51.508)
wins all the way around, again, depending upon your state, because there are laws around it. But gosh, like I get nerdy on this type of stuff because it's fun to think outside the box for sure. So Dana, talk to me about speaking gigs, because I'm sure people are like, how do you get into that? How do these people get into this? Like writing webinars, becoming a keynote speaker, becoming an expert, writing blogs, because I think a lot of people have passion for that. But how do you actually do that and get into that?
Dana (17:16.826)
Yeah, and I think it comes down to the same thing that you said about real estate is networking, right? Going to conventions, starting by even writing things, right? And then and maybe speaking on a podcast, right? And then maybe writing a peer reviewed journal article, and then just growing those things, networking, reaching out and letting people know right? Companies that are a part of whatever you want to speak about letting them know that you know, you are experienced in that, that whatever it is topic.
And that you are available to speak I've had it I had one doctor that like just video like did a video presentation and sent it out to conventions and to people in that industry and Other office or other dentists that just started out small started out with simple articles started out just with networking letting companies and and Areas know that they were available
Kiera Dent (18:12.782)
brilliant and Dana as you said that I do agree like get on people's podcasts I can tell you how many clients have had like hey Keira I have this great idea of like selling charts or have this great idea that I'm super passionate about how to make composite crowns you guys I don't do any of that that's not stuff that I do I am NOT a clinician so we are a great podcast for you to get it then you say I've been like I've been on this podcast I've spoken to this place I love like just being a little scrappy there's several people that do things like this I also think if you're really passionate about something
Put it on your Instagram too. You can start to showcase your work. I know some people have become pretty popular on social media by doing cosmetic dentistry, by doing composite veneers in certain ways. like, I also think don't sell yourself short. There's probably some cool things that you do. And Dana, I'm just going to throw another idea because I forgot. I do have a client that does this. They are an expert witness. I want someone else to do it. Someone else go become an expert witness. Or if you are an expert witness, I want you to talk to me because I to put you on the podcast. Like you can get on with me.
but an expert witness is one, like I literally have a client and they tell me like, all right, Kara, gotta go meet with this person. And they make a truckload of money by being an expert witness as a dentist in like crimes. And I told my husband, was like, go be an expert witness in pharmacy. And he's like, I'm not doing that. I don't wanna get close. Like that creeps me out. But I'm just gonna throw, that's another random idea out there that I think again.
I'm hoping someone on the podcast is an expert witness. Please, I want to podcast with you. I want to hear your stories, your ventures. And for all of you listening, if you are someone who does real estate really, really well and you figured out the rep status or, I want someone who's not like dabbled in it, I want you to be a freaking expert on this. Like you've done at least a couple of things in it, or you're a speaker at locations where you're getting paid for that as a side gig, or you have a dental assistant program within your practice.
I want you to reach out [email protected] because I'd love to get you on the podcast. think sharing our knowledge, sharing with each other, I think it's freaking fun. And I think like, Hey, let's all rise each other up because guess what? You're probably not going to be a forensic witness at the exact same space everyone else is like, they need tons of those people. So anyway, Dana, this was a fun rift for me. Thanks for, thanks for rifting with me. Any last thoughts you've got as we wrap up.
Dana (20:24.9)
I think just get creative, right? Find, figure out if there's something that you're passionate about. Figure it out if you have space for something. Figure out what it is that you really want to spend maybe some extra time doing. And there's definitely ideas that fall around it.
Kiera Dent (20:39.596)
I love it. Dana, thanks for bringing this brilliant idea. Thanks for doing dabbling outside of dentistry with me today. Dabbling outside of dentistry with Dana today. Thank you for that. It was always a good time. And for all of you listening, this is what we love to do. We love to help dentists get the freedom to be able to have the creative space to think outside of just their day in day out. So giving them the ability to build their practice, build their leadership teams, be able to create. So that way you're able to think outside and also to help offices think in these ways and get them connected to people.
that are resources. if this is your world, or you're like, Hey, I'd love to have a little more mind space out there. I'd love to have less stress on my practice and more creative space. Reach out. That's what we're experts at. We're helping to help you and your team. So reach out. [email protected]. And as always, thanks for listening. Catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
-
Kiera shares exactly how Dental A-Team helped a practice with over $2 million in accounts receivable break even — and learn how to never fall behind again.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript
Kiera Dent (00:01.848)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and welcome to the podcast. I hope today you are truly just so happy. I hope that you are honestly just living your best life and I hope you know that you're truly doing better than you think you are. So you guys, this is where we are. We're here to help you. Dental A Team is obsessed about helping you and your team thrive. To be able to give you guys the guidance that you need to navigate the challenges that we have in dentistry. so welcome. This is what I'm obsessed with. I hope that you just know that I
I truly love and adore this podcast family. I'm so grateful for you. I'm grateful for you sharing this with your friends. I love, love, love seeing you tag us when you're driving to work or listening in the car or taking us on a road trip. And my goal is to be always something of value for you on this podcast that you can go and implement immediately to make your life and your practice even better. For those of you new, welcome. For those of you who are OGs, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here. As always, please.
like and subscribe and leave reviews for our podcast. That way we can reach all the practices truly out there. Right now we have impacted several, but I know there's thousands of other practices that we could reach and guide. And the only way I can do that is through your help of sharing this. So as always, if you've shared, thank you. I just gave you a high five or a hug to say thank you. And I'm so glad that you're here. All right. Today I'm going to give you some quick tacticals on some billing help.
how to handle old balances. think old balances are just annoying and I help practices with this all the time. Just to give you a little story, I kind of like stories on podcasts. I'm usually I'm here to rattle and roll and today I want to just take you down a little bit of memory lane. But there was a practice who reached out to us and wanted us to be a consultant for them and asked us to help them with their billing department. And I was like, all right, sure, like we do this. I'm more than happy to help you out. Let me know what you need. And this practice said,
Well, Kiera, our over 90 and our total amount is about 2 million. And I was like, that's all right. It's not the worst I've ever seen. Tell me a little bit more. And they said, we literally have no handle on what we're doing with billing. And I was like, fantastic. So we got on. We started working with, they had a few different practices, 2 million. Could you imagine? Like, this is why I get paid what I get paid. Because we go and we find these little money holes in the practice and we patch them up.
Kiera Dent (02:20.622)
and we're able to add all this money back into your practice and to help you put systems into place so this doesn't happen again. I think that's the biggest thing is let's make sure this does not happen again. And so with this practice, what we ended up doing was we started checking in Trulie every single week with this billing team. We created spreadsheets. We had them download the AR.
We prioritize which balances for them to go after first. And then we started like just chipping away at it. And we were heavy on our accountability. You better believe that I was hot to try on this practice. And it was every single week I was getting a report and update how many claims that they worked through. We looked to see, I think we had over 5,000 accounts to go through. So what we did is we said, all right, I'm gonna grab my calculator. I don't know off the top of my head. We said, all right, 5,000 accounts. We are working 20 days.
That means we need to get through 250 accounts per day. We had three people working on it. That meant 83 accounts per person. Now that's not realistic, right? And so what we did is we took those 5,000 accounts and we did that over three months before we ran a new AR account. That way they could feel like they could get through that because then you have 5,000 charts. We have 60 days to work, right? 20 days times three. And then we had three people working on it that broke it down to about 25 to 30 accounts per day.
that felt a lot more doable. Now remember, a lot of these accounts just needed to have a resubmit from insurance. It was a denied insurance claim because we didn't attach an attachment. Others, we just need to call and collect from a patient. Others, there was more work that needed to be done that we had to dig into. And then there was the dun-dun-dun-dun, old accounts. Like, what do I do with these old balances? We can't collect on them. And so that's really where we started to work. And so with this practice, it took us
Truly, I'm not exaggerating, it was about six months before we started to get a good handle on it. And then like at a year mark, they felt like very confident we were able to get through all the accounts. We had good processes in place. We started collecting when people were coming in the door and that way all those accounts of this billing team looked to see who on the schedule we could collect from. Because that then, instead of just these three people working on it, we also had all of our front office team working on it, all the back office team, we were prepping the route slips.
Kiera Dent (04:33.774)
which a lot of billers will tell me that just feels like a waste of time, Kara. I don't want to do that. I don't want to prep these charts. And I think, yeah, but think you probably see, I don't know, 25 to 70 patients per day. And if we could collect on all of those that come through and collect those balances, well, now I'm not having to go and like look for all this stuff everywhere else. I can just get this done like in real time. So again, I'm a person of let's work smarter, not harder. And so this practice started doing that. So that became a system of then we chart prep.
consistently making sure that, my gosh, like let's get all these patients there. We put into a process for the front office to collect at time of service when they checked in. And then we also made sure that we were really good on our treatment estimates to make sure that we didn't get into this hot water. And the reason this office got into hot water is not because they were doing anything wrong, but because this practice did not consistently work there.
their insurance. And so they got all these old accounts, they got all these old balances. And guess what? That's no fun for anybody. That's not fun for the patient. That's not fun for the practice. That's not fun for cashflow. That's not fun for the billers. I mean, gosh, like when I look at 5,000 accounts, I'm like, all right, we got to work. Like we've got our spreadsheet to get through. And so for these practices, I just want you to know that no matter where you are, there's still hope. If we can help you on that, by all means reach out. Even if you're not there yet, like that far.
Let's great, like let's catch it because the ultimate goal is that you have no more than one month's worth of production in your total AR. So if you're producing a hundred thousand, then guess what? I want no more than a hundred thousand in your AR at any given moment. Also, I really watch your over 90 accounts because those can tip to where they're no longer collectible. So what I recommend we do is when I'm working with a billing team is we're going to start with those big balances and then like, let's make a big hit. Like let's do a good impact.
So I have people put it on an Excel spreadsheet. We have it color coded. It's actually so simple. And once billers get into this rhythm and doctors, when you have it, it becomes truly like flawless. It's so beautiful. It's so easy to do. So we put it in there. We sort it. You can use it and sort the list and sort your AR list. So that way I can look usually within your over 90. It's usually held up in like five to 10 accounts. So what we do is we actually go hit those accounts that are going to give us the biggest bang for our buck and our time.
Kiera Dent (06:48.238)
and we're gonna go try and collect on those accounts, figure out what's going on with those accounts and try to collect. Now, when I have an office that has a lot of really, really, really old balances, there comes a question of, we just write this off as bad debt or do we try to collect? And my opinion is you did the work, let's try and collect whatever we possibly can. So on those offices, I usually send out statements. You'll be shocked at how much you actually can collect from those old balances, that old debt.
And then we go, we try to collect, I usually send one, two or three statements, depending upon the practice and the doctor's choice. I do not think it's aggressive to send three statements. I also call, I'm making sure I call these patients. You can even let them know like, hey, we're updating our system and we noticed there was an outstanding balance. So we needed to get that collected for you. This is the total. And I can take Visa or MasterCard, which do you prefer? Collect right over the phone. It's very simple. I know it feels weird. It's like, my gosh, we were supposed to have collected this a while ago.
Well, high five, we updated our system. Hashtag we updated to actually looking at it is what we're trying to tell people. We should have collected this. We didn't, but now we have a process in place where we do this every week. And then from there, what I like to do is have you guys truly start collecting on those calling. I am amazed at how many practices do not call. Also amazed at how many practices do not have an online payment portion. Well, that's a really easy way to get old balances. Cause if you're expecting them to call during working hours or send you a check,
or write their credit card on a little piece of paper and send it back to you. Well, we've just made it to where it's like so much of a time delay. Why not just have them get on the phone, get on a call with you and start making the outbound calls. I just gave you the script, use that for your team. That's how we start to work with these old balances. So now we've tried to collect everything. We're working on it. I also am very sticky that our billers are working at least two days a week. Billers, I'm going to tell you, you can work more efficiently. And I say that with grace and love and a hug.
Because I don't want you working on this all the time. What I want you doing is I want you clumping things together, clumping insurance plans together, looking for all the patients that I can call, working A to J and then my, what is it? JK, K to Z. So we work those every other week. We're sending out statements, we're sending out text messages, and we have a rhythm. I have a billing calendar that I share with offices so that way we don't get off track. Yeah, you're going to have some hard work to do at the beginning, but once we get this on track and we have a system, guess what? You'll have to work on it like two days a week.
Kiera Dent (09:08.75)
It really does cut down time and doctors, just so you know, again, that's pending upon the size of the practice. When we have multi-offices, it's a full-time job. When we're at one practice, one provider, it should be a two-day job for billing. Now billers might hear this and they might be angry with me. Billers, I'm saying that not because I think that you are doing things wrong. I'm just saying that most offices can do it that way. So let's give you the efficiency tips. Let's help you out. Let's make sure that you're able to do it too. That way you're able to...
Do this in the most effective and efficient way as possible. My goal is to not waste time. Let's not waste time on hard things, but let's actually do things that are fun. You can also outsource this to third party companies as well. That can also help. They're working. They're hugely less expensive. So if you're struggling with billing, those are some solutions. So I promise you old balances. We've now gone through, we've done all this. We still have debt.
We still have these balances that we can't collect. We've sent out our three statements. We've been contacting them. We've called them three times. This has also been documented in their ledger. So we know it's really been done. Doctors, can run reports when it's documented. I usually do made up codes for these, but that way doctors, can run reports to see how many of these procedures are actually being, or how many of these calls are being done consistently. okay. Now it's a choice. You have choices. So depending on how old it is, what I usually like to do is I run my AR report.
And then doctors, it's your decision here. I'm not going to tell you what to write off. All this money is technically owed to you. You did the work, so you get to decide what you want to do. I'll tell you my preference and I'll tell you what I usually recommend. But at the same time, this is your money and I want you to know you are entitled to every single penny that has been billed in the practice. I usually recommend anything below $20. If we can't collect it, it's not there. There's no way for us to collect it. Just write it all off. I also like to do this at a strategic time point.
where it's probably at end of year or end of quarter. So that way I know at this point in time, I wrote off all this bad debt because then we can move forward and we know that was like a bad time. We're never doing it again, but this was my one time. So anything $10 or less, $20 or less, just write that off, get that out of the accounts. It's gonna clear up quite a few accounts for you. Then, well, and before we do that, we've tried to collect also any person who has a balance on their account.
Kiera Dent (11:27.79)
I don't usually think sending someone to collections over $20, that's not my jam. I'm not usually a big proponent of collections, but again, every penny is entitled to you. So you decide what's best for you. So we write it off and then from there we get to start deciding what we're gonna do. Are we gonna call these patients and do a 50-50 split with them to where if they pay 50 % today, we're then gonna write off the additional 50%, but most likely they're probably not welcome back in the practice. Are we going to send them to collections?
Are we just going to say these balances are never going to be collected? And we like pick through them and decide, but doctors, once we have this bad debt, it's your decision to decide what are you going to do with it? Look to see how much it's there. Look to see how much we've contacted them, called them. Can we do anything else? And then we really get to decide, we write this off? Now, if you do write it off for bad debt, it does need to be adjusted off. There needs to be a note on that practice, on that patient. And that patient does not get to come back to the practice until they've paid their debt. Let's not get ourselves back into hot water.
but that's how we're gonna handle these old balances. And I know this feels like icky sticky, but when we get to this, like that practice, we worked on it six months, eight months, nine months. At the end of the year, we decided, we showed the doctor, we said, this is all, this is everything we've collected from this 2 million pile of these 5,000 accounts. And here we are. And I think we ended up writing off about $50,000 at the end of it, which that feels like a bad day, but $50,000 out of 2 million, I think they did a really, really great job.
We had bad systems in place. We didn't have people collecting consistently. And that was the reality of where we got. But they then moved forward and we made sure we were at 98 % collections. We kept that claim amount low. We kept our AR low. We made sure we never got over one month's worth of AR ever again. And this practice is happy skipping along, but it was hard work. So I want you to know that it is tricky, but it is doable. And this is hopefully a quick tip for you of how you're able to handle those balances.
Now there's a lot of other pieces, there's a lot of other options, there's a lot of different things. I just kind of gave you a highlight reel today that hopefully will take you through to see, all right, what is my AR? Am I at one month or less of my AR? What are my highest balances? And what are my oldest balances? Can I get those collected? And then what do I need to start writing off? So those would be some of my quick highlight tips for you to get started. You know at Dental A Team, our passion is making sure that you are so successful.
Kiera Dent (13:44.76)
that you're able to have the know-how, the things that you need to do, the things that will make you the most successful, and also the less stressed, and also to help your team, because I know doctors, you're not taught this in dental school, this is really tricky, and so this is what we're able to do. We're able to work with your billing team, we're able to work with your teammates, and the entire practice, including yourself, to understand A, what is the process, B, how do we get ourselves out of this mess, C, how do we never get there again, and D, how do we make sure that this is something that...
literally becomes a system that is forever running rather than something that's person dependent. So that's what we're about. If that resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you. [email protected] or just go to our website and click on a call or DMS. Either way, I'm happy to help you. If you're in a billing sticky spot, I'm happy to assess it with you, give you some free guidance, get you on your way, but always reach out. [email protected] And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast.
-
Kiera gives listeners a “choose your own adventure” challenge for planning practice growth. She touches on comparing your growth to others’, how and what to expand, taking advantage of opportunities (or not), and more.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript
Kiera Dent (00:00.856)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I hope you are just having such an amazing day. I hope that you remember why you went into dentistry. I hope if yesterday was a bad day, today's a better day. And I hope that Dental A Team podcasts truly boost your spirits, lightens your mood, and gives you tactical tips that are gonna be able to make your life incredible because at Dental A Team, we're obsessed about making your life happy. So today, I wanted to get on of a choose your own adventure. This is kind of fun. I think it's fun to just kind of like...
dabble in where can our practice go? What are some ideas? What are some things to think about? And we do this with our clients. And I just got jazzed about this one today. It was a really fun one that I chatted about with another office. And I thought, I think our Dental A Team family needs to have this. So if you are new to our Dental A Team podcast, welcome. I'm Kiera Dent. Dent really is my last name. I just make the joke. That's not really a joke. It's my real life. I had to just get three fiancees to get this last name. I didn't marry any of them. I just married the last one and
I love dentistry, I love helping practices, our team loves helping offices. We truly are experts at what we do of helping doctors and teams come together to have the best practice, the best opportunities. We fly to your practice or we do it virtually. Both are super incredible. We also have an in-person doctor community that we go to as well, which is really magical. And really our goal is to make sure that you are living your best life, that you are profitable and that your team is thriving. And so really, and we're the experts.
that do this. We have been team members ourselves. Every one of our consultants have been team members. They grow multiple practices, to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars. So we, are experts at doing this and we love to just share resources to help you and your team be absolutely the most incredible that you possibly can be. So with that today, I wanted to just dabble on a choose your own adventure, giving you a short tactical choose your own adventure. So there's a practice. So this is kind of an office autopsy, if you will.
There's a practice and they started out kind of small. So they had a few ops and don't worry for all of you listening, I do smash a few practices together so you'll never know which practice I'm talking about. And I do that intentionally to keep practice confidentiality. So with that, this practice they started out kind of small. They had four operatories and they were in that practice for about five years. The doctor was taking on about 1800 patients solo. That's a lot of patients. And they were just booked out.
Kiera Dent (02:25.72)
They worked four days a week and they knew they wanted to expand. So they expanded to 10 operatories and within about two months of expanding, this is not an exaggeration, they had basically outgrown their space. So they had another associate that they hired. They brought in more hygienists. So they had four hygienists and they had an opportunity to add another associate and also another hygienist. And it kind of was coming to a crossroad of what do we do? And so I want to just place this for you in practices and I'm going to bring a bunch of
choose your own adventure because I think a lot of times thinking outside the box really becomes something we don't do. We feel like we're living in a day in and day out. And so this practice made me think of like, let me bring to the table some options that I've seen with other practices for you to not compare, but to create a What do I want my practice to look like? What do I want my life to look like? So step one is that I'm really, really pro whenever we work with an office is A, we've got to know what you want to do. And I usually like to do it in 2-5 years stints.
thinking about your kids, thinking about your age, thinking of who you are, where are you gonna be in the next 2-5 years? So when we look at that, But then I also wanna take it and expand you out to 10 years. Reason being is because decisions you make now actually might impact where you wanna be in 10 years. So for example, with that, if you were choosing your own adventure, let's say in the next 2-5 years, you're like, gosh, I really wanna scale back, I wanna be home with my kiddos, I wanna do some different things, that's really what I'm looking for in the next 2-5 years.
Well then kiddos get older, they're in school or maybe your kids are graduating and you're like, gosh, in like 10 years, I actually want to be building a bigger practice. With that, if we scale down now in the next 2-5 years, your 10 year plan is actually gonna really be a problem because now you're gonna have to build it back up because you scaled it back down. So maybe there's a way that we could get you to scale down now without killing your patient base that's going to help you within the next decade of your life.
So that's where I really love this choose your own adventure. And I get so giddy about this and I love helping doctors dream and I love building out dream boards with our doctors to help them see, all right, where do we wanna be in 2-5 years? But then where do we really wanna be in the next decade of our life and or the legacy of our practice? Because for some, some wanna grow these massive practices. For others, they wanna just have a solo practice. Something I'm really like, this is where I'm gonna get on a rant in a soap box.
Kiera Dent (04:44.738)
I get really frustrated with offices that are just growing for the sake of growing. They're looking on social media. feel like social media is such a blessing and a curse because we compare and we're like, gosh, like, what am I doing over here? I'm just schmucking over here and I'm not really building a practice. And my gosh, I only have four ops and they have like 17 ops. And what am I doing over here? And gosh, that one just grew. And this one has like 12 practices and like, I'm just sitting over here in four ops. And I really get annoyed by that because
There's no reason to grow unless that's ultimately going to serve your life. And I really want to hone that in today of is your practice serving your life or are you serving your practice? Because you can have whatever life you want to live. Some people who have 12 practices are like very miserable. Yeah, they look great on paper, but their life is miserable. And I think about that ballerina picture. If you haven't seen it, go do a quick search where a ballerina is on point. So that means they're standing on their tippy toes and they're in a beautiful ballet slipper.
And the picture says like, everybody wants to be a ballerina on point until they see the work that has to happen. And the other foot is like this bloody ripped up, like the toes are gnarly. And you think about like, you can't see that behind the beautiful ballet slipper of this gnarly foot that's been like beaten thrashed and like, just chewed up and spit out on the other side. And I think about that often about these offices, like, we don't see what their life is like, we don't see.
the problems that they're having. And I'm also not here to say that growing is bad either. I'm not here to say that if you're like 12 off, isn't it like, gosh, like my life's terrible and I wish I was a four off practice. I'm tired of the comparison. I'm tired of people just feeling like whatever they're doing is not good enough. And I think that that comes from comparison left and right. And so when we look at this, choose your own adventure, I also think it's choose our own adventure, but let's also choose the life we want to live. Choose the life that's going to make us freaking passionate. Choose the life that's just going to inspire us and do all the things that are.
are going to be great for us and then be able to just flourish from there as well. So when we say that, with this practice, the choice is where do I wanna be in two years? Where do I wanna be in five years? And where do I wanna be in the next decade? And then there's options that we can do. So for example, with a practice, four ops, they have a choice. We can expand, we can maybe go next door, we can maybe find an op within our practice.
Kiera Dent (07:06.574)
Um, but what is the reason why for this office, what they were doing is they had so many patients, tons of patients, they couldn't see them all. And so they wanted to expand. So they knocked out the wall. They made it a 10 out practice. They were only going to do eight. And I said, Nope, always go for more ops. You will never be sad about adding more ops in. This doctor was so grateful that they added more ops in, uh, gives more choices, more opportunities, especially when you're growing that way. So now it's a matter of, all right, what do want to do from here? Do we want to keep growing? So that would mean we might expand out, bring on other people.
Could we expand our hours so that we're not having to expand our days? Could we bring on more providers? What are some of the choices that we could do? And I think getting really creative in the space that you've got. So it's not always having to expand out, but could we add an operatory? Could we expand hours? Could we add another provider? Could we, if a doctor wants to pull back and only work two days for right now, but we don't want to drop our patient base, can they work two days and then maybe come in and do hygiene checks on another day to fill a doctor's schedule? I don't know what are the solutions? What are the things that we could do?
are the things that I really love for you to look at. So when we look at that then, the next thing we're gonna ask ourself is, this is why it's important to look at your two year and your five year and your 10 year. Then from there it's, okay, we could keep doing that, we could scale back. Or if we have too many patients, maybe we consider dropping a few insurance plans. But be careful, because if I drop those insurance plans and in a decade I want to grow my practice back up, well, it kind of is like cutting my arm off and then I need to use my arm in the future. So what are some solutions that we could do now?
Maybe with something where we say, is where we wanna be. This is what I want my life to look like for the next 20 years. Awesome. Then we know we can scale back. We can start to be more fee for service. I have a practice in there, six ops. And they're like, here, we're going out of network. And I was like, are you sure? And they're like, we don't freaking care. They have their new patients wait for three months. But guess what? They're busy and they know that they don't wanna expand any bigger. They want six ops. They wanna work four days a week. And they wanna be home with their kids for the next two decades of their life.
They are so clear that now they're making decisions that impact their life rather than dictate their life. And so that's really where it's choose your own adventure. Do you wanna maybe scale back and only work a couple days a week? Do you wanna be working five days a week? Do you wanna have you and one provider? Do you wanna have you and then two other providers so you can scale back and maybe do some other things? Do you want to build a bigger building? I know I've got some practices that are like 17 ops. Gosh, I've got one that I think is pulling in a 50 ops.
Kiera Dent (09:32.12)
practice. That's insanity to me. I'm like, you're going to have to be like a hospital with a parking garage. Like that's not even a joke. It's like a 50 bed hospital, but it's a 50 op practice. Those things sound so dreamy, but again, that's fun. And if that's your vision, but this doctor has been practicing for about 20 years, who's building a 50 op location. but looking to see what do we want to do? Also, I like if you're in this practice and we're kind of bursting at the seams, there's a practice that I've got where we expanded them out, similar to the one I was
alluding to at the beginning, they expanded out, they now have, think, 15 operatories, and they're like, we need more space. So they looked around, there's some real estate, and they're like, we're gonna build a surgery and a sleep center across the street, we're gonna keep this as our general. So are there other building locations, and do we wanna do more surgery or more sleep, or I have a practice that does a tongue and lip tie in their location, do we wanna add a dental assisting school, so that way, instead of it just being dentistry, we're also doing dental assisting.
So our building is being double utilized and we're able to have another revenue stream in there. Do we want to bring in other specialties under one roof? These are the conversations that get me so lit up because I feel like there's so many choose your own adventures, but it's really choose your life. So if we choose our life first, then these adventures can really make something exciting for us and make something really fun for us that you can then determine what you want to do, how you want to do it. But I think it's really important of two years, five years, and then 10 years. That way these mash up.
And so you might have opportunities right now and just because you have opportunities does not mean you need to take them. But I'm also very cautious of let's make sure we're not turning down opportunities too early or because we don't feel like we can get creative enough to think outside the box. And that's something I think as consultants, our job is really paramount to help offices do is to really 100 % help you think down the line, two years, five years, 10 years, what's gonna come your way? What do we need to do today to prepare you for?
the future. And I think that's something just really fun and consulting of where is your practice? Where is your life? What do you want to do? And getting into this creative space. And so for you, I'm curious. And if you want to email me, you want to pop on a call with me, I love to choose your own adventure with offices. Like, let's talk about the possibilities. Let's talk about what you're capable of doing. Let's talk about what options are available to you. Let's let's dream. Let's think like, we're maxed space. I love when people give me their problems. So hey, if you've got a big problem, like I had an office and like, Kiera,
Kiera Dent (11:55.734)
We cannot see any more patients. I found space for them to add a whole other hygiene operatory in their practice. You might not like it. Like I had a doctor and I found a whole other operatory and she's like, Kirea, but I don't want to like be that cramped. And I said, all right, then that's your choice because there is space for you to add another operatory. So I don't want to hear you can't. I want to hear that you're choosing right now because that's not your priority. So when we have that, that's what I love. Give me your juicy problems. I love to hear them. I love to figure out how we can think outside the box. I love to think of
What things have we not thought of? Like there's a practice and you're like, I can't get new patients in. I was like, all right, let's look. Could we add maybe a couple hygienists starting an hour earlier so when doctor comes in, they can catch all those hygiene exams and we can actually add quite a few more hygiene patients. Could we maybe run an afternoon of assisted hygiene? Could we maybe expand our hours? Could we bring on another provider? Like what are the tools in our toolbox? What are the crayons in our coloring box that we could actually start to use?
to look at our practice in a different lens. And that's honestly, think something beautiful about consulting is I don't live in your house. I don't get to be there just like you don't live in my house. And if you were to look at my house, you'd be like, Kiera, you could move your dishes over here, could put your silverware here and it would actually work a lot better. That's the beauty of not working in your practice with you is we're able to see outside of it and to help you choose your own adventure. So I'm just curious if you were this practice, what would you do? Would you expand your max out? You've already expanded out past your 10 operatories.
Would you expand? Would you drop insurance and stay where you're at? So you're working less but making more. Would you scale back your hours? Would you build a bigger building? Would you build a surgery center and just keep GP there? Would you expand your hours and maximize your space? Would you add a dental assisting school? Would you bring on another provider? So you've got three providers now, so that way you have more flexibility. What would be your dream?
I'd love to hear from you. Email me [email protected]. I think it's fun because what's crazy about this is there's no wrong answer to this. I think there can be wrong timing, but I don't think there's a wrong answer. And so really looking at what your life is, two years, five years, 10 years, choose your own adventure. I'm here to help you in any way we can. If this resonates with you, if you're like, gosh, I just need someone who's outside my practice looking in, I'd love to help you reach out. [email protected]. I'd love to hear what you would choose. And I want you to remember that
Kiera Dent (14:16.942)
everything within your practice you get to choose. You get to choose your life, you get to choose your practice, you get to choose your team. You get to choose and how blessed are we that we get to have these opportunities? How blessed are we that we get to have these problems? How blessed are we that we get to choose our own opportunities and our own adventures of what we want to do and what we make with our life as our opportunity? And so just challenge you and encourage you and implore you to make sure that you're living your life on purpose, that you are living the dream life that you want.
And as always, I just adore you and I hope you remember that. And I hope you know you're doing better than you think you are. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
-
Dentistry has a unique space in the medical world when it comes to building relationships with its patients. Tiff and Dana discuss effective ways to create trust with your patients, including the critical foundations your practice can’t do without.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript
The Dental A Team (00:01.08)
Hello, dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. I have my gal, Dana, on the cast with me today, and I am just so excited. Dana, how are you today? How are you enjoying this heat that we've got coming through? I know up here in Phoenix it's hot down there by you. It's gotta be warm too, but how are you?
Dana (00:19.955)
I am actually enjoying this weather. I was out a lot this weekend for sports. I have some wacky tan lines, but I am loving the sunshine and the extra warm weather we've got.
The Dental A Team (00:30.958)
I it. I keep getting the like bottom of my legging to my sneaker little I got a nice tan right there on my leg and I think it's the only spot on my legs at all that even knows how to tan anymore. So I feel you.
Dana (00:45.779)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (00:47.086)
Today we have a really fun one, docs and teams that are listening and today's just all about relationship building. I really wanted to pick your brain today, Dana, and really see what you're doing with a lot of your practices, what you've done in practice, and very specifically maybe even like our pediatric practices that we have. What are we doing to keep the relationships?
with our patients to keep the patient. So how are we investing in those relationships from a doctor's standpoint and really from a team member standpoint as well? I know a lot of my doctors out there, we definitely focus in really heavily on the team side. What can the team be doing? How can the team build the relationships? And that is super, super, super important. But I want to stress the fact that this is for you guys today too.
It's very important also that you're building those relationships and that you're showing your team the kind of relationships that you want to have built so that they know what the heck you're looking for. So Dana, I'm excited for this one. I know we've got quite a few pediatric practices between the two of us and Christie's got some pediatric practices as well. So that's a space that I think is really fun in the relationship building area.
And it does translate to GP, to oral surgery, all those pieces as well. So if you guys are not pediatric and you're listening, don't fret, this is for you too. But I thought it would be fun actually to pull in some of that pediatric side because it's just so cool, in my opinion, what they do, right? First of all, that they are just serving so many amazing little humans and creating an experience that these patients are forever going to love the dentist, which I think is amazing.
but also they've got their hands kind of tied, especially when it comes to this relationship piece, because they're not, they are building a relationship with the patient, but their focus really is making sure that the parents are happy, that the parents understand what services are being rendered, why it's different, why their kids are getting such excellent treatment.
The Dental A Team (02:45.666)
Dana, how are you right now? You've got, I know one pediatric practice in general I'm thinking of, you've got quite a few, but one pediatric dentist in particular right now is really working on the new patient acquisition side. And a lot of that comes down to this patient relationship piece. So what do you suggest for your pediatric practices and really your general practices to really get that going and get that spearheaded for those?
Dana (03:10.299)
Yeah, I love this part of dentistry. think it's something that is like unique to dentistry as far as healthcare because we tend to see these patients multiple times for years and years. And so it's a unique space for dentistry and it's something that I think is so fun. And you're right with pediatric. I think that it's
twofold right they've got the kiddo and they've got the parent and because pediatric relies on volume of patients they've got to build relationships really really quickly too right because they are churning and cranking through patients and parents all day long and the first thing that I always say to any pediatric practice is you have to
The Dental A Team (03:39.192)
Yeah. Yeah.
They are.
Dana (03:50.877)
build the trust to be able to build the relationships. So as much as you can focus on the comfort pieces, the showtell do the walk them through everything. I love a pediatric practice that will pull the parent over and hey, let me show you right like, yes, we want to talk about flossing technique. Let me actually show you as I do it to your kiddo. Let me show you that spot that I'm talking about. Let me take a picture. Let me
walk you through it. And as I'm taking the picture, letting the kiddo know exactly what they're going to do each step of the way starts at one visuals, we can't really deny the things that we can see with our own eyes, right? And trust and comfort when we know everything that is going to come next, and what it's going to feel like and what it's going to look like and how we're going to navigate that together. I think that pediatric practices like creating that space is something that's truly magical.
and that a lot of general dentists can learn from because no matter what practice you're in, you're gonna have patients who are nervous, who are uncomfortable, who have anxiety. And I think kiddos like top the charts by 10, right? Because they're also little humans who are learning to manage those emotions too. And so if you can take any of those pieces that pediatric practices do really well and incorporate it into your general practice, but just that foundation of...
Trust and comfort will go a long way in building any sort of relationship, whether it's with the patient themselves, the kiddo or a parent.
The Dental A Team (05:20.298)
Yeah, I think that's brilliant. And it translates so well to continuing that relationship as they age. So building those relationships for the kiddos. I love the the sea show tell do right all those pieces of like, this is what we're even just this is what we're doing today. Let me show you let me let me teach you how to do this at home. Let me show you all these pieces. It's the same thing when we become adults, right? We should be translating those similar practices in building those relationships, but really
building a firm foundation of comfort for our patients. And part of that comfort level is really the amount of conversation we're willing to have with the patient. Sitting in silence, sitting there with a dental assistant or with a hygienist that's just like, I'm uncomfortable. I don't know what to say. It's awkward. So if they're not the ones initiating and creating the relationship or the doctors coming in and just going straight to work, not like...
opening it up, not being introduced to the room, not having those spaces where communication is really abundant can really hold a patient back from being open. And that openness, that vulnerability is what builds the relationship. So I think just as you do with your pediatric practices and then...
really taking a step back and reviewing the whole appointment, reviewing all of the information with the parent. We should be doing that in a GP, older adult practice as well for adolescents and adult patients and really sitting them down and covering what are we doing today? What questions do you have? Like let's really thoroughly go through this and make sure that you're comfortable before we start. So I think that's brilliant. I think it's awesome that we start at the pediatric ground level and really make the parents comfortable too.
And then for the, you know, GP practices, for my adult practices, if they're getting this kind of care for their child at the pediatric dentist, they're going to change some expectations in my opinion for what they should be receiving as well at their own practice. So really ramping those spaces up is going to be critical.
The Dental A Team (07:26.668)
communication is the center focus of it all. So with oral surgery practices, endo practices, perio practices, GP practices, and even pediatric practices, you guys, where does that start? Like consider where does the communication start? And I know I had a call with a doctor the other day that was like, gosh, my front team just still will not put in the notes on my limited.
emergency exams and it's driving them a little crazy. And it makes me think right there, right? That's an opportunity. It's a very easy opportunity to enhance and increase a relationship with the person just by letting them know.
we paid attention just by caring enough to have that information already ready to go. So if you're taking an emergency call, really documenting what it is that we chatted about or call for a filling that's high or anything at all that's out of the ordinary on treatment that was recommended, a patient might say, I don't know, a patient might even call and say, hey, I had a crown that was diagnosed, I never.
I never scheduled and now I'm in pain. Well, that needs to be documented. Schedule the crown, document the pain because when that patient comes in, we can really pour the love and the care and the attention into the situation rather than finding out firsthand. And the patients love that because they feel seen, they feel heard, and they feel valued. And Dana, from your experience even in office and working with practices, where else are you seeing some spaces that practices can really increase or
even just like capitalize on what they might already be doing to really build those relationships so that patients keep coming back and they refer other amazing people to our practices.
Dana (09:07.347)
Yeah, I've been coaching a lot of practices one thing is new patient paperwork, right? We've asked a lot of questions on that new patient paperwork and we ask them because it's a valuable information and so getting practices to build in part of their exam protocol and their prep for patient protocols We actually look at the answers and we notate them somewhere so that we remember to discuss them I've got a lot of practices that are incorporating smile Raiders to try to you know open ortho discussions and those are great absolutely, but we have to
The Dental A Team (09:11.277)
Yeah.
Dana (09:36.089)
engage in it. It's not enough just to ask it on a piece of paper. We have to actively look at it, plan, prep, and then actually bring it up and discuss it with the patient. So I think new patient paperwork is a space where a lot of practices have best intentions of getting that information and making it super personal. We just have to make sure that we're looking at it and we're translating it and we're talking about it in the exam for the patient to understand.
The Dental A Team (09:45.027)
Go.
Dana (09:59.895)
how that information corresponds to their care in your office. Same thing with new patient phone call, just like you gave an example of that limited saying that, you know, hey, I was scheduled for that crown and now I'm in pain, right? And notating the pain. Same thing on the phone call, the questions that you ask to make sure we get that information to the team and the team is prepped and ready so that they can dive in a little bit deeper with the patient and have the patient feel like, hey, man, they asked me those questions on the phone. They heard my answers. The team was prepped and ready.
for it and we jumped right in with my main concerns with the things that I'm here for. Even if it is just establishing care, right? Making sure that we are reinforcing that we know that that's why you're here because we took the time to get the information. So a lot of times we take the time to get all the information. We just don't actually utilize it with the patient.
The Dental A Team (10:50.414)
And I think that's a great action item you guys is really take that back to your teams of anywhere where we are gathering information making sure that it's put in the appropriate space and you guys that there's Consistency and where that space is so that everybody knows where to find it everybody knows where to put it But having that conversation with them of making sure that that information is put in that space and it's relayed to the next person Huge huge huge caveat here if we're putting the notes in the biggest
easiest way to deter a front office team from putting phone call notes in the appointment is for you to not use them. So if you're gonna ask for it, make sure you're using it. I don't know how many times when I was up front, somebody would come and they'd say he tipped it. Is this patient on any medications? Are they taking Tylenol or anything? Like I'm about to go get them. Like what's the stitch here? What's the scoop? And I would look at them and be like, did you read the notes?
I'm happy to have a conversation with you if we have to like that. I'm fine if you need clarifications, but I'm not I'm not going to double dip. So I'm either going to put the notes in or I'm going to talk to you every single time. I'm not I'm not going to double dip because I am not a person that will
work harder than she has to. So I'm not going to duplicate my efforts. I'm just going to do the path of least resistance and whatever is going to be the most efficient. And if they're not, the notes aren't being used for me, that's an inefficiency. I'm working for nothing. And so I'm going to reduce and remove the inefficiency and go with whatever the rest of the team is going to accept. So I would stop making the notes and then they'd get frustrated. So you just have to stick with it for an office teams.
Remind them, refer them back to the notes. They've got to get used to it. And back office teams and docs, just make sure you're utilizing those notes in the best ways you possibly can. On the notes of really building the relationship, I want to remind everyone that our words truly matter.
The Dental A Team (12:43.8)
The words that we use, the way in which we use them make a difference because the person you're talking to is interpreting those words and they're gonna interpret them however they see fit in that moment. So if we're not very careful with our words, we could turn a situation into something totally different. And it doesn't mean it It could be catastrophic, but it doesn't mean it's gonna be catastrophic every time. It just literally changes the tone.
in slight variances, dependent on what you're doing. And I have to tell you this story, Dana, and everyone listening, I have to tell you this story.
Aaron and I were out on Saturday. We went to our favorite little golf club, you know, restaurant, and he had just passed this really, really hard, crucial, studied for a year test, and we were celebrating him, and I was just so excited. And we're at the, we decided to sit at the bar because we did not make a reservation, and it was wild in there. But regardless, we're sitting there so I can hear other conversations going on. And the couple next to me, they wanted a recommendation on wine.
and they asked the bartender who came over, hey, which one do you think we should get? And the bartender, like it wasn't wrong, but immediately my brain was like, my gosh, I can fix this for you. It wasn't wrong, but the bartender said, well, I don't really drink wine, but I can tell you which ones are most asked for, which ones are the most popular.
And in my brain, I thought you just planted doubt in their minds on your recommendation because you told them an unnecessary statement. They didn't ask which wine would you drink. They asked which wine do you recommend? You planted a seed of doubt in the recommendation by saying that you don't drink wine. So the first statement was a negative. It was a defense to defend if you don't like the wine. It's not my fault because I don't drink wine. I know nothing about it.
The Dental A Team (14:41.646)
but let me give you a recommendation anyway. So he planted the seed of doubt in this couple's mind instead of just saying, oh yeah, for sure, let's take a look so I can tell you what our most popular wines are, what most people drink here at the restaurant. And if their follow-up was, what about you personally? Fine. But the statement out the gates was, I don't drink wine.
but I can tell you and I thought I looked at Aaron because my brain cannot ignore it and I looked at Aaron and I was like why is it so hard? It's not that was unnecessary. So my point in that is we sometimes say things that are just unnecessary statements to fill space.
And that space filler, just like corn and everything that we eat, is unnecessary and it's harmful. We have all these foods with all these fillers that are harmful, but it makes it look better. So you fill the void and you fill the statement with something that makes you feel better about how the outcome is going to happen. And what it can do is it can hurt the conversation. So I want everyone to really like...
Let that sink in and think about how what you say, the words that you use, and the way in which we state them really make a difference. And think about, I don't really drink wine, but what I can do is tell you what our most populars are compared to, my gosh, yeah, absolutely. Let me tell you what our most popular wines are, the ones that people are really loving right now.
It's a totally different situation because of trust. You lose trust when you start on a negative. So if a patient says, I'm off on Fridays, you had said, what day of the week works best for you? Knowing you were only open Monday through Thursday, you said what day of the week? Your patient says, I'm off on Fridays. That would be fantastic. And you're like, gosh, well, we're not open on Fridays. Is there another day? Well, now you just told me no. And I'm like, well, it's my day off.
The Dental A Team (16:45.292)
So now I'm in a different state and a different mood than I would have been if you had said, we're open Monday through Friday, which day in that portion of the week would work best for you. Now I know that's all I have to work with. And it just like...
Dana, that conversation, overhearing the conversation, like, I can't get it out of my head. This was days ago and it's still in my head. Like, I just want to help this man sell more wine. Like, he's gonna, he would sell so much more wine if he just changed the sentence slightly. He's still giving, he's not lying. He's not changing anything except removing the seed of doubt because the recommendations are gonna be the same either way.
And it's just been driving me crazy, Dana, driving me crazy. And these are spaces I know that you see in the practice too. So there's, you know, the one hand of scheduling, but where else do you see it? Like treatment planning, billing, like where else are you seeing that?
Dana (17:26.259)
Yeah.
Dana (17:38.013)
yeah, I see it in treatment planning all the time. We want to fill the space with we automatically jump to their financial concerns. And truly, it could just be that the patient's thinking about their work schedule and when they can find an hour of their time, right. So It happens in treatment planning all the time. It happens when we're bringing on a new doctor, right? It's a scheduling thing. But it's like, well, you know, are you willing to see this doctor? Do you want your doctor you always see? Well, you just like They probably would have had zero.
The Dental A Team (17:48.503)
Yeah.
Dana (18:02.589)
zero hesitation, they said they loved their appointment. They didn't complain at all about the new doctor that they saw, but you just planted that seed in their mind that it should be something that they should consider or be upset about. And so we do it all the time in dentistry. And I love love that you pointed that out and like truly be careful of those things and watch your words because again, that is part of relationship building, right? If if I make you feel like everything that you went through today was successful.
right? And that you won your visit, you got the doctor that you love you all those things. And then I plant that little bit of a seed, right? It's like you just chopped that relationship down. And you gave them something to be upset about or concerned about. And so I love that you pointed that out, because I don't think we often connect like our words with that relationship building, but it truly can impact an experience.
The Dental A Team (18:43.17)
Go.
Dana (18:58.971)
with something so simple like that.
The Dental A Team (19:00.926)
I totally agree. totally agree. Erin tells me constantly, babe, you're such a great communicator. I agree. I have taken a lot of communication courses. I can agree. I can figure out some dang good communication. But mostly, I'm choosing my words really wisely. And I'm manipulating how I form my sentence to get the results that I'm after. And the result that I want is that we stay in good communication, that we both stay in a positive state, even if one of us can't give the other what you want.
or it looks a little different. I'm here to ensure that the words that I use and the way that I structure my sentence and my statement doesn't put any negative feelings on you. I'm going, my best result is that we both walk away still happy, even if we didn't get what we thought we wanted. That's the result I'm after. I'm not here to talk anybody into anything they didn't want. Never. I could.
use my words to do just that. But my result is we're both leaving happy, no matter what the situation actually turned into, because we communicated so well through it. I might be telling you that I can't give you exactly what you asked for, but I'm going to find a solution around it to get as close as I can so that you still feel taken care of. And that's why communication to me is so...
so important and why the structure of the sentences, of the statements, and the words combined can make such a drastic difference. I don't know how many times I've heard people on the phone, no, actually we don't take that insurance.
We bill to them on your behalf, but we don't actually work with them. I'm like, my gosh, just say, goodness gracious, we have so many patients that come with that insurance. We know exactly how to work with them while we're out of network. We still obtain and receive as much of your benefits as we possibly can, and we work really hard on your behalf to ensure that you're happy. I don't know, say anything else, say anything under the sun different than what just came out. Just practice.
Dana (21:03.323)
Yeah.
you
The Dental A Team (21:08.174)
Practice getting the results that you want and let that result be that no matter what, we both walk away still happy.
Dana, this was fun. I love talking communication. I love relationships. I love diving in on it. And I think wrap us, I'm gonna let you wrap us up. Wrap us up on some, I know, I haven't shocked you with anything lately. So there you go. No, wrap us up with some like quick action items that you think I let you mostly talk about that or asked you to talk about the fetal stuff and all that. So what are some action items that our doctors and our teams can take away from today and really push forward with?
Dana (21:30.962)
No.
I see.
Dana (21:46.833)
Yeah, I think biggest thing is build trust focus on relationship building. I love that you said watch your words, make sure we're focusing on how we can win with the patient versus putting roadblocks in front of them. And the biggest thing as far as structure and systems is notes. Where are we putting the things that we find out about patients? How are we reviewing the intake of their paperwork or the phone call information that we get from them? And then where are we using that in our exam flow?
The Dental A Team (22:15.926)
Love it. Beautiful. Thank you.
Okay, you guys heard it from Dana. You heard it right here. Thank you so much, Dana, for being here with me today. You know I'm gonna pull you in for some more, so y'all will be hearing her voice in no time at all. Thank you everyone for being here, for being constant, just superheroes for us in this world and sharing us with everyone you know. We truly appreciate that. We are always looking to help and reach as many people in the dental community as we possibly can. So share this podcast with a friend. If you're a current client, thank you so
much. Share us with all your friends. If you're a soon-to-be client, we cannot wait to meet you. And for those listeners who are just on the fence and out there wondering, keep listening. We're here. We're always going to come back and we are always here when you're ready for us. So for now, we'll catch you guys later.
-
Kiera is joined by Dr. Robert DiPilla to talk about his world of dentistry, including the transition from cosmetic to holistic services, how he educated his patients, lessons learned during his multi-practice ownership, and more.
About Dr. DiPilla: Dr. Robert DiPilla studied dentistry at the University of Detroit-Mercy, and then went on to attain a Fellowship for Dental Implants at the Harvard Club. He was quickly recruited to Manhattan, where he honed his dentistry techniques, and had the opportunity to work on many high-profile clients. Dr. DiPilla became a partner at the renowned Rosenthal Dental Group on Madison Avenue, and earned the title “the dentist’s dentist” by his peers in the industry. Dr. DiPilla has had the privilege of perfecting the smiles of celebrity clientele such as Kathie Lee Gifford, Wayne Gretzky, Steve Duchesne, and Sarah Ferguson among others.
While Dr. DiPilla maintains a Manhattan office, he now focuses on the location where his career began in the Detroit Metropolitan area. He contributes regularly to nationally circulated trade publications, and continues to be recognized as a leader and expert resource in aesthetic dentistry.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript
Kiera Dent (00:00.768)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera And today I am so jazzed to have an incredible guest. We have been following this man. We've been wanting him on our podcast. He is incredible. And I feel like what he's doing is changing the way dentists are doing dentistry. I think he's kind of in this new age, new era, adapting with the times. And so was so excited to bring him on and have his knowledge. So welcome to the show, Dr. Robert DiPilla. How are you today?
Dr Robert DiPilla (00:25.484)
I'm doing well. Thank you very much. I'm excited to be on your show. There are so many great things about you and your show. I I once again, I went back to some of your podcasts and you some great, great guests on.
Kiera Dent (00:37.376)
Well, thank you. am quite shocked. Dental A Team is about to release their thousandth episode. And I was thinking, I cannot believe I've been on this microphone a thousand times. So I'm super honored that you are a part of that journey. And really everyone who listens to the podcast knows our ultimate goal at Dental A Team is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. so bringing guests on like yourself, people who are passionate about dentistry, making sure that we keep the passion alive in dentistry, making sure that people realize
I believe we're in the best industry we possibly could ever be in. And so I'm super excited because I feel like you're taking a new edge spin to some things in dentistry. So before we get into some of these fun topics, Dr. DiPilla, why don't you take us through kind of your journey? I know you have a pretty interesting route of how you were able to go from where you were and where you started in dentistry to where you are today. So if you kind of want to take us on your journey, that way the audience gets to know you as well.
Dr Robert DiPilla (01:31.854)
That journey starts 36 years ago. I graduated at the University of Detroit, Mercy in 1989, and I did a residency at Harvard at the Harvard Club for doing implants. And from that, I really was interested in the cosmetic realm. So you got to think about in the early 90s. And it was kind of like touched upon. And I was very fortunate.
to take a course with Bill Dickerson and Larry Rosenthal. And this is the first time they were together in doing these particular courses. And my first patient for my aesthetic course was my sister, believe it or not. when I mentioned this, it was an amazing journey. She was very appreciative. It was a great case. And from that, one interesting point.
Kiera Dent (02:16.68)
Wow, that's brave, an aesthetic course.
Dr Robert DiPilla (02:30.828)
when I was in the lecture and they were talking about different materials, different processes, the way to do things. I know once again, I just graduated, I did like a little surgical residency and I thought to myself, mean, the auditorium was packed, there's probably like a hundred students. And I'm like looking around and I'm thinking myself, am I the only dumb one here that doesn't know this?
I said, this is insane. And they're going over these seven different steps to do bonding and veneers. I'm like, my gosh, did I learn this in school? you
Kiera Dent (03:05.28)
Did I skip that day? I promise I didn't miss too many, right? That's what you're probably thinking, like I was there.
Dr Robert DiPilla (03:10.237)
I would promise I was there. But I promised myself since then, it was like a real, not say a low point in my life, but it was a low point in the sense of how come I didn't know this? And I kind of pride myself in understanding things and certain process and procedures. And I said, from that day, this will never happen again. So that journey led into teaching with Bill Dickerson before it was LVI and also
aesthetic advantage with Larry Rosenthal. And as you know, there were two separate groups and I had to make a decision on what camp was I going to go into. Was I going to do the LVI camp in Vegas? And mind you, I'm in Michigan. Or do I go to New York route? And my decision was New York was closer. So I went with Larry Rosenthal. So I was an instructor with him for about three or four years. And then I was invited to be a doctor in his office.
And I was there for a good 10 years. that journey right there was probably the highest point of my life in that particular aesthetic office. There was a lot of great contacts, a lot of great people that we met. And I always say everything is a blessing for me. I don't hold anything back as far as this was a disappointment. This didn't happen for me because I think everything is a growing experience.
So for me, being in Larry's office was really, truly, truly, like I said, a blessing. It was a great thing for my career. And then I knew that when I started having a family and kids, New York for me personally wasn't the place for me. Coming from the Midwest, Midwest values, I wanted to have the family where I grew up because my mom is still here and my extended family is here as well. So once again, from that, I left New York.
Kiera Dent (04:51.21)
You
Dr Robert DiPilla (05:01.806)
And then, but I kept a practice in New York as well, because I had a lot of patients to see. And I started my own practice in Birmingham, Michigan. And that was in 2000, probably 2003, 2004. And then from that, you know, we grew to five different practices. So it's been a really challenging once again, but it's been a great journey for us.
Kiera Dent (05:15.338)
Wow.
Kiera Dent (05:25.706)
That's incredible. And so I'm curious because when I first started as a dental assistant, one of the doctors that I worked for had a practice in California and Utah. And so every Thursday or Wednesday, I think it was, we would close out in California and he'd catch a flight and he'd go to his practice in Utah. He'd be there Thursday, Friday, fly home, and we do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So did you fly back and forth between your two practices?
Dr Robert DiPilla (05:45.93)
I did the same thing. When I moved back to Michigan, I would work in Michigan Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, would fly out to New York and work Thursday and Friday. And then plus New York's a great city and I stayed for the weekend and I flew back the first flight out 6 a.m. on Monday morning to make it to my practice at 9 a.m. So I did that for seven years. So back and forth. then once again,
Kiera Dent (05:56.106)
Yeah.
Kiera Dent (06:02.806)
sure.
you
Dr Robert DiPilla (06:12.462)
It was great. To me, people, how did you do that? Why did you do that? It was just my routine and it worked out really, really well. And then there was some point where I kind of have to slow down and kind of give that up a little bit because I wanted to build more practices in Michigan.
Kiera Dent (06:27.414)
Sure. No, that makes sense. And I was just curious because when that Dennis would do it, I thought like it was so wild, but it made sense of how he was able to have the two practices. So it's either you fly back and forth for a while or you get associates. Did you end up keeping that practice in New York or did you have an associate running it or did you end up selling it and then focus in Michigan?
Dr Robert DiPilla (06:45.186)
Yeah, no, I actually, believe it or not, a lot of my New York patients actually will fly to Michigan to have their work done. And then the rest is I gave it to a really good friend of mine, Dr. Michael Krause, that's in the city on 49th and Madison. So, you know, basically a lot of my patients just kind of ended up with him.
Kiera Dent (06:52.564)
Incredible.
Kiera Dent (07:06.728)
Amazing. And that's great to know. And I hope dentists heard that of when you are really great at your craft, they will fly, they will come to see you. And I think that that's something that's different in today's world. I think that it's very common for patients to fly other places rather than just going to their dentist down the street. I think people fly for different surgeries to different places. Now I think for your day in day out routine dental care, you'll probably stay closer to home. But also we only go six, like two times a year. So it's really not that much to travel if you want to.
Dr Robert DiPilla (07:25.919)
percent. Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Robert DiPilla (07:34.798)
Yeah, there's a lot, know, as you know, there's a lot of patients that will seek out plastic surgeons and they will go to a certain destination if it's New York, LA or Miami. And that's the same thing with dentistry. I mean, I've been very fortunate. I've had a of patients from Miami that will fly up and for me to do their work, their veneers, New York, of course, all the way even from LA. So it's been it's been a wonderful thing. I'm very humbled, you know, to do that. I don't take that take that lightly.
Kiera Dent (07:40.214)
Mm-hmm.
Kiera Dent (08:02.812)
No, and I think that there's when you love what you do and you're really great at what you do, people fly. I mean, I am a dental snob. think being in dentistry, it makes me one of the worst patients. And so I'm always nervous. And so I do travel to dentists out of the state. And I think it's something of the world has changed. And so I love your journey. I love the passion you have. I love that you've built multiple practices. I think you bring an interesting perspective. And so I'm super curious because you've kind of gone into a holistic route as well. So
I'm curious, how do you go from dental implants, veneers, which feels very cosmetic, into holistic? Like what's kind of the bridge? How have you done that? Because I think people feel like I'm either traditional dentistry or I'm holistic dentistry. And I feel like you're bridging this gap. And I think the world is bridging this gap as well. I don't think it's as polarized as it used to be, but what's kind of your take on that and how did you transition? What got you excited about that? Give some insights.
Dr Robert DiPilla (08:53.684)
I mean, you
You know, for you as you know, being a hygienist, know, to me, for our patients, we want to make sure that they have a healthy foundation. a healthy foundation is the bone and also the gingival tissue. And, you know, it doesn't matter how great of a cosmetic dentist you are, how great of an implantologist you are, the tissue has to be stable. It has to be making sure that, you know, the oral microbiome is sufficient.
Kiera Dent (09:05.299)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Robert DiPilla (09:25.774)
You got to make sure that the biofilm is eliminated. And one of the biggest things that, I mentor 22 doctors here in Michigan, from guys who've just, guys or gals who've just been out a year and guys like myself that been out for 36 years. One of the things that I try to impress upon them is that don't be a mechanic of the mouth. And my feelings,
is that dental schools right now, and once again, different than my era, is just really, they're really teaching you how to pass the board exams. And then the real age of dentistry is what you get after as far as continued education. And I think it's really important, as you know, even being a hygienist, is that you have a patient that comes back, yet you did scaling and root planning.
Kiera Dent (10:01.694)
Right.
Dr Robert DiPilla (10:17.15)
and you see him back in three months and they're saying, yeah, I brush every day, I floss every day, I have the water pick that you recommended, I'm doing the oral care, I'm doing this. And they come back and it's like, my God, are you really flossing? Are you really brushing your teeth? No, no, I am. But why is that? Why are we doing maybe supervised neglect or super profis? The question comes in is that we have to understand why, my biggest thing is the why, why is that happening?
You know, we incorporated now we're doing genetic testing, we're doing saliva testing for our patients because as we know, a lot of, you know, reintroduction of refractory periodontitis that happens. So even the same thing with my hygienist, you know, we're very strong in continuing education. We're very strong in not just scaling and root planing teeth, just for the matter of fact of doing it. And one of the things that, you know, my hygienist, they all know,
is that if you're doing Scanlan Root Planning, what type of attachment do you want back? So I think you have to have a strong foundation in histology. You have to know the periodontium very, very well. And a lot of times in school, yeah, yeah, that was that class. I had it, but this is what I want to do. So I think for us in dentistry, you have to move away from being that mechanic of the mouth, because I can teach my assistant to prep a tooth, easy. But you have to understand the diagnosis and the
Kiera Dent (11:26.774)
you
Kiera Dent (11:38.368)
you
Dr Robert DiPilla (11:42.094)
And it also goes back to different materials. The whole rage now is zirconia, crowns, and it's a lot stronger. But is it really? Is it lithium disilicate, or is it philospathic porcelain? So I think there has to be an understanding of where to place those materials in the proper patients and proper occlusion. So because a salesperson comes in, oh, this is the latest and greatest, doesn't mean that you should buy it. So I think.
Kiera Dent (12:09.824)
for sure.
Dr Robert DiPilla (12:10.894)
For me, it's kind of taking a step back and understanding dental materials, understanding the periodontium, understanding all that. I the classes that we hated in school, believe it not, I've been doing this for 36, are probably the most important now than anything else.
Kiera Dent (12:25.67)
No, for sure. And I'm so grateful you talked about that because agreed like the healthy foundations, I think it's so easily overlooked. So I'm curious, how did you start to incorporate this with your patients? Because you didn't come out of school having this, you didn't learn all these things right away, you started incorporating it. I think people are oftentimes afraid to add this into their practices due to patient pushback. So how did you, how did you educate your patient base?
Dr Robert DiPilla (12:48.702)
Well, yeah, I think it's just having a good communication with your patient and being authentic. with our patients, we're there for them in a sense of we don't push anything, we don't sell anything, we just educate our patients. And a lot of times, if I've seen a patient for 10, 15, 20 years and I'm watching them get worse,
And, you know, I'll just have that, you know, that radical candor with them saying, hey, listen, you know, where do you want to go with this? What do you, how can I help you? You know, do you, mean, for some reason I'm watching you getting worse and I don't want that. So what can I do to help? And then we kind of castor them in that, in that direction as much as possible. You know, there's, we'll do a lot of like nutritional counseling and we see a lot of patients that, as you know, they come in, you know, they're not, they're not healthy. And I have the,
Kiera Dent (13:39.51)
All right.
Dr Robert DiPilla (13:42.21)
I guess the personality to talk to my patients and say, listen, I want you to see this person. I care about you. I've seen you for many, many times. And I just, you know, I see some things that I don't like. So what I want you to do, here's a referral. I want you to see them. And then nine out of 10 times they'll come back and say, my God, thank you so much. I didn't know I had this underlying condition.
Kiera Dent (14:07.84)
That's incredible. And I agree that education, I think is the new age of communication. I think a lot of patients want to understand more. think we live in this digital era where people are consuming so much more information rapidly and they want to be educated and they want to know what's going on. And I do think social media has, has ramped this up exponentially for people to want more education rather than just blindly following. And so I really love that you took it that way. I want to ask you a couple of questions about
growth of practices because I think so many people grow practices or they feel that they need to grow practices or they need to expand their practices. I'm curious after having done that, you've had practices in multiple states, you've grown your, like walk me through, like when do you grow as a dentist? When do you not grow as a dentist? What are some things that you learned through that growth of multi-practice ownership, especially with dentists that are in today's world? I think that there are some that are brand new.
There's the DSO on the radar and on the horizon for people. Walk me through some of your thoughts around this practice growth, multi-location, when do I grow, what do I do with DSOs? I'm super curious because you've done it and you've done it for a long time. What are some of your thoughts around that?
Dr Robert DiPilla (15:08.718)
100%.
Dr Robert DiPilla (15:17.582)
I'm going to let's go back when I was like I said, very fortunate to be in Larry Rosenthal's office in New York City. And everyone knows Larry Rosenthal is the premier, know, veneer office to go to. So I was once again, I was very, very fortunate to go there. But well, my dismay, I was the young kid.
Kiera Dent (15:37.364)
It's incredible, by the way. like, like, let's just stop for a second. Like, that's incredible that you got to work there with him.
Dr Robert DiPilla (15:44.622)
So think of a patient that's there, know, we had celebrity CEOs, we had every mogul you could imagine we had. And you got this young kid walking in and they're like, well, kid, move away, where's Larry? Where's Larry? So what I had to do, I had to kind of reinvent myself. And, you know, and I had to figure out what type of avatar patient, you know, do I want? And I think that it doesn't matter if I'm in New York, if I'm in Birmingham, Michigan.
Kiera Dent (15:44.947)
Yeah.
Kiera Dent (15:57.715)
Yeah.
Dr Robert DiPilla (16:11.274)
I'm if in Salt Lake City, Atlanta, doesn't matter. You just have to figure out what avatar do you want. And then you kind of go where that avatar is. So an example, this is what I did. So in New York City, I need to get a haircut. So for me, I went to the biggest celebrity hairstylist you can get. And it was Orbe in New York City. And why did I do
Kiera Dent (16:37.556)
Yeah. Okay. I mean, you do have great hair, by the way. So, I mean, it must have worked out for you. I like it. It looks great.
Dr Robert DiPilla (16:41.582)
Well, thank you so No way. It's not what it Well, thank you. So I went to Orbe and why did I go to see him? Because Orbe has what a lot of celebrity clientele. And for me, it was building a relationship with Orbe. You come in, your first appointment, who are you? What do you do? Oh my God, yeah, I have a dentist and that, that, that. As you know, when you say you're a dentist or a hygienist, oh, by the way, can you look at this?
Kiera Dent (17:10.633)
haha
Dr Robert DiPilla (17:11.758)
So what that does is that it kind of opens up the dialogue as much as possible. So from him, I've been seeing him for two to three years. And once again, it's something that you always have to continue going. If you do it once or twice and it doesn't work, well, that's not going to happen. So they go into the gym, you work out once or twice, you're not going to be in shape. it's of those things that you perpetually just have to do. So I was very fortunate seeing him for years. And from that,
Kiera Dent (17:32.083)
Right.
Dr Robert DiPilla (17:39.49)
I had my own celebrity clientele that came into Larry's office. It was great. All right, how about another one? So I was fortunate they had the LA Reebok Club where I used to live on the Upper West Side. And then joined a gym, of course. And I wanted to find out who was the best trainer who trained all the celebrities. And then once again, the same thing. So I think it's important.
Kiera Dent (17:44.308)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Robert DiPilla (18:06.818)
you know, to find out because I'm going tell you a lot of the celebrities and a lot of moguls, they're not calling to make the appointment. They have someone as an assistant to make their appointments for them. So I'll give you an example. I was working out in East Hampton for a little bit because I bought a house in in Amiganza. And as I was doing this renovation, I never really worked on Fridays, but in East Hampton, I worked some Fridays and I was fortunate
that I had a logistics manager for the Rolling Stones that came in. Built a relationship with her. And then from that, because she's a logistics manager, she does everything for the Stones. So I was very fortunate. She called me up, hey, Mick has a concert tonight at Madison Square Garden. He wants his teeth cleaned. He wants them checked out. Can you do it? Sure. What time? Nine o'clock at night. What?
Kiera Dent (18:39.082)
Well.
Kiera Dent (19:01.735)
I'm
Dr Robert DiPilla (19:03.342)
So those are the things that you have to do. If you want that type of avatar, you want that type of clientele, then you kind have to do whatever it takes to go above and beyond to make sure that that happens. So don't think that if you want that type of practice, there's going to be some sacrifices that you're going to have to do. So for me, my personal story, for me being in New York, I was so driven, driven, driven. That's all I did. That's all I did. And I was married at the...
at the time. you know, looking back in retrospect, it affected my marriage. So, you know, my ex-wife, we're great, we're still great friends, but it affected because I just, for me, I was driven. This is what I wanted to do. I was out. I was going to opening of galleries. I was opening up to restaurants and because I wanted to be successful. But with that, there are some consequences that come with it.
So you have to kind of be prepared. You they always say, you know, the balance of life, you know, what to do as far as your career and work. I mean, there is, but you're going to sacrifice, you know, somewhere. You can't have it all, as they say. So you're going to have to kind of give up some.
Kiera Dent (20:12.853)
Great.
Do you, looking back, are you grateful that you've made the decisions you've made or do you wish you would have done things differently? Like knowing what you know now. Walk me through because I think people people often wonder this.
Dr Robert DiPilla (20:26.466)
Yeah, there's no, for me, there's no regrets because even if there was a regret, I always look at it as something that will make me better down the road. mean, listen, we're all gonna have failures. Things are gonna happen, but you have to learn from that. I mean, for someone to say, this has never happened to me and da, da, da, either they're lying or they have not, they've just graduated yesterday. I didn't tell my associates the same thing and that they had a bad day.
Kiera Dent (20:49.724)
Yeah.
Dr Robert DiPilla (20:56.046)
patient was complaining or something, I said, listen, it's going to happen. As long as you know in your heart you did the right thing, that's all you can do.
Kiera Dent (21:05.593)
I that. And I appreciate that because I think so many times people feel like I should have known this right from the get go. But I think a lot of learning is experiencing too. And so going through it and making different decisions. And like you said, what's the type of life? What's the type of avatar do I want? And then crafting your practice around that. I really love that you highlight. I feel like you crafted your practice and your craft around the avatar, patient and life that you wanted.
I think at the beginning you probably hustled a lot more than you thought you would need to, but I think that that's the beginning of practice ownership. I think that's the beginning of any career. And then you're able to then start to curate it into what you wanted it to be. And I think so many dentists don't realize that that is a possibility for you if you want it to craft it for what you want.
Dr Robert DiPilla (21:50.486)
No, listen, mean, there's many different practices, as you know. There's the elite practices that are doing, know, veneers and an example who took over Larry Rosenthal's office is Mike Appa. Mike Appa is a great dentist. When I was leaving Larry's office, he was coming in and he took it to the next level. And I missed, from my era, we didn't really have Facebook or Instagram or anything like that. So I'm kind of like the, know, the lagger in that particular point.
But he took that and made it to a different level as far as his career going to Dubai. And now he has multiple, multiple practices. But once again, there is some sacrifices. I'm sure it has not come easy to him. He has put in a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of dedication to craft that for him. I look at it as, man, that's amazing. Good for him. Other people can get jealous of that.
but they don't understand the hard work what it takes to get there. It's like the basketball player, like, my God, he's making all this, how did he get that? But he forgot all the thousands and thousands of hours being in the gym and also practicing. Sometimes we forget that.
Kiera Dent (22:58.037)
Yeah.
Kiera Dent (23:03.55)
Right. Right. I think that it's been so just I love I love your passion. I love the life that you've lived. I love the I love that you were so committed to never being that person and then look at how that that drive and that determination took you from where you were to where you are today. I'm curious speaking to dentists who are maybe I don't know two three four years out.
What advice would you give them from all your years of practicing of the things you've been able to do, the clientele you've had, the team you had? What would be advice you'd give to that population of dentists right now? Knowing everything you know, knowing the climate, knowing the, like I said, DSOs are on the horizon. Do I become a private practice owner? Do I work corporate? Do I own multi-practices? What would you give? Again, we're talking four or five years out. I feel like this is right where they're starting to get that itch. They've got their, they figured a lot of things out.
Well, what advice would you have for that dentist?
Dr Robert DiPilla (23:57.454)
So it's funny that you say that because three of my associates, I have been out four to five years. And we get together, which is great, which I love is we get together once a month at my house over here and we kind of go over some kids' education things and just kind of talking to them as far as what their successes are, what their stresses are, and also what they're stuck. We call that three S's. And I always tell them, listen, I don't want you to be me.
Kiera Dent (24:03.528)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Robert DiPilla (24:27.5)
I want you to be you. If you're interested in Invisalign, then go for it. And I think that a lot of younger dentists feel that, my God, I have to do that endo. I have to do that extraction. I have to do that filling. I have to do this because there's so much money and debt from dental school and you can't do everything because something's gonna, you're gonna get hurt on one perspective.
My advice, I've been doing this, like I said, for 36 years, find out what you really, really love to do and then do that. Is it gonna pan off the next day? No, it's gonna take time. And I think we live in a world that it's instant gratification and everyone wants everything done yesterday. It's just the law of averages. You're just gonna have to do it, do it, do it, do it and keep it until you get there. For me, like I said, I was going for the implant route.
Kiera Dent (25:16.519)
Right.
Dr Robert DiPilla (25:26.474)
I loved surgery. And then I found that niche that I wanted to do was the aesthetic world. And then, okay, I'm doing some aesthetics. We're at Larry's office. We're doing 10 veneers on the bottom, 10 veneers on the top and the bottom. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, the bite doesn't look that great. I said, well, there's something more to this. And then I went down to Rabbit Hole. I did Pete Dawson's chorus.
Kiera Dent (25:47.568)
I'm
Dr Robert DiPilla (25:55.746)
I remember at Panky. So I went another route as far as now doing full mouth rehabilitation. Going back to, you know, Facebook, Centric Relation, doing everything that needs to be done. How am supposed to get back to that? Right? And then, you know, getting there. So, you know, for me, that is my niche now. And from, you know, I'm building a bigger office in Birmingham. I think I'm crazy what I'm doing right now.
Kiera Dent (26:08.108)
The baseball, that's a throwback.
Dr Robert DiPilla (26:25.016)
but I still have passion for what I do. feel like, you when someone said, you've been out for 36 years, I feel like I've only been out for five years. I still love this profession. I love what it's given me, the opportunity, but sometimes I don't like the direction where it's going in. And that kind of goes back to what you mentioned about the DSOs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not popo-ing DSOs. I mean, I think there's a place for everyone.
Kiera Dent (26:33.611)
Yeah.
Kiera Dent (26:47.198)
Yeah, I'm curious on your take. You've been in this for a long time.
Dr Robert DiPilla (26:55.24)
I mean, know dentists are in Medicaid offices, great. We know that patients are in PPO offices, great. Fee for service, better. And then also group practices that, you know, my associates are in. And then there's DSOs. Once again, I'm fortunate to be part of Dicama's group, and it's one of the premier law firms that have put all the DSOs together.
Kiera Dent (27:06.698)
Yeah.
Kiera Dent (27:18.805)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Robert DiPilla (27:25.358)
And some are great, some are amazing, but some have failed. And I think one of the problems I feel that corporate has is that if you do the CEO, you're looking at what? You're looking at the numbers, you're looking at the metrics, right? You're looking at the KPIs. But if you're in the trenches, you can't treat every office as the same. It's different. The hygienist has a different personality. dentist has a personality. You have different patients, demographic of patients.
Kiera Dent (27:31.04)
Right.
Dr Robert DiPilla (27:54.648)
So I think for dentists, we're just a different animal as far as the field that we're in. It's very, very personal that we have as far as our offices. And like I said, I have five offices. All five are completely different. If I try to implement every single detail thing in Birmingham to do it in Detroit, no. Same thing in Detroit to do at Sinclair Shores, no. It has to be customized to that particular practice.
Kiera Dent (28:22.782)
Yeah, no, and I think that's such wise wisdom because working with hundreds of offices, I don't have an A to Z cookbook. I don't tell them like implement this. I know systems that will work, but we customize it to your area because the patient base, like you said in New York compared to Birmingham, Michigan, they're going to be very different patients. They're going to have different needs, different like all of it is different. The pace of it is going to be different. Your attrition rates will probably look differently. And so I agree with you completely that
Dr Robert DiPilla (28:36.046)
That's great.
Kiera Dent (28:52.52)
Everything is not apples to apples. I'm curious, how do you lead all five of those practices? Do you have, like, what does your team structure look like? Because so many people do get stressed out with multi-practice ownership. What have you done to reduce that stress level for yourself and make sure that they're all successful?
Dr Robert DiPilla (29:06.262)
Yeah. No, it's, we just had our all company meeting. I call it the summit meeting. And, you know, it's amazing that, you know, 10 years ago, I had one office and maybe four employees. Now I
Kiera Dent (29:13.672)
Thank you.
Kiera Dent (29:20.928)
Did you hear that everyone? 10 years ago. So this is something that in his 36 years of dentistry, he did 26 years. I also think people need to realize they sometimes feel like they're too old to open up multiple practices. They feel they're too far in their career. They needed to do this earlier. So I hope people are hearing your timeline of 26 years solo practice and now 10 years making five practices, but also there is a timeline around that. So continue please. But I just want to highlight, this was not an overnight thing for you either.
Dr Robert DiPilla (29:23.5)
Years ago, Yeah. Single practice.
Dr Robert DiPilla (29:51.054)
It's not. I'll go back and I'll tell you the reason why for that. And for me, like I said, going to New York, I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be that celebrity dentist. And when I came back to Michigan, I centered everything around me. People came, they flew in from out of state to see me. And one of the things, I can't scale me. And one of the things that I have to open up
Kiera Dent (30:12.63)
Yeah.
Dr Robert DiPilla (30:20.174)
the offices and kind of passed the baton to my other associates. So, you for me, that was like the biggest thing is the key is letting go. And like I said, we had a summit meeting two weeks ago. And like I said, I had five employees in one practice. Now I have five practices with close to 70 employees. You may say, my God, how do you do that? I hire smart people smarter than me.
Kiera Dent (30:43.082)
Yeah
Dr Robert DiPilla (30:49.79)
to do that. I have a great CFO. I have a great regional manager and I have great office managers. And one of the biggest things that we, we constant, constant role play a lot of the things that we do in the office. And why is that important? One of the things that we did when COVID happened, before we opened up, we had a month where we did Zoom calls.
like this, and we did a role play because when patients come back, they're gonna have questions. And what are we doing to protect them and ourselves? And it was really important for the front desk, it was really important for our managers, hygienists and assistants to make sure we're getting our message across. One of the things that I never wanna hear on the phone is if a patient asked a question,
and our front desk, our personal, I don't know. I don't know what we're doing. So, you to me, it's just having those questions answered. And what we did is I call it the kind of the soft opening, like what a restaurant would do before they opened up fully, they would kind of, you know, bring in some of their guests or their family members to have a soft opening. So that's what we usually do from that. But the main thing, you for me,
Kiera Dent (31:51.997)
That's
Dr Robert DiPilla (32:15.112)
is I just hire great people that are around me that will integrate the vision that I have. So there's a great book and I highly, highly recommend for dentists. And I know Gina Whitman very well, it's called Traction. I don't know if you've heard the book or. And it's amazing. And then the follow-up book is Rocket Fuel.
Kiera Dent (32:33.75)
We are diehard traction people. We help offices with it. It is incredible. Yes.
Kiera Dent (32:41.903)
Amen. When you were talking about integrator, was like, he's a visionary needs the integrator. Did you, did you hire?
Dr Robert DiPilla (32:45.198)
I'm the 100%. I mean, for me, I'm definitely the visionary. know what I want to see. And then my CFL is the integrator. I have so bad ADD, I'm like, don't squirrel. Okay, what happened over here? No, no, no, no, get on track. We gotta do this. So for me, like.
Kiera Dent (32:57.848)
you
Kiera Dent (33:03.382)
How did you find your CFO integrator? you go through one of Traction's hiring things? Did you find them through? How did you find that integrator? Because I think that's such a key piece in growth. How did you find yours?
Dr Robert DiPilla (33:14.572)
Well, luckily she was with us and within the company and we just hired up for her. She just went from low level to higher hiring and she got it. She understood the whole process. mean, when she read the book, she, I mean, my God, this is the missing piece for us. And I love that, that passion that she has for that and then just kind of put everything together. So I was very fortunate in that respect. But when we do our hiring,
Kiera Dent (33:21.462)
amazing.
Kiera Dent (33:32.118)
Yeah.
Dr Robert DiPilla (33:43.746)
We hire within our culture and who we are. And sometimes it's difficult to do that. We did that right after COVID because some people didn't feel like they wanted to come back or didn't feel safe to come back as far as some employees, which is fine. And there was a shortage of dental assistants and hygienists wasn't an issue for us. It was more assistance. And I hate to say that we hired people that weren't the right fit.
Kiera Dent (34:08.97)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Robert DiPilla (34:13.71)
And I'm going to tell you that was a big mistake because it's going to take you longer to find another person. So I'd have no one. do it myself compared to not have the same, the right person that would fit in our culture.
Kiera Dent (34:29.974)
I agree. That's wise wisdom. And I think so many people get desperate. And I mean, I've done it. I think we've all done it, right? We've all made those hires and we're like, agreed with you. We'd rather wait it out till the right person comes through rather than doing those desperate hires. And I think it's
Dr Robert DiPilla (34:41.966)
Yeah, it works out. And really works out. I'm a true believer that, I mean, there is a plan and you just kind of have to wait it out and it comes in because the same thing in our downtown Detroit office, we were waiting for someone and we thought someone, oh my God, she's going to be great. Oh my God, she's moving from Boston. She's going to come here. She's ran a periodontal office. Oh my God, we love her. And then got ghosted. Like what the hell happened? And then the next day,
Kiera Dent (35:07.38)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Robert DiPilla (35:10.85)
We got another resume. Lauren, I mean, amazing. I mean, just that blessing that comes through. So I think the best thing to do is just wait it out, hire within your culture. And if they don't fit, they're not the right team member for you.
Kiera Dent (35:28.916)
I love that. Dr. DiPilla, something I have found so fascinating with our podcast today, just so appreciative. I feel you have wisdom. And I think wisdom oftentimes lacks. And I think it comes from experience. I think you've learned from the things that you've done. I'm not saying you're old. I'm saying that I hear wisdom from you. And I think you had this wisdom even when you first started your career. I think you learned things. But I feel you lived your own.
Dr Robert DiPilla (35:42.114)
You're saying I'm
Kiera Dent (35:56.438)
I feel like you grew because you wanted to grow, not because you felt like you needed to. I feel like you waited when I'm sure a lot of your other colleagues were building multi-practices and you're like, this is what I'm enjoying doing. And what I've heard is as you've shifted and morphed throughout your career and the way you've presented it, it sounds like you've done it based on intrigue and curiosity and things that still keep the passion within you. And I feel like...
You're a great example of someone who can be practicing dentistry for 36 years and still have passion, fire and fuel behind it, rather than the what I see a lot of right now of burnout. And I was trying to put the pieces together as we were chatting and I'm like, I think honest to goodness, you've done everything because it was a passion and a curiosity and it fueled you rather than drained you. And I also really love that
you believe that there's a higher path for you. Like you said, it's just because one door is closing, it means the other door is opening, but that door is not quite ready yet. So be okay with this door closing. But that would how I would summarize you. Obviously, please fill in any gaps I may have missed. But I think that that's so refreshing to hear that I think a lot of us can take stock in and learn from you as well.
Dr Robert DiPilla (36:49.806)
100%.
Dr Robert DiPilla (37:05.474)
Wow, well, thank you for that. That's, thank you. But for me, right now, I think it's important to, like I said, pass the baton to my other dentist and kind of elevate them as much as possible. And I think if you're in a group practice or if you're in a single practice, sometimes we live on our own little island and you don't know where to do. would...
Kiera Dent (37:10.197)
You're welcome.
Dr Robert DiPilla (37:31.66)
get a couple of your friends, colleagues, whatever, just go out to a restaurant, hang out and kind of talk your story. Because we're all in it and we all go through the same things. And maybe I'm blessed with mental resiliency, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of things that are kind of thrown at you. But for me, for my upbringing, mean, things bother me, don't get me wrong, I am human.
But I know that my purpose is stronger than the noise that hear that's behind me. And for me, where am I going to go from here? What's the next 10 years look like? And For me, my legacy and what I want to hear is that when I'm long gone and a patient goes to another dentist and says, hey, who's your other dentist? And I say, well, I went to DiPilla All I want to hear is that, you know what?
Yes, I heard great people. That's all I want to hear. You went to one of the best. That's it. That's all I want to hear. I mean, I that's my legacy is that make sure that we as a group, as a team or organization, we've done the right thing by you and also by the the patients and also our team too. We got to take care of our the team that supports us very,
Kiera Dent (38:54.25)
That's beautiful. And I think as you said that I think maybe a takeaway from today would be figure out the legacy that you want to leave. think that that legacy, just did a mastermind group with some people in person and I had them write when they were, you know, I didn't give them an age. I just said, when you're sitting back looking at your life, what do want to feel? What do you want to experience? And what do you want it to be said about you?
And it was crazy because people started making different decisions in that moment because the legacy of who they want to be and what they want to leave behind radically shifts what you're doing today. And I think that that's a beautiful takeaway from today. I have loved our conversation. I thoroughly enjoy you as a human. I think you're just doing a beautiful work, an example of keeping the passion alive in dentistry and doing great things no matter what's going on. any last thoughts you have, how can people connect with you?
Dr Robert DiPilla (39:34.926)
Thank you.
Dr Robert DiPilla (39:44.238)
I think for anyone guys who have been graduating, this is like the best time to be a dentist. I mean, I'm so excited. mean, the technology is amazing. Things that we used to do before and we can do now, digital workflow, 3D printing, AI, it's amazing. So, for me, I go into work every day. I'm very passionate what we need to do. But for me,
It's time for me to kind of like maybe work maybe in the chair once or twice a week and then work on the business. And that's where I'm more passionate about as well. And then kind of like I said, elevating everybody else. But once again, this has been a real, real pleasure and I can see your passion as well and much, success for yourself.
Kiera Dent (40:28.682)
Likewise, thank you so much for joining today, Dr. Tafilla. I hope everybody who's listened takes away a few golden nuggets and gems because I really do believe there was so much value and wisdom in this podcast today. I think that there's so much beauty. love podcasting with people like yourself that are just so optimistic of the future. So thank you for joining us and for all of you listening. Yes.
Dr Robert DiPilla (40:49.816)
My pleasure.
Kiera Dent (40:53.78)
All of you listening, thank you for joining us. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
-
Tiff and Kristy share not only how to cut down your accounts receivable, but also how to develop systems that will keep your AR low. They discuss time management, clear job descriptions, protocols, and more.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:01.752)
Hello, Dental A Team. I am so excited to be here with you. I have Kristy back here with me today, and we are excited to talk to you about a really fun subject today. It's not always the top of the fun list. think billing gets pushed down in the fun category, and a lot of people put a lot of stress on it, which I totally understand. But Kristy and I are here today.
to bring some fun to the billing department and to bring some fun around how to make billing work within your practice. Kristy, thank you so much for being here with me today. How are you?
Kristy (00:34.658)
Good! It's a good Monday!
The Dental A Team (00:37.955)
Good, I know. Our Mondays get busy here at the Dental A Team. They are our meeting days and our project days and they just, they get chock full of so much stuff every single week and we absolutely love them. We get to spend a lot of time prepping for our client calls and our client visits. A lot of us have client visits coming up soon and just getting all the things together. So Mondays are always a little chaotic. Kristy, in your...
In your experience, you've got a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of experience behind you. What was your favorite position or your favorite space to work when you were in practice?
Kristy (01:16.704)
interesting. Favorite Space was probably really helping getting patients the care they deserve, filling that patient advocate role. here's the thing, I know we're talking about AR today. If we
If we aren't cognizant of a patient's budget, we're really not doing good by them. So being cognizant and finding a way to fit it, you know, the care they need within their timeline and their budget is, it's rewarding.
The Dental A Team (01:50.047)
I love it. I totally agree with you. think making sure that we're giving them the best experience all the way around, no matter what is the best space to live in within a dental practice. can get homes fulfilled us. It gives us a purpose and a reason to be there. And on those notes, I think you're absolutely correct. If we don't know what the patient wants, what their desires are, what they can do, and we end up down a path.
that might not be the right fit for them and ends up not being the right fit for us because we end up in situations where we have high AR, outstanding claims, outstanding bills, all of those pieces. I also know one of the biggest reasons that people leave a dental practice or write a bad review, I have so many practices that are like, don't put me on swell, I want to have control over who gets reviews and who don't.
And I just think everybody should get a link for review. So I love advocating for that company and for within our marketing. But I know that the biggest reason that we're afraid of something like that and that people that patients leave their practice is for billing inconsistencies or billing issues. So really having standards and protocols and just everything wrapped around the billing department is so imperative and so important because even down to that patient advocate space.
When you're that patient advocate, which is also sometimes, you know, patient coordinator, front office check-in, like all of those are kind of wrapped around similar spaces within the practice. But when you're sitting in that space, Kristy, so many times you are walked into a really hard conversation because there was confusion over previous billing or you're the one that's responsible for collecting today's balance that's due or outstanding balances. And so you kind of walk into really uncomfortable situations because
you're not sure what it is sometimes, the patient doesn't know what it is, and sometimes that patient comes in upset. So knowing how to diffuse those situations too, think Kristy is a really great space and just builds that relationship as well. I think I love your answer.
Kristy (03:50.149)
Thank
The Dental A Team (03:51.193)
That's my wrap up there. So today I've brought Kristy here to talk with me and chat with me for you guys today about really cutting your AR down and hopefully building systems that keep it so that your AR doesn't get high. And just so you guys know, doctors, your AR is your accounts receivable. So this is money that's supposed to be coming to you, but hasn't made its way through the door yet. And so we're trying to get that money through that door into your bank account to help your overhead ultimately.
and by increasing your collection. So we really don't want a lot of money sitting out in that AR, in the accounts receivable, that outstanding collections. We really don't want a lot of money out there, but it is also flip side of that unrealistic. Many of you are like, I shouldn't have any AR. I should 100 % collect. While that is, you know, the dream, it is very unrealistic. So there will always be something outstanding, even if you're a free for service practice, in my opinion, there's always going to be something outstanding. So
Just building those systems and those protocols is going to be absolutely fantastic. And for you doctors that are listening today, which I hope you guys are here because I hope you're ready to cut your AR down or keep it from ever increasing, I want you guys to know the back end side as well, because I don't want you to be afraid of your billing department anymore or afraid of money. A lot of doctors, I think, steer away from even looking at bank accounts or overhead or...
Any of that I think we do in our personal lives too, just because there's so many misunderstandings. So if you can get involved in conversations like this today, really know the expectations of different spaces like that. I really think that it helps to build your confidence in moving forward and keeping those ARs from getting any higher. that's my caveat for today, doctors. I want you listening, I want you taking notes, and then want you taking it back to your team, because this is gonna take a whole team to get a lot of these things done. Kristy.
Where do you see the biggest hang up in practices you have worked with? You've worked in many practices, you've consulted many practices in your current clients too. Like, where do you see the biggest hang up when it comes to accounts receivable and that outstanding money? Where do you feel like, gosh, it's really just stuck here if we had to say one space.
Kristy (06:04.576)
one space. Honestly, probably in the insurance realm, verifying and getting the correct breakdown so that we're giving the proper estimates and therefore collecting the proper copays, right?
The Dental A Team (06:20.264)
I totally agree. Yeah. And I think that's a space that gets really confused. And I think doctors get very confused about it. Like, what is that supposed to look like? What should I be doing? What should I be expecting from my team? How can they get it all of those questions? So I totally agree. We have so many different podcasts on so many different aspects of that. We have so many clients that are working on all of those pieces as well within their consulting with us. But I agree that
You have to remember whatever you put into the system is as good as the information you're going to get out of the system. So while it's a computer, while it's software, like it's supposed to, you know, at one point be smarter than us, like it can only be as smart as we can make it. And so the information that you're putting in is going to spit out the information that you're going to get out of it. And if we're rushed, if we don't have clear clarity on what's expected or
clarity on what's the most important. Like things get muffled, things get confused. So I think when practices have high AR or to keep them from getting high AR, I always recommend like three basic things. The first thing is time management. We'll dive into time management. The second is ensuring you know what's the most important. So how do we figure out what's important and what's not important? And then the third is having really clear systems and protocols.
to be able to use. Those three things, you guys, if you have time management on your side, you can decipher what's important, what's not important, and you have really simple protocols and standards that you consistently use all the time, that's going to propel you to really have cut AR or no AR, or little, I should say minimal AR in the future. So.
Kristy, what are some areas that you've worked with your clients or you've worked with in the past that you can say, gosh, these really work in the time management realm? Where do you see things working over there for you?
Kristy (08:21.58)
Yeah, for time management, honestly, I think it's about dedicating the time and getting it into your schedule. We like to call it, you know, putting that power hour and really diving in and creating that time to focus on the AR.
The Dental A Team (08:36.616)
Yeah, yeah, I love a power hour because you can let it.
Kristy (08:43.694)
Okay, sorry.
The Dental A Team (08:46.026)
way because I think a power hour, I love power hour, I've used it in multiple facets. I used it in my personal life as well. Power hour, you guys, is so simple. It blows my mind every single time at how well it works, and I utilize it for all kinds of positions in the practice, but I think it's amazing for the billing rep position. So, Kristy, I love that you mentioned that the power hour, literally you just split an hour into like four chunks or two chunks, but you always make sure
that you've got it scheduled. So your time management piece, right, is making sure that you've got it scheduled somewhere. And then you've got your list of things that you're going to be doing within those 15 minutes. And you've got some sort of timer handy, even if it's your watch, if it's your phone, like whatever, you're gonna set for 15 minute timer. So you guys, it's that simple. And you're gonna say in the first 15 minutes, I'm gonna do X, and Z.
In the second 15 minutes, I'm gonna do ABC. In the third, and so on and so forth, and you're gonna set that timer for those 15 minutes where your billing rep is going to, you guys do this as well, you're gonna set that timer, and at that 15 minute mark, you're gonna take inventory and you're be like, okay, what did I get through? Did I get through the top most important items? Do I need to shift one down to the next 15 minutes or am I ready to move on to the next set of most important items? So.
I love that Kristy. So we have the power hour. What other things have you utilized?
Kristy (10:12.718)
yeah, Putting the block schedules into the appointment book so everybody knows that you are dedicating that time and working specifically on AR.
The Dental A Team (10:12.81)
sketchbook.
Kristy (10:29.022)
And I would also say be sure that we detail this because AR can be broken down into two different categories. We have the patient AR and the insurance AR. you know, dedicating time. And I would say, you know, weekly dedicating time to work on these and specific timeframes.
The Dental A Team (10:46.174)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (10:49.802)
I totally agree. I love that. And I think we think block scheduling and we think patient schedule only. And it's so interesting to me to consider any kind of system or protocol. Like there's so many spaces where it can be dropped, like copied and pasted into another aspect of life. And when we think about block scheduling, which we have talked about so much for patient schedules.
we can now copy and paste that into like even our personal lives, you guys, if I wanted to get crazy with it. But really, if we look at the positional duties, like what is it that I need to do as a billing representative and how do I block my schedule to fit that? I'm going to think, okay, just like thought, doctors, I made you go think, where should I do a root canal? Like where should my high priority pieces be? My high income procedures, where am I going to put those? Where should I do root canal?
flip-flop that over to your billing representative, right? And we're not gonna like call on patient balances at 7 a.m. So where is it likely that I'm gonna be able to call on patient balances? So I'm gonna build my schedule using time management skills that I know how to do because I know how to build a patient schedule. So if I start thinking of my duties, the things that I'm responsible for in whatever position I hold, even treatment coordinator, whatever position it is,
If you take that same thought process, look at the duties that you're responsible for, and then figure out how do I manage this in my day, what makes the most sense? So do I want to start my day at 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. with patient calls? Gosh, probably not. Or is it smarter to maybe check on unpaid claims at that time? If you start unpaid claims from 8 to 9 a.m., that's your power hour.
Right there, 8 to 9 a.m. I'm working on unpaid claims and I'm divvying it out by the 15 minutes or whatever, right? Or maybe by week, first week I'm doing zero to 30, second week I'm doing 31 to 60, et cetera. But if I'm divvying those hours out, I know the insurance companies are gonna be open at 8 a.m. no matter where I'm at in the country, right? If it's 8 a.m. Pacific, it's now 11 a.m. East. So I know no matter where I'm at in the country, if I start at 8 a.m.
The Dental A Team (13:05.931)
I can get a hold of the insurance companies. Then I move on to a patient, then I move on to statements or whatever, but I'm power blocking and utilizing locked scheduling rules to get the same results in my position as what I'm looking for in a patient's schedule. So you can literally copy and paste that over and manage those times. But something, Kristy, that I think gets lost in translation sometimes, you can think, power block, I'll time manage, sure.
But the second piece, right, first piece is time management, learning how to manage your time, learning how to see that. But the second piece, I can't time manage if I don't know what my duties are. So if we don't have job descriptions, if we haven't been taught how, you what are the results that are driving my position? Because those results that are driving my position that are within the job description, that's going to allow me to be able to see what's the most important thing. Because, Kristy, you said earlier too,
getting the information in is gonna affect the information out. But then we sit in this space, I think, of like trying to figure out, do I get the verification? Do I call on unpaid insurance claims? Do I call patients? Do I send statements? And we're just like, my gosh. And so how do you help doctors to be able to help their team really figure out what that driver is and to be able to say, this is the most important thing or this is where I can time manage these pieces because I can see
What I'm responsible for, how do you help doctors to really be able to help their billing departments figure that out?
Kristy (14:39.692)
Yeah.
Absolutely. So even with AR, there's the lag measure and the lead measure, right? So the lead measure part of it, I always feel is the verification process. So having somebody that's dedicated and is working ideally two days out in advance to get those benefit breakdowns. Obviously, our goal isn't to be insurance driven, but we want to be insurance accurate, again, so that people working and collecting over the counter have
that information and we're giving proper estimates and even making proper financial agreements, right? So first off, again, that pre-working ahead of getting the verification, but then also at time of, you know, it's one thing to treatment plans, but it's another to present and understand how the patient's going to take care of it with the financial arrangement. understanding
The Dental A Team (15:18.413)
Mm-hmm.
Kristy (15:40.114)
who's doing the verification, who's our treatment coordinators that are going to cement the financial plans. And then last piece of that is who will be doing the follow up. Who's doing the follow up on patient AR and who's doing the follow up on the insurance AR. So kind of just painting that clarity in the duties and then supporting each other in those blocked times, right? So each person has their dedicated time.
The Dental A Team (15:51.113)
That's it.
The Dental A Team (15:56.846)
Thank you.
The Dental A Team (16:07.852)
Yeah, exactly. And those job descriptions really narrow down to those results. Like, what is the result that we're after for the insurance verification, right? The result is that we're two days ahead on making sure that all the information is in the system. The result for the case acceptance is to ensure that we have, you know, 98 % case acceptance because we're living in a world of dreams, right? But we've got like 75 % case acceptance as our goal. So how do we do that?
and they all lead into each other. So what Kristy's like leading to, right, is if we can get that information right on the verification, now our treatment coordinator is able to present accurate or as close to accurate estimates as we can, which means that on the back end side of that, whether it's the treatment coordinator or checkout person collecting, they're collecting over the counter correctly, and our billing department hopefully has the least amount of money possible that they're chasing.
So I love that because it leads into one another. Now, sometimes you guys, your practice, you might only have one person or two people that are doing all three of those things. And that's okay too. You've got to figure out what are the most important things for my practice to know before a patient gets here? What are the most important pieces? Like, what am I going to be treatment planning? What kind of an estimate do I need to give to my patient?
that's the information that you need to get on your verification. So you might be able to really dwindle that down as compared to a practice that's got five or six part office people and they're doing surgeries and they're doing all on fours and they're doing an anesthesia in the office. Like all of these pieces that you might see other practices asking for, you might not need those. So really figuring out what is it that I need for my practice that I can get the right information and who's doing it.
The job descriptions are huge. When we know our lead measures, like what is it that I'm after? Now I can see, okay, is this affecting that? Like, is this going to positively impact that or is this busy work? Because sometimes we might get lost in, I don't know, confirmations, which are incredibly important, but is that my job? As a billing coordinator, right? Or if you've got two or three for an office who don't have...
The Dental A Team (18:19.893)
really segregated duties, I oftentimes will walk in and I'll see three or four different people, like, everyone's doing confirmation, like, well, we got to the appointments confirmed. Absolutely. But can one person do confirmations while someone else does something else? Because there are 5,000 things that we have to get done in a day. And if we're all doing confirmations, then we're probably only hitting five of the 5,000. So really figuring those spaces out.
making sure that it's twindled down so that somebody can say, okay, these are the most important tasks of my day today, and this is how I'm going to manage my time. Third to that is going to be the systems. You already, you know, alluded there and spoke about the systems of getting the information in. But then, Kristy, I think it's insanely important for a billing coordinator to have a system and a protocol for all of the other pieces. Like, I've seen so many practices I've walked in and they've got
I had a practice that had over $200,000 in outstanding claims, and I'm like, gosh, that makes me sweat, right? Because it's so stressful, and they're like, well, I call when I have time. Well, there's our time management space, and they don't know how important it is, right? So they don't know how to manage their time, they don't know when they should be calling, because they don't have it blocked out.
And then two, they're not understanding that this is one of the most important things that you could be doing in your position. So they're doing busy work. I've literally seen, I walked into a practice and I love this practice dearly. We've gotten so far. But I was watching the billing coordinator get interrupted because the billing coordinator was the only one who had the information in her head on the insurance metrics. And so the treatment coordinator would need her to do.
the estimates for the treatment coordinator, but then also she knew all the patients. So she was doing some of the like phone calls that were coming in and she was doing confirmations. And I was like, well, this is why you have $200,000 of insurance claims. Like it was wild. So that one, that one practice like encompasses all of these. The billing rep didn't know her job descriptions because she didn't know the most important pieces or she didn't know how to do them. So she wasn't doing them. She didn't know how to manage her time. And then the
The Dental A Team (20:29.266)
protocols just weren't set in place yet. So one of my favorite protocols is really making sure that you have at least one day a week that you've got dedicated time to work on unscheduled unpaid claims. And then also a separate, would do them on two separate days just because I don't like to do them all together. It's overwhelming for me, right? So I do one day of unpaid claims every week, some hours in there, and then I would do maybe two days later.
patient balances, calling on unpaid patient balances. So you can do them together. I don't care what you guys decide. That's how my brain works. But Kristy, that's how I like to do it, where it's like week one, you've got four different brackets, right, of unpaid money on both insurance and patient that you're working on. So I literally have practices, and the way I did it when I was in practice is that I just split it up by those four, right, those four brackets. So week one, I would do zero to 30.
week two, to 60, right? And so on. And then, Kristy, what I did as well is I started to rotate when those statements would go out or the reminders for those. So I'd be calling on one bracket and sending statements that same week for two brackets later so that hopefully by the time I got to them, they'd also received a statement. So they were getting statements.
phone calls, if I had to leave a message, I'd leave a text. Like this whole rotating system was put into place and I put it into place for a lot of practices and it's helped a ton of really being able to see how I needed to break out that week. And I think if I were to walk in to a new position and I didn't know that these were my metrics, I don't know that I would have been able to think, okay,
How do I take what my job is, what I'm supposed to do, and do it in a manner that I can get it done? So I would do those. one more piece I did forget, right? Splitting up the alphabet for your statements, you guys. Holy cow. Like, don't send them all at once, split them up. But Kristy, what else do you have? I know you work a ton on this stuff with a lot of practices. I see the emails and the texts like currently going back and forth and really dialing that in because dentists and doctors, owners, they don't really know that space.
Kristy (22:24.391)
Yeah
The Dental A Team (22:43.879)
So we've got rotating weeks, we've got patient and insurance, we've got all the pieces. What other piece do you feel like is super necessary to have within some sort of protocol for time management and all of those pieces?
Kristy (22:57.39)
Yeah, well, much like you, I love breaking it up. It serves for two purposes, right? Number one, it's more manageable for the team. And number two, it helps keep the revenue coming in all month long, right? And also you have to remember every time we send those statements, typically phone calls follow. So when they're doing them all at once, we're creating a huge load for the team. I like you identify daily, weekly and monthly duties and make sure I mean, I know we're
The Dental A Team (23:09.267)
Yes.
Kristy (23:27.344)
talking AR, but everything funnels into that, right? So make sure you're sending your claims every day, not once a week, not once a month, every day. Make sure we're posting every day those checks that are coming in. And I would also say weekly run your unclaimed or unattached procedures and any unsent claims, any unsent secondary claims, right?
The Dental A Team (23:34.899)
Yep.
The Dental A Team (23:52.113)
Yeah.
Kristy (23:55.61)
And like you, I like the technology. Utilize your text to pay feature too. Like once we enter those payments, don't wait for the end of the week to send a statement or end of the month to send a statement, right? Send a text to pay right then or the next day. And again, it's chunking it out so it's more manageable.
The Dental A Team (24:03.463)
Yes.
The Dental A Team (24:11.635)
Yeah.
Kristy (24:21.775)
And also you can make your calls with insurance, break it up by insurance company, right? Being more efficient with our time that we have blocked out.
The Dental A Team (24:28.052)
Thank
The Dental A Team (24:31.74)
Yeah, I love that. And I would even put that in my power blocking, right? If I knew that I might even say the first 15 minutes is going to be Delta from zero to 60 outstanding claims and my second might be met life or something like that. So I love that just makes my brain go, okay, actually with that idea, I can make it even more efficient than what I have been doing just by adding Kristy's idea to what I've been doing. So thank you, Kristy I think that was brilliant.
I think there's so much meat today to consume. There's so much information packed into this short, like just under 30 minute podcast. So I hope you guys have been taking notes. I really, really want you guys to learn how to cut your AR in half if it's already there or how to keep it from getting high. Remember, your AR should be less than one month's total production goal. So if your goal is 300,000.
You better be under that 300,000. If your goal is 60,000, you better be under 60,000. Like it doesn't matter. You need to be under one month's production goals and or whatever your consistent average is. So go work on those protocols. You guys, have three action items. You need time management. So figure out some time management skills, work with your team and teach them the copy and paste method. You guys already know so much about block scheduling. Make sure your job descriptions and the duties.
Number one, are divvied out between multiple people. And number two, super clear. Even if you only have two front office people, you guys, and they always say, no, it's fine, we do everything, we work together and we get through it. I want responsibilities to each person. They can still flip-flop, they can do whatever they want, but they need to be held accountable to certain items. I don't care how many people you have up there. So number two, job descriptions. Number three, set standards and protocols, especially around your billing, you guys.
Start from the beginning for sure. Make sure that the information going in is accurate, but right away you guys, if you're trying to cut down your AR, get those standards into place and make sure that they are working on these pieces. Because the thing I see most often is that we don't have time because there are other things that are taking precedence. And to me, that just tells me they don't know how to figure out what the most important thing is. And you've got to go back to step two, job descriptions. Hey.
The Dental A Team (26:50.167)
Kristy, thank you so much for being here today. I knew you'd have some brilliant, brilliant ideas. love, I am like efficiency minded and I go there, but then you always stack something, layer it, something else on top of that, or I'm like, my gosh, even that again would make it more efficient. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for bringing your ideas. And Kristy, is there anything departing statement that you want to leave our doctors with today?
Kristy (27:15.5)
No, just have fun with it, you know, and be in relationship with your patients. If there's a little balance afterward, make that quick phone call. I mean, it could be as easy as, hey, know, insurance, there was a little bit remaining. Did you want to add it to your last auto debit or are we scheduling it for one more month? You know, really be in relationship because ultimately it's about getting them the care they deserve and collecting for the treatment you're doing. So, yeah.
The Dental A Team (27:42.232)
You always have a nugget at the end. Thank you so much. Doctors, I hope you loved this. Take this information back to your team. Share this podcast with them. Team members, if you're listening to it you're like, actually, my doc needs to know what I'm doing, send it over to your doc. Let them listen to it. And you guys always, always, always reach out with any questions, any concerns. If you need help with the protocols or more ideas, hello.
Kristy (27:45.294)
Of course.
The Dental A Team (28:05.418)
At thegeneralateam.com, we are always, always, always open to sharing all of our information and getting those things over to you. Thank you all, and we'll catch you next time.
-
Kiera gives listeners 3 tactical tips on exactly how to find and put a stop to cash flow leaks and grow your practice exponentially.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00.824)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and welcome to today's show. You guys, I'm so excited to have you here. I absolutely love podcasting. I can honestly not believe that we have created as many podcasts as we have and thank you for being a part of this journey. So today, you guys, I wanted to just ask you that like, are you struggling with cashflow leaks in your practice? I think this is such a big hot topic for you that I cannot wait to go into it because honestly,
Every dollar leaking out of your practice is a dollar not reinvested into your growth. So really there's a few couple quick cashflow leaks that I see in tons of practices that I wanted to share with you. These small little changes, tweaks are going to add up to exponential amounts of cash in your practice just by stopping these small few cashflow leaks. We did a webinar on this the other day and it was super, super popular. So I thought I'd bring a few of those highlights over here to the podcast.
As always, you guys know we are the Dental A Team and our job is to help practices optimize profitability, increase their happiness and fulfillment and truly make teams and doctors get on the same page to be able to live the best life that they possibly can. That's what we're about, you guys. Honest to goodness, I do know that cash flow is the lifeblood of a practice and the way that we prevent these leaks and the way that we're able to grow our practices is by being great stewards over the businesses that we have. This is gonna be a short
actionable podcast for you. guys know I like tactical practical and I'm super happy you're here. If you're new to the show, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. If you've been an OG, which stands for original gangster, I used to think it was an oldie but goodie. I found out that that's not the case. If you're an OG, I'm so glad that you're here and that you've been on this journey with me. Please, please as always, leave a review if it's helpful for you and make sure that you're sharing this with friends because the reality is our goal is to positively impact the world.
in the greatest way possible. And the way we do that is through expert consulting for dentists and teams. So we are the Dr. Seuss of systems. We are the gurus of making practices, like truly be simple, living at profitable practice and making it simple. All right, are you ready for these three simple tips? I hope you are. Number one, I want you to, like I said, we just did this of how to stop these cashflow leaks. And what you wanna do is you wanna look at some numbers. So you wanna look at the last six months production.
Kiera Dent (02:18.902)
You want to look at the last six months collections. And then you also want to do your collection percentage per month and also your collection percentage over the last six months. The reason it's important for this is some months will actually have a lower collection percentage. That's okay. So for example, a lot of practices in December only worked 2 weeks. And so then you have to think that money rolls 30 days. And when it rolls 30 days, then what's going to happen is we're going to collect that money. So if in December we only did 50,000, then in January we did a hundred thousand.
Well, I only have 50,000 over here to collect to then be able to go into my 100,000. Well, that's going to be low collections. But over the course of the year, we should be averaging a 98 % collection amount. We also want look at our patient AR, our insurance AR, our adjustments, claims not sent to insurance, procedures not attached to insurance, P &L revenue matching collections, because a lot of times maybe we're not collecting even though it looks like we're collecting. So making sure money in the bank actually matches the money that's coming into the practice.
And then doing an overhead deep dive, are there things that we could cut, subscriptions we no longer need, things that we've been paying for forever, just like in personal finance, right? Like when you go look and you're like, my gosh, we're paying for all these subscriptions, we're not even using half of them, that's a cashflow leak. So a lot of common causes of cashflow leaks are going to be unnecessary adjustments in your practice, claims and procedures not sent to insurance. Literally this one report, have literally...
brought 50,000 into a practice in one simple report. So it's a huge, huge zone to take a look at. Over-the-counter collections, maybe those aren't up, they're not high enough. And then not having a good claim follow-up, insufficient AR follow-up. So claims are one thing, we're sending out those statements. And the other side is that we're actually looking at our AR, following up on those claims, making sure that they're not having denials, resubmits, those types of things, high expenses, and then not producing enough to cover our expenses. So.
A lot of these things come in tandem. And so I just wanted to walk you through a quick three things to do. So #1 I want you to really focus on tightening up that insurance and collections process. Like truly, truly, truly, how are we doing this? Because I brought in $1000s to a practice. There was an office I consulted in Oregon. We were able to take them from producing about a $100,000 to $150,000 by being in their practice one time. And in 30 days, they were up to that amount. People were like, Kiera, how did you do it? And I'm like, well, 1
Kiera Dent (04:37.1)
We've made the scheduling better and we presented full treatment. And 2 we were able to increase their collections simply by just collecting at the end of the appointment. And I know that sounds so like primary and so juvenile, but the reality is all of this is simple. It's very simple. And so I hope that you take this on and you realize that these are just simple things. So when we don't have a good insurance process and collection process, then what happens is we delay the money even further. Already with insurance as we're on a 30 day delay.
most of the time. You can actually be faster than that in practices. I have some offices that get paid in 2 weeks, but the reality is usually we're on a 30 day delay. So going back to our December example where we made 50,000, then we were produced 100,000, well, our collections are going to be down, but just think what if we actually are even further delayed? Well, that's going to send it down further and further and further. I've seen offices where in their over 90, they have tons and I'm talking millions sitting in their over 90. Well, that's very stressful because A,
that's money that should be collected. You did the work and B, if it gets too far out there, we actually can't collect from insurance. So what we wanna do is we wanna make sure that we're verifying the patient's insurance benefits before they come into the practice, make sure we have correct fee schedules attached so we're able to present correctly. Then we wanna make sure we're submitting claims within 24 hours at the most. I either like them submitted at the end of the day or the next day. Make sure all of our attachments, all of our narratives, all of our inter-orals, all of our x-rays are truly like attached correctly.
Clean claims out, clean claims in. Like we wanna make sure that we're paid and then make sure that we have an automated way to have like our balances collected once we get the insurance there. So we wanna be watching our insurance payments and we also wanna be watching our patient payments. So we wanna collect a time of service. So whatever their patient portion is, I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend that we collect at time of service. We're also watching for balances when patients are checking in that we're actually collecting at that time as well. So.
When they check in, if there's a balance, we collect right then and there. Also when we present treatment plans or when they're doing their treatment, we're collecting payment at that time as well. I understand they're not going to be perfect. I understand there's a lot of fear around this of, Kiera, what happens though if we misestimate? And I'm gonna say you become an amazing word ninja. I would much rather you collect rather than chase money. I think all of us would rather get paid rather than chasing our paychecks down the street. Same thing with patients. Once they're gone, there's no longer a need for them to be doing
Kiera Dent (07:00.35)
to paying for it. So I really, really, really, really, really encourage you to do this and then make sure that what we're doing is we're actually checking our insurance every single week. So we're checking and working those 30, 60, 90 day claims. We're making sure that we're working on the biggest balances first and then we're able to then chip away at it and collect. Patient portions, go call them. Please, please, please stop sending statements. Call those patients right now. Get them on the books. Make sure we're getting them taken care of.
That is one of the easiest ways to stop these cashflow leaks in your practice. So the goal is make sure great insurance verification is there, make sure we're submitting claims, and then make sure that we're actually speeding up our collection process by staying on top of it every single week, hitting those biggest balances. There's more in depth for it, but that's a quick highlight of what you can do. Step 2 is control our overhead and unnecessary expenses. So now we've talked about, we fixed the problem with hopefully collecting. We fixed the process of making sure that we're getting our payments faster.
And now we need to make sure we're looking at our overhead and the expenses to see what on there is unnecessary. Like I said, like all those subscriptions, I don't know how many times I see like in real life, we're paying for Netflix, we're paying for Hulu, we're paying for Amazon Prime, we're paying for all these different ones, but we're actually only using one or 2 of them. Could we cut some of those out? It doesn't change our quality of life, but it does change our bank account and small little things add up. I did a podcast on this, a little areas where you can find this in your overhead expenses.
But the reality is like, can you start to actually order your supplies through something like Synergy or Ordo, which are 2 great companies that are actually supply companies that do it in bulk to reduce, like you're getting the exact same product, but you're able to actually reduce the cost. Why not do that? Just asking questions like we're buying the same bread, let's get it for half off or pay full price. I'm gonna get it for half off. It's the same bread, same price, like same quality.
just different pricing because we're able to buy it through group pricing. So can we negotiate? Can we talk to our reps? Can we make sure? Also, can we set a supply budget for the person who's ordering? I like four to 5 % for supplies. You take your pick for ordering dental supplies. So last month we collected 100,000, 4,000 or 5,000 would be our supply budget. Give that budget on Excel tracker to your ordering team member and have them deduct down making sure they stay within budget.
Kiera Dent (09:16.856)
This way they're able to then assess and make sure we really are spending the appropriate amount. This gets them scrappy. They start looking for better deals, but it cuts those overhead expenses that are unnecessary for you. Can we also look for better lab deals? I know we love our lab person, but maybe there's a new lab that's come onto the scene that's just as good, if not better, but maybe not as high of pricing as our current labs. I'm not here to say cut dentistry for one second. I'm just saying kind of like car insurance, let's go look around and see. And I'm not saying that labs are equal. I understand that all labs are different.
and we wanna make sure we give our patients the highest quality. I'm just saying if you haven't looked for a while, let's see if we could get a different way to have a different lab fee for us. Can we negotiate other areas within like our subscriptions, looking to see what can we cut, going line by line by line to see are there extra expenses in there? I know like I pay for audible, but I switched over to Libby. Libby is great, I use a ton of it, I'm constantly on there. Do I still need my audible expense on the overhead?
Do we still need to be paying for the subscription? Like I know for us, we have a lot of subscriptions, a lot of softwares. Is there a software that we could get a discounted rate? What about our credit card processing fees? Could we maybe switch over to a company like Mula and maybe save on that? Honest to goodness, plug for Mula. If you're looking at credit card processors or you're questioning Mula, tell Mark from Mula that we sent you over there. Clients who I've recommended to Mula have loved it because they're cheaper.
They're more affordable, their rates are incredible, there's no contract, they're able to get their membership plans on it, they're saving money. Even that one or 2 % change on your credit card statement can radically increase the cashflow leaks in your practice. And then just like make sure that our payroll, like let's look at our human capital. I am not here to cut costs for payroll. I'm here to pay our team members insanely well, but let's make sure that can we re-utilize our human capital? Could we maybe outsource certain things that we don't need in-house?
What do we have? And let's just make sure that what we're doing and producing, we're adequately staffed, that we're adequately doing our jobs. And that if there's easier ways, like we've outsourced certain jobs for virtual assistants. And I know a lot of offices have done that and it's been great. It's been amazing. We've been able to benefit from it. You have opinions about that. I'm not here to tell you one way or another. I am here to say, maybe be open to the ideas around it, just to see what can we do. And so my call to action on tip number 2 for controlling overhead.
Kiera Dent (11:38.038)
and unnecessary expenses is go and do an expense audit and look to see what can we do to cut costs. Maybe there's nothing, but I promise you there's probably one, 2 or three things that you could actually change or adjust. I do this every single quarter. So when the quarter ends, the CPA sends me over a detailed P &L line by line by line. I'm looking at that to make sure that I'm actually staying in track. All right, step number three.
is I really want you to look at making sure that we're producing enough. So are we optimizing our schedule and are we producing enough? Because a lot of times cashflow leaks come from the insurance and the collections and the overhead, but maybe we need to also look at our scheduling to make sure we're productive on there. And we're also making sure that we're producing enough for our expenses. So what I like and what I prefer is 50 % for expenses is what your overhead should be, not including doctors.
So if we're producing 100,000, 50,000 should be our expenses. So trying to just get that into line for you. So now if I know my costs are 80,000, we'll just double that, we should be producing 160,000. So that's very loose math. Don't worry with our clients, I do this a lot more in depth. Not always can we get to 50 % in all states, but generally speaking, we're able to get there by doing a lot of these pieces. So now I'm gonna look at your schedule and see.
If we need to produce 160,000, A, do we have enough spots for new patients? B, do we have block scheduling in place to make sure that with the new patients, with the SRPs, with the perio maintenance, we're then able to produce what we need to produce for what we actually need to pay our practice. So if we need to produce 160,000, well, do we have enough blocks in there? And we figured out the puzzle pieces to make sure that we're actually able to produce that amount. And then when we do have cancellations or different things in there that we're
filling the schedule that we're doing the 15 minute quick fill that we're looking for little ways to optimize our schedule because a lot of times practices don't hit their overhead that they want to hit not because they don't have the space in their schedule but because they have so many open spaces. So what's your open time in your schedule? Let's look at that. Could we reduce that down? What are some different areas that we could really make this easier for you? And then making sure that we're actually hitting our goals consistently and we're working as a team for that. So.
Kiera Dent (13:50.828)
The reality is I have a lot of practices who do these things, not a lot, all of them. So as consultants, we're looking at what is your block schedule? How many new patients do we need to have? How many, can we optimize this? Let's look at your overhead month over month. Let's look at your collection percentages year over year. Let's make sure that we are actually collecting the amount that we need to. Let's look at the different items within. Let's track your KPIs monthly with you and look at all these expenses. I was on a call the other day and the doctor, we were like, gosh, their overheads high. And we looked.
We were spending a lot on marketing. We were spending a lot on supplies. so making these small little tweaks and changes are how we find the cashflow leaks. And I know you want this, maybe like ding, a little fairy godmother over here. Yes, I can do that as we're a one-on-one private consultant for you. But listening to the podcast, I want to encourage you to take these three steps on and to truly go and look at how is our collection process and what are we doing? Then I want you to look at your overhead and unnecessary expenses and then do an audit of your schedule to see
Hey, what adjustments could we make to make this actually be better? So these are some of the quick hits for you on the cashflow leaks that I know really can help you out and can grow your practice exponentially. This is what I'm passionate about if you can't tell. I love helping offices learn how to stop the cashflow leaks to be able to produce what they wanna produce and be able to provide the lifestyle that they want for themselves and for their team members. And it's through like little, little things like this. Consulting's nothing crazy or sexy.
The changes that we make in practices are usually so simple, but the simple things are not always easy. And so making sure you have an accountability buddy, someone who's gonna check in with you, someone who's gonna make sure you're doing this consistently, because consistency is key when it comes to these cashflow and overhead leaks. I'm so excited for you guys to try this. So if you want some help uncovering some cashflow leaks in your practice,
Just DM me or even go to our website, TheDentalATeam.com. We actually do a free practice assessment for offices where we look through to see what areas can we help you optimize your practice. So if that resonates with you, I'd love to chat with you. But truly you deserve to have the financial strength and the financial guidance that you truly want and deserve. And the reality is we're here for you. Denaliateam is here for you. We love and adore you. And I know that everything that you want that you are truly hoping to achieve.
Kiera Dent (16:10.368)
is going to be capable for you. So as always, thank you for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
-
Block scheduling can transform your productivity into profitability. Kiera makes the implementation as easy as 1, 2, 3:
Identify your practice's production goals.
Design your ideal block schedule.
Implement, train, and track.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript
kiera Dent (00:02.36)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today, I just really wanted to dive into, are you truly tired of missing production goals? Because if you are, block scheduling is honestly the secret to hitting them consistently with ease. And I know this is something that's talked about so often. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to break this down into three easy steps to make sure that you're able to do this with your team in a fun, effective, and just like overall amazing way for you.
Block scheduling can truly transform your productivity into profitability. And it's something as simple as doing a quick puzzle in your practice where we're able to add the pieces, have an incredible patient experience, incredible team experience, incredible doctor experience. And to me, that's a win-win-win. So for that, these three steps are going to really make it easy for you and your team to...
chunk this down into a tactical practical way. You guys, I'm Kiera Dent, owner and CEO of the Dental A Team, a consulting company where we are committed to not just understanding you, but actually being you. All of our consultants have worked in every position in the practice where we're able to understand what it's like to not be able to hit productivity goals, to schedule with no frustration, to have cancellations that are dropping off on us, to where we know what it's like to lose team members. All of those things are something that our Dental A Team
consultants are experts at and something that I'm really really proud of as a company because I know that when we understand you we're not just coming to you with theories and ideas but actual tips that have been proven, tried, consistent across hundreds of offices in all the states in multiple different countries to make sure that we're giving you guys efficiency that helps your team stay focused. So this is gonna be able to help you guys out and today it's gonna be short and actionable because I want you guys to able to take what we talk about and implement it today.
So step one is going to be identify your practices production goals. Now that what we got to do is we've got to look to see what did our practice produce last year and a healthy standard benchmark is that we want to actually be increasing a minimum of 10 % year over year. We also want to make sure that we've increased our fee schedules every single year and most practices go up about 5%. Now, if you're concerned about that with your fee for service patients or your out of pocket patients, I want to just remind you that this is standard across the board with most businesses to increase 5%.
Kiera Dent (02:14.402)
And if you wanna keep those preventative ones out, by all means go for it. I just wanna be able to remind you that by doing so, when we actually send our statements out to insurance and we bill out to insurance, it actually helps the insurance companies determine what the fee should be within our area. So I wanna make sure that we're not missing opportunities and possibly a membership plan could actually help our patients when we're concerned about those preventative services. So make sure that we know what we need to do for that 10 % growth.
make sure we understand how many days we're off in the practice. So I like to go through every single month. What are the vacations? What are the holidays? What are the times off? What are our high and low months across the board? I know for some pediatric practices, our certain months in the year are actually not great, but our summer months are incredible. I know for other areas based on where they are, they get a lot of snowfall in February. So February actually becomes a terrible month for them. There's also other offices where there's a notorious, suck timber or slam dunk September.
where we actually have a dip right after school gets back in session. So knowing those trends are actually gonna be able to know your practice's production goals to be able to hit them successfully. And while yes, this might take a little time for us to go through, map these things out, what it What it it does is it actually helps us go through and see what does our production need to be? How can we realistically hit it based on the days that we're working? What does each day need to be? What does each provider goal need to be for our doctors and our hygienists? And then we're able to actually bring all that information together.
and make a perfect puzzle for us. And then we start to place it into place. So when an office does this, usually I'm seeing a minimum of a 10 % increase, but oftentimes I'm seeing a 10, 20, 30, 40 % increase year over year. I've added multiple millions to practices and our consultants have done as well just by effective block scheduling where we're not increasing the new patients. We're not changing the hours that they're working. We're not adding more days for them to work. We're just being very consistent with how they actually schedule. And it's like I said, it's a puzzle.
I can put in five puzzle pieces of one type, or I can do five different puzzle pieces. Again, I put five puzzle pieces in same amount of time in a day, but I'm actually able to make a thousand dollars versus a $5,000 a day. It was crazy. had an office that I went into and I remember they had never been scheduled to 10, $10,000 in a day. And so when I went in and I showed them, here's how we can actually do 10,000, I scheduled them to 10,000 the next day. What was wild was the day I was there, they were producing 4,000.
Kiera Dent (04:35.778)
The next day I scheduled them to 10,000 showing them how to do this. And at the end of the $10,000 day, they looked at me high-fiving. We were out the door on time and they said, Kiera, that was actually easier than our day was yesterday when we only produced 4,000. And I said, it was just with blocks. It was just with us being strategic of where we put people as being intentional. And from there, we were actually able to be productive. So just helping you guys see, we've got to figure out what our specific production goals are before we restructure the schedule. That's step number one.
Step number two is design your ideal block schedule. Some doctors like to start early in the day with a crown. Some like to start later in the day with their crowns. Whatever it is, we need to design it of where do we actually want these to be? And I like high value, follow ups, zero dollar appointments. And instead of just saying a crown, I actually like to build a block schedule based on dollar amounts. Like I said, it's puzzle pieces. So that way if a crown or a quad of fills comes through, I know there are 1500 or a thousand, whatever it is, they're going into this block.
Blocks are held for us for 24 to 48 hours, pending upon your practice to make sure we're able to put the puzzle piece in that we want. We're able to actually map it out and we're able to then tell patients when they're coming up, hey, Dr. Smith likes to do crowns in the morning. I have an eight o'clock or a nine o'clock on Monday or Wednesday, which do you prefer? Now I'm not asking the patient, where do you wanna go? I'm literally asking the patient, this is what we do. This is where I can put you. This is how we do it. What works best for you?
We actually eliminate a lot of the excuses. We eliminate a lot of the frustration and we're directing and guiding the patient rather than trying to come back after they've told us they want a four o'clock when our doctor really doesn't do crowns at four o'clock. This is going to help you exponentially build the blocks. Also, I'm not putting implants and fillings next door to each other because that can get tricky. I'm not doing two crowns back to back where I can't see it. We're literally building a puzzle that our doctors can actually do. All of us get our lunches. All of us get out on time.
Doctors can get over to their hygiene exams. So I'm also then playing Sudoku across the board where I've got my doctor procedures, my new patients and my SRPs. Square up your SRPs and your implants. So that way the doctor can literally get the implant done and not have to go do the hygiene checks. It's a way for us to truly make a puzzle that's 80 to 90 % effective and efficient. So when we do that, that's step two of design our ideal block schedule and build that out. Now, the way I do this is I draft block schedules in Google Sheets.
Kiera Dent (06:58.242)
So in Excel, map it out of what the perfect amount is, put the dollar amounts there of what this is actually going to equate to for the day, and then figure out where my hygiene blocks need to be. I need to also figure out the number of new patients that we're seeing, the number of SRP and the number of perio maintenance blocks that I also need to add into my schedule to make sure I have enough hygiene hours to accommodate the patients that we have in there. So that's in how we're gonna draft this up. So that's gonna be what you'll need to do next is draft a block schedule template for your practice that will actually be effective.
And then step three is to implement it, train our team and track our progress. So what we do is we then go put it into place. I understand that hygiene is usually blocked out six months. And so that does take a little bit longer to get into place, but our doctors can get their blocks put in right away. And we need to train our team, put those blocks in, educate them of what do we do when a patient wants a four o'clock, but we only do crowns at two o'clock. And I want to just remind you that an ideal schedule for our doctor is an amazing schedule for our patients.
us being on time, us being happy as a team, us having our doctor fresh and prepped and ready to go is so much better for these patients than us like trying to shove them in because the reality is patients can adapt the schedule as long as we're using our words, which are free to be able to put our patients where we want them to go. So how do we do this? So we host a team meeting, we explain the block schedules, we assign a point person who's going to oversee and implement, and then we actually help them make sure of...
What happens when we put this in a block when we're not supposed to? What's the follow-up? And I really get offices to work on this for six weeks to two months where we are rock solid on this. And then we come back and we adjust it after that. So when I've done this, there was an office and they were producing about 2 million a year. We put in block schedule, like I said, no extra days, no extra time. So we went from 2 million up to 3.5 million simply by being effective with our time with block schedules. To me, that's a wild growth. We have gone
Exponentially, we've gone from 2 million to 3.5 just by putting these blocks in. were like, Kiera, patients are happier. Our team is happier. We're having our lunches on time. Our doctors are getting out on time. And to me, I just feel if those are the wins, then amazing, this is worth it. So for you getting your team excited about it, helping them see like, understand teams don't like change. Why do you think I love being the Dental A Team where we do this in a fun and effective way? I love to do this because I help teams see what's possible when it feels impossible.
Kiera Dent (09:18.488)
helping them see where we can create ease when there's chaos, helping them see how we can be more efficient rather than cumbersome. So the reality is block scheduling is going to change your life. It's going to help you be effectively productive. It's going to help you hit your goals with ease. One of my favorite quotes is by Walt Disney where he says that he was able to create predictable magic because of the systems behind the scenes. And so for you to be able to create predictable production with the systems behind the scenes of block scheduling to me is a gift that you can give yourself and your team this year.
So what I want you guys to know is this is going to honestly simplify your productivity and give you guys goals to be able to hit them with ease. You don't have to be perfect. We have those snow days. We have the slow summer days. We have the December that's only two weeks. We have all these different things put in so we know exactly what we need our blocks to be. And then we're able to hit our goals with ease and more consistency. I really don't love having success be happenstance where I'm like, will I get it or will I not? I like your success to be inevitable. And I believe that block scheduling is one of the greatest ways to do that.
So if you're interested, DMS or email us for a free block scheduling template, [email protected] And as always, you guys, this is how we're able to help you run a successful dental practice with ease. I don't believe that running a practice should be hard. I believe that this could be easy. And I want you just to ask yourself, what if it could be easy? How would you feel? How would your team feel? How would your patients feel? Because that can be a reality. This is what the Dental A Team does. And if that's helpful for you, reach out. [email protected] And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.
-
Kiera touches base with doctors on how the first quarter of 2025 has gone. Ask yourself:
Are we tracking key performance indicators?
How’s the team efficiency and morale looking?
Do we need to adjust and refocus our annual goals?
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript
Kiera Dent (00:00.908)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and I hope you're having just an incredible day. I hope life is incredible for you. And today, I just wanna highlight that Q1 is almost over. Can you believe it? We're almost a fourth of the way through 2025. And today, I wanted to ask you, are you on track for your best year yet? Because I wanna make sure that we break this down to ensure that you are thriving in 2025 and that success is predictable for you rather than just happenstance. So today, you guys, if we go through...
that reviewing our Q1 of what we did well, what we missed, how we can improve, are we on track, are we off track? This is gonna really be able to help you find the opportunities for growth to make sure that you are thriving in 2025. Today, I'm gonna break it down into three simple steps for you, tactical, practical, as always. You guys know I'm Kiera Dent, owner and CEO of Dental A Team, where we are a consulting company founded upon making your life easy, more fun, and more fulfilled.
We do that through you as a person. We also do that through making sure you're profitable. Let's cut the stress. Let's make sure you're profitable. Aiming for at least 20 to 30 % true profit, post everything else. And then we also do it with system and team engagement and top to bottom systems for your team to thrive. Truly, it's what we're about. We love working with teams. We love working with dentists. Our consultants are experts in the field. They have been in every single position in the practice, making sure that your life is easy.
fun and that you feel like you have someone in your court with you that has the answers for you, has the solutions for you, and ensure that you are successful and profitable. So today, you guys, we are going to go through this. is going to be a concise action packed episode. cannot wait. So let's dive in. Step number one to make sure you are on track through Q1 is I want you to actually go back through and assess how do we do based on our metrics this year. If you are not tracking KPIs, key performance indicators, today is a great day to start that.
Your team should be tracking. We should be able to look at Q1 and see where were we on track, where were we off track, why were we off track and what's going forward. I love to be doing this every single week and then really assessing every single month. If you haven't gone to do that, rock on. It's the time to do it. You still have three quarters left. Let's make sure that you're super successful for that. So things that I like to look at are production, collections, new patients, case acceptance. We wanna make sure we've got our hygiene reappointment. What's our hygiene percentage?
Kiera Dent (02:16.354)
We wanna make sure we're looking, those are like the main key things. And then I really always dig into profitability. I, like I said, we aim for our offices to be at a 20 to 30 % profit margin, post paying their doctors. I like you to have free cashflow in there. And so really looking at that, but also if we can dig into the nitty gritties of how's our AR, how are our cases coming across? What are we presenting? What are we closing? How is our hygiene team producing? How are we doing with our new patient count? Are we getting those raving fan referrals?
And if not, what's the one area that we're gonna highlight or two or three in Q2 to make sure that we actually get on track. Also, we look at our annual goal, which I hope that you have said, because it gives us kind of the benchmarks. To me, these are like the mile markers. Q1 is a mile marker, Q2 is a mile marker, Q3 is a mile marker. To make sure in Q4, we actually hit where we were trying to go, we are at mile marker one of the year. Where are we at? What needs to be adjusted to make sure by Q4, we actually crush our goals and we do it with ease.
Did we maybe get hit with some snow? Did we maybe get hit with some sick days? What was it? Let's not make excuses. Let's learn from it and project and move forward. So right now I want you all to block out 30 minutes this week to go look through Q1 metrics and compare them to where we wanna be by the end of the year. I recommend doctors and office managers do this. Go and look at it separately and then come together collectively. You can also do this with your leadership team. It's a really great time for you to block that time out right now and make sure you're on track. All right, step number two.
evaluate our team's efficiency and morale. Why? Why? because if we don't have a team that's synergistic, we actually are not able to have long-term success. Think about when we watch sports. mean, hello, March Madness. Hello, football season. Hello, all of them. You can tell teams that are synergistic and working well together, and you can tell teams that aren't. And something that's really paramount in team synergy is can we tell each other when we're off track and not have it be eggshells? I really love the book, Five Dysfunctions by Patrick Lenziani.
It's really a great way for you to see your team health. There's also difficult conversations don't have to be hard. There's ways that we can, crucial conversations if we're struggling with this, but really how do we actually do this? And are we checking in one-on-one monthly with each of our team members and getting honest feedback? Are we celebrating the wins and acknowledging the shortcomings? Are we looking for support and training that we need to have? Where are we at? But this is something that's so important to have really truly team efficiency and morale, because if we're not operating as a strong team,
Kiera Dent (04:40.942)
we're not gonna make it to the finish line. And so having that like true focus right now on it is going to honestly be able to help you all truly flourish and thrive in 2025. All right, step three, I want you to adjust and refocus our annual goals. Looking at where we are, where we need to go, what do we need to be changing or adjusting to make sure that we're there? We might need to adjust right now. We might need to say like, we gotta be a little more flexible here.
This is something we didn't plan for. Maybe we lost an associate. Maybe we lost a hygienist. Maybe we lost an office manager. Some of those things, if they're out of our control and they truly will impact us, we do need to adjust. If we lost a provider, we've got to adjust those goals. Otherwise, we're chasing a dream that we can't quite get. And so I don't like to create excuses, but I also want to make sure that we have flexibility within the rigidity. So we've got the strong goals that we've set. We also have the flexibility of if life happens, we're not making excuses.
but we're actually coming to the table. So what do we actually need to do? Where are we at? What are the top priorities that we did really well in Q1? And what do we need to be setting up for Q2? I love the model of traction by Gina Wickman. This is something we work with a lot of our offices on. It's what we were building within our in-person community where we really are helping you assess your business every single quarter, just these simple three points. We have a deeper dive that we do within our teams to make sure that we're...
quickly adjusting, but not adjusting too quickly that we're able to give them the momentum and the traction that our teams need. So for this, like I said, we need to assess where we are, take 30 minutes and look to see where we are, what did we do well in Q1, where are we off track that we need to get back on track? Two, look at our team efficiency. How are we working together as a team and what do we need to change? And then three, adjust and refocus our goals to make sure moving into Q2 that we are actually set up for success.
I love this, so I want you to revisit your annual goals, break them into Q2 action steps. Like I said, I love to do it in traction. I love to do this with our offices. It's something very fun and fulfilling for me. We do it as a team. We have a coach that comes and meets our leadership team. We break it down to our departments and make it really easy. So three steps, you've got them. You know where we need to set the time aside now. Wherever you are on the journey, high five. This is where we are. We got here. And this is also, if there was a hard quarter, Tony Robbins is one of my favorites.
Kiera Dent (06:59.574)
And he says, if it's a hard quarter, something that's just really beaten us down, we just look at that and say, well, hello, we finally have a worthy opponent. If we're riding high, we're doing everything, we're on such a good roll. Amazing, ride that high, ride that wave because a worthy opponent will show up at some point. We do not fall apart, we do not break down. We look at it, we face it, we figure it out, and we rise again with a true plan.
You guys, it's truly so important for you to assess where we at. We have three more quarters. Let's make them the best quarters. Let's make sure you're thriving in 2025. I am happy to share with you a Q1 checklist, whatever we can do for you. DM us, email us, [email protected] You guys, please subscribe. We have newsletters every single week that come out to you. So if you want, head on over to our website, TheDentalATeam.com for more dental leadership insights.
Dental A Team is truly committed to you thriving in 2025. And if you're like, Hey, I could really benefit from one-on-one of having someone there with me benefiting from a community that started to support you having a structure that, that air quotes forces, but we really do. hold you accountable to it to make sure you're deep diving on your business. Reach out. This is what we do. [email protected] as always. Thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.
-
Tiff and Britt discuss how a practice that was upside down financially picked through their systems with a fine-toothed comb to find success — and how you and your team can avoid this scenario.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:02.146)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back again. I kept Britt today. If you've listened to the other one, that it was a beautiful Friday morning. It's still a beautiful Friday morning. I made her stick around so I could do even more with her today on this podcasting adventure. I know you guys love hearing from Britt and I love chatting with her. So Britt, welcome. Welcome. How was your day? We're rolling into the weekend.
How much fun are you excited to have? You're feeling better, you were sick, you caught what everybody else has had, and I think you get a true weekend, right?
Britt (00:29.812)
everyone.
This weekend should be better than last weekend. Let's just say that. And it is gorgeous out here. So I mean, I might have been slightly annoyed at the birds chirping and I'm like, really? Like waking me up? That's what you're going to be annoyed about. Get over it. It's a nice day outside.
The Dental A Team (00:47.151)
Oh my gosh, okay, Cinderella. I love that. I love that. It is like, it's a week. I keep thinking, gosh, it's like unseasonably warm and like it's not, it's supposed to be 85 degrees next week, FYI, but this time of year, last year was cold. That was the abnormality. This is actually normal for Phoenix. So I keep having to remind myself of that because it is warm, but the birds are chirping. The dogs are barking across the street.
Britt (00:49.486)
I know.
The Dental A Team (01:14.987)
There's people walking by and they they get angry. It's all here and we're here for it. And so if you hear the birds, you hear the cats, you hear the dogs, just know we are a company that fully encompasses the animals. We love them and they're here with us today. So I love it. Well, today's content I'm actually really excited about. wanted to I wanted to take like an excerpt from
Britt (01:28.136)
you
The Dental A Team (01:41.68)
practice that I've worked a ton with over the last few years. are near and dear to my heart. Some of my favorite human beings in the whole world. Trish was on a call with me with them, consultant Trish, and she just, she texts me on the side. She's like, he is the sweetest man. I'm like, he really, really is. They are just such a sweet, sweet human and individuals, but I've taken some journeys with them financially. And with a lot of their, their team members and doctors and stuff. And I wanted to kind of
highlight a piece that we found that I don't think I even like always thought about. And I think those are the spaces that I actually love about consulting is one, a challenge. I always love a challenge and decided like we're doing a steps challenge. I'm like, I'm to win. Like I was already doing it, but now I'm like, I'm for sure doing it. So you challenge me and it's going to work.
Britt (02:28.029)
We're going to
Britt (02:34.419)
Game on.
The Dental A Team (02:35.088)
It is, it is. It works every time. Ask Kira, she says it, she screams it from the mountaintops. It really does work, I don't know why. So I love a challenge, I love learning, and I really love when it's like, oh my gosh, that was so obscure from the normal, and it's so cool to see what we were able to create and figure out. And we all know at this point in the game that we need 98 % collections across the board.
And we all know it's not always that way. And doctors, I really wanted to bring you this information and this story, right? Storytelling time. This story from something that I've witnessed, experienced and worked through because I want you guys to be able to take some tools back to your own practices and implement some things that are actually really easy that not everyone is always doing. So, Britt, you're here with me for this journey and I'm excited because it brings in some of those business pieces.
that I know we love chatting about. So we're gonna chat through some of it and then I wanna bring in your brain on like, how can we implement these things in every single practice? So biggest space walking in to this practice was their overhead. Like their overhead was out of control and they were making massive production for a single doctor to hygiene. They're at like 140 to 160 consistently. And their hygiene department, let's do through some like,
digging, right? I find their hygiene department is like 11 to 15 percent of their production. So this doctor is exhausted. He is just like not able to sleep at night because he's stressed. He's working really hard and their overhead is really high, like almost 80 percent when we started working together, almost 80 percent overhead. You guys, that's before paying him. That's before paying loans. And so they actually had to take loans out.
Britt (04:07.923)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (04:30.884)
to pay bills and pay loans, like this giant cycle, right? This just upside down, stressed mess. And he could not figure it out because production wise, right? He should be okay. But his overhead's almost 80 % and his doing calculations, right? And then like collections is like all over the place. One month, it's like 103%, one month it's 87%.
Then it's like 92 and it's just like jumping all over the place. Like what the heck is going on in this practice? Like the production is fairly consistent, right? But the collections is inconsistent and the overhead is consistently high. So from, I think from many people's standpoint, the number one thing you do, right? I had a doctor yesterday that I was talking to and he's like not as profitable as he wants to be and
I get it and we can make him more profitable working on it, but he's like, okay, so I need to produce more. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't always outproduce the problem, right? And this practice is like that to a T because they are producing really well, but their overhead is still really high. And their collections, again, like they're collecting something, but it's just all over the place. So we had to like really do some...
weird tricks in my opinion. was just like, all right, we're gonna, we're gonna just dig in. We're gonna dive in. We're gonna figure some stuff out. So Brett, what we found one pre collections, right? love pre collects you guys. love pre collects, but what pre collects will do is inflate your collections. And so doctors implement pre collections, a hundred percent implement pre collections. But if you're going to implement when you implement pre collections,
Britt (06:19.931)
Laughter
The Dental A Team (06:21.144)
you have to pre-collect every time, right? So what they were doing is they were pre-collecting on large cases. They were doing full-mouth, like, large cases inconsistently. So they'd have two $50,000 cases in a month pre-collect that's, it's scheduled for next month, right? So they pre-collect for those two cases in January.
They do the cases in February and they don't schedule any cases for March. So then, Britt, what happened to February? Then we've got 103 % collections over here in January and then February is 87 % because we did the production and we didn't pre-collect for new surgeries.
Britt (07:05.713)
your collections are ahead of your production because you're ahead of time, a month ahead of time even.
The Dental A Team (07:08.795)
Yes.
a month ahead of time. And they were so upside down financially that the pre-collects were being used to pay bills. And so they'd pay down, they'd even pay down their loan that they got to pay bills. And then they'd have a low collections month and they'd have to use the loan, which I think personally, all of us have probably been in that situation in our personal lives at one point or another.
Britt (07:22.851)
Mmm.
The Dental A Team (07:39.046)
And it's always interesting to me the parallels there, because we like to think of business and personal finances so differently, but they are parallel. guys, money is money, business is business, life is life. But anyways, so then we figured out, okay, let's start pulling this money. So you pre-collect, you pull it, and you put it in a different bank account. So we started building their buckets, right? Their profit first style buckets without doing real profit first, because we couldn't. So we're...
Britt (07:41.651)
you
Britt (08:05.099)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (08:07.868)
pulling this money, planning for it, right? We're prepping for profit first. So we've got these buckets and I've got them starting to pull for lab because they were getting heat up, like, honestly, sometimes it was like 20 % lab bills. So we had to pull aside all this stuff and it was so fantastic to see the money moving in the right directions because it cleared things out of the way. And then we would like add it back in.
Britt (08:08.101)
of
The Dental A Team (08:35.6)
the month that we needed it, blah, blah, blah. So we were doing this like money moving, but the biggest piece of all that was like, okay, you guys level out your pre collects. You're going to be fine. Make sure you move the money. Make sure you've got the lab bills, lab expenses covered in a different account. The biggest piece of all Britt that blew my mind and the team found it. The team found it on their own as we're moving this money around. They're like separating it on my KPI sheet. have for them. So I'm like, okay, this is your collections.
This was your pre-collect. So this is your true collections. Your pre-collect were, that's gone. That's for next month. That's next month's money. This is your true collections. Their true collections tanked. And they're like, well, Tiff, we're actually, I'm seeing we're not actually collecting a lot over the counter. Like, well, that doesn't make any sense. What do mean you're not collecting? Like, so then collect, like get the money. And they said, well, everyone has credits on their accounts.
Britt (09:09.552)
Thank
The Dental A Team (09:34.066)
They found it. So the previous billing manager and treatment coordinator and front office total wasn't putting information into the system correctly or at all, right? They didn't have the insurance fee schedules in there. So we had already worked through a lot of that, right? The fee schedules, making sure all the insurance, making sure what goes out was correct because it was incorrect. That was already been, we've been solving that. But what
happened is she was guesstimating off of UCR, taking like 20 % ish off of UCR for treatment plans and collect over collecting for patients. then when insurance, which is great, I'd rather over collect than under collect. If you're going to pay attention to your credits and give credits back. We were not paying attention to the credits. And so Britt, all of these patients just like
Britt (10:17.875)
huh.
Britt (10:22.393)
Yes.
The Dental A Team (10:30.932)
thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in credits of patients who were coming in. We had the treatment, we had the production, but we had already had the collection. So this is where it's like, truth be told, you cannot out-produce your overhead. Because if you produce and you've got $100,000 in collection or in credits, right? All of these patients are coming in for fillings and it's like a $56 copay, they've got $300 credit.
working away on on their account. So the money's already been there. The money's already paid the bills. They had to then on our KPI, I'm like, okay, well, we're going to do another column. Next column is like, how many patients, what was the amount of credits that you use today so that if we had collected it, I need to see from a financial standpoint, I need to be able to see if we had collected it, could, would our overhead be okay? Is the overhead issue because we can't collect that money or is it because we
Britt (11:10.318)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (11:29.616)
need to produce and collect more. So it was so hard to like see all of the pieces because there was so much chaos in the accounts that was so like hard to find. did an incredible job keying into tip. think it's the credits and I was like, my gosh, you just blew my mind, right? Like I didn't even think of this. I thought for sure the pre collects, like let's level those out. Let's always pre collect on everything. We changed that model.
Britt (11:44.945)
Yeah. Yeah.
The Dental A Team (11:56.072)
but that was only adding now to the credits. So it was like, holy cow, but it was really cool, Brett, to be able to see that's one layer that I think a lot of practices and a lot of practice owners forget to look at, right? We look at our AR, we look at our production, our collections, our new patients. We never really truly look at our credits. And these credits had our overhead at like 80 % and our collections was literally like,
Britt (11:58.928)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (12:24.18)
87 to 95 on a really like good month of no surgeries pre-scheduled. So it was wild to see, but then once we started accounting for that, it took about a year to really truly get through all of those credits or most of those credits that were coming in. So it took about a year, but being able to visually see on the overhead spreadsheets, on the KPIs, all of the money and where it was going, what it was allocated to helped them to be able to see
where they needed to move money to, pull money to, what needed to be done. He could project like, how long do I have to work this hard? Because he's got to produce as much as he can to get through the credits, plus get some collections in. So he truly had to just work his tail off for this year to really dial back some of those issues. But it was really fun to see, okay, these are all of the spaces that you've got to make sure you're paying attention to.
especially because, I think we've all experienced this. I mean, I did in practice too. I'm like, the billing rep has got it, right? So many owner doctors, that's, you want to be able to, and I'm not saying you can't trust, right? But human error is a thing and we don't always know what we don't know. And I think that this gal just didn't know how to do it any other way. So she was doing it the best she could and honestly, like more money, the better. So if you're going to, I want you to collect more.
if that's an opportunity, but we have to be able to give it back. Like we have to be able to watch those. So I'd rather over collect than have to track somebody down for a bill. Right. I totally agree with that theory, but if we're not watching it though, like it's wild. So Britt from business standpoint, right. We've got all of these moving pieces, like from a business standpoint, if this doctor or a doctor who might be in a similar situation, right. They're like nearing
Britt (14:03.431)
Agreed.
The Dental A Team (14:20.792)
what they thought was going to be retirement, right? They thought they were getting there. Now their business is like spiraling. I mean, I did, you know, I did my digging. We did it. We got through it. It took a while. The next year, like we decreased their overhead by 10 % in that year. The next year, we decreased it again, almost another 10%. Like they're down to like 55 to 60 % overhead. At this point, they're freaking
Swim and they're doing fantastic. Their team is doing great. They're able to do great things with their team and with their family. So we did it. But from a business standpoint, we had to get a lot of help in there, a lot of CPA and financial advisors and things. But from your perspective, just on the outside hearing that, what would you tackle or what would you tell a doctor? Implement this right now so that you know if these things are happening. Like how would a doctor
from your standpoint, and if you were, I'm the doctor and you're the consultant, what would you tell me to be watching and be prepped for so that I don't fall into a situation like that?
Britt (15:20.657)
laughter
Britt (15:28.113)
Yeah, and number one, think this is like one of great scenario tips. Like these are the things that consultants love puzzles. So like this is one of those that it's like, there's something, I know it is, we're gonna find it, but we gotta figure out what exactly is happening in a scenario. And this is, think, one example of sometimes situations that doctors can find themselves in where it's like, okay, shoot, we figured something out and yeah, that's
The Dental A Team (15:37.048)
Mm-hmm.
Britt (15:58.128)
sucks. It's crappy, right? And we lived the high life for a while, but we spent money that really wasn't our stuff for a little while. So now we've got to work through this in between period and get it filled a squeeze because it's like, all right, we are now collecting the more accurate amount and we're using up these credits. So that is why our cash flow is struggling big time right now. And so I think what I would tell doctors from that end is
The Dental A Team (15:59.362)
Yeah. Yeah.
The Dental A Team (16:06.604)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (16:19.801)
Listen.
Britt (16:25.683)
I think you've got to watch all the pieces and the real numbers. think a lot of times, right, especially with credits, like, it's like the, the like thing we don't talk about. It's like the terrible awful that it's like, man, we're just going to be like, we know it's over there, but we're just going to kind of ignore that it exists unless someone asks about it. then we'll look at it. And the better way to do it to avoid
The Dental A Team (16:45.069)
Yup.
Britt (16:50.887)
pitfalls like this is of course watch it like there's always going to be some over there yes and have a process for handling your credits to where One credit should always be audited before we're refunding make sure it's actually due to that patient before we refund it because that's also a scenario I've seen where it hits us on the cash flow side if we just refund and Sometimes there's an arrow error and it's not actually theirs. So I think watching your credits
Having a process for how we handle credits for a couple of reasons, cashflow reasons, and also know the laws of your state, like fun surprise if you don't know already. Each state treasury has laws on credits and how those should be handled. So make yourself aware of those and then create your system to meet your clients with it. And with that, it's usually great by x.
date, like if it's a credit higher than X amount, you have to like do your part to try to notify that patient. And then sometimes once it gets old enough, you've got to pay that to treasury like fun fact, also go look up your name to see if you've got any credits sitting out there that I do back to you. And like that's the proper way to go through it. So have a system for it. And I think don't be afraid of refunds. Yes, we always want to try to schedule appointments, get treatment time.
The Dental A Team (17:57.498)
So.
Britt (18:11.367)
Get them to use it. Like that is my ultimate goal is get them to use it in the office. But if not, make sure you've got a process because then it's more digestible amounts to refund instead of like big amounts that hit you when they're surprises. Surprises aren't fun. So as much as we can avoid surprises, let's do it and have a process for it. Now, if you're in a scenario like this doctor was where there's a lot of sitting out there, strategize how we can handle that. Cause we can't just go refund a hundred thousand dollars all at once.
The Dental A Team (18:12.942)
Go.
The Dental A Team (18:21.336)
Mm-hmm.
Britt (18:40.933)
So come up with a plan that's manageable that you can handle with your cashflow that you have to be able to work on getting that into a good place. And that's a lot of times with these things. takes, usually things take at least six months in a dental office, right? Big things like this, it's usually at least six months to put an FX into play, if not a year. So know that sometimes when you find these things are right, we start to put the fixes into play and then we start to clean up what's been there and it can take a little bit of time.
The Dental A Team (18:41.046)
Okay.
The Dental A Team (18:55.864)
Mm-hmm.
The Dental A Team (19:10.16)
Yeah, I agree. love all that. think I love the tertiary comments. I totally go figure it out guys. And most practices I think on that note will give like, well, I know for me when I was office manager of my practice, I had like a certain amount that was allocated every month for refunds. So I'd have 3000 or 5000 or whatever it was that was like, okay, this is what I have allocated that I can give back as refunds this month and the next.
Britt (19:16.411)
No.
The Dental A Team (19:36.078)
If another one came in, was like, cool, I'm gonna hit it next week, because it's next month or whatever that was, like that'll go into next month. So make sure you do have that solid plan. And I love all of that and make sure you're looking at it. I think that's the biggest piece here that Britt's highlighted. Just make sure you're pulling those. I think production collections, new patients, like those are making sure we're thriving. Your active patient count, we talk about those all the time. Those are the ones that like, yes, let's make sure we're thriving. Our AR, our insurance AR and our patient AR, so it's outstanding money.
But that AR can get super skewed, you guys, if you've got money sitting over in credits, because your AR total, usually, unless you click the little button that says not including credits, will deduct the credits from the total. So your AR might say, like, our total AR is $68,000, and you're like, I'm freaking killing it, right? And you could be, and that's totally fair. But make sure it's not deducting $50,000 of credits sitting over there.
Britt (20:27.059)
You
The Dental A Team (20:32.847)
that need to be addressed as well. I want you to...
Britt (20:35.155)
which is a good point if I think on knowing how your system does things. And that's why sometimes it's not as easy to see. I've even seen some where it's allocation issues, right? And skew things a little bit as well. So yeah, good point on knowing how your system accounts for things.
The Dental A Team (20:38.629)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (20:45.125)
Mm-hmm.
The Dental A Team (20:51.453)
Yeah, yeah, I've done it myself, like not clicked that little button and been like, oh, we're good this month. And then I'm like, wait, where are all these credits coming in from? As an as a manager, these are all things that I had to learn. Because again, you guys, unless you have a professional by your side, there's not a really great like go to school to be a dental, you know, professional like dentistry dentist, hygienist, dental assisting schools. I'll add those in there.
Britt (21:18.122)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (21:19.405)
haphazardly adding those in there, right? There's not a place for the front office, really, unless you have a coach or a consultant or someone who is able to train them on the things that we've learned across the board, across learning all of the things. There's business classes that a lot of us have taken. Britt's got freaking so much, so many beautiful degrees behind her name. Like, there's so much that can come from that, but there's so much that can be missed because we're literally just learning from the person who was in front of us and we're teaching ourselves. So just make sure.
Britt (21:37.572)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (21:49.37)
You know your stuff, you know how your system works, you know what your numbers mean. And if you have any doubts or suspicions or you're just like, gosh, I just want to make sure we're doing the best that we can reach out. You guys were here for it, whether you're a future client or you're like, I just need free information. Like you guys, we built this company on serving the dental community in the best ways we possibly can. And we will stay true to that. So reach out any questions you have. [email protected]
I'm gonna put this caveat in there. We're not super pros at your dental software, but we can help you find the information and we can tell you what you should be looking for and what the stats should be. So reach out, you guys. Number one piece of information today, your number one to do, go figure out what your actual numbers are and figure out how your system is reporting them. Add them into your conversations with your office manager, your KPI reports, making sure that you're looking at those monthly, okay? Britt.
Thank you so much for taking this journey with me today. I love this. I told you like every time I'm like, okay, I'm gearing up. We're gonna figure this out. And it's just so much fun. I have so much fun with all with all of Dental A Teams clients in general. We have some of the most amazing people who partner up with us and team up with us. But I am partial to my clients. You know, I do. I have some incredible people that I get to talk to every single day. So.
Britt (22:47.027)
There's a fun one.
The Dental A Team (23:10.995)
Thank you for taking the journey with me. [email protected] you guys for any information. TheDentalATeam.com there's all kinds of stuff on there. There's all kinds of free resources and you guys we do these fun practice assessments where we really help dial in on areas that you should be focused in on. These are free free information. It's a free what I think hour with our team. So I don't know why you wouldn't sign up for that. If you're a client you guys just text your consultant. I promise you they'll hop on a call so.
That's that. Leave us a five star review. can't wait to hear how much value you took from today's conversation. Britt, thank you so much for giving me your time today. It means a lot to me. And everyone will catch you next time.
-
Kiera walks listeners through five steps to understanding a profit and loss statement:
Know the structure
Follow the revenue streams
Track your spending
Calculate the ratios
Set financial goals
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript
Kiera Dent (00:03.726)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I just wanted to empower you with, if you're in the boat of struggling to understand your P &L, struggling to understand how to truly master your dental finances, you're not alone. This is common. This is what I'm obsessed with helping dental practices truly understand. And today I want to break it down into five simple steps to give you clarity, control, to really be able to understand your dental practice finances. So today,
I just wanted to let you know that when you understand your PNL, which is a profit and loss statement, it helps you just be able to know which metrics to move to understand how can I actually create better decisions to feel more empowered with my numbers. And so I want you just to know that there's five simple steps that I've learned that I wanted to bring to you to really help you understand this and to this year maybe embody the identity of I am a.
money master or I am a finance master or whatever it is where you really take control because at Dental A Team when we consult our practices we have hundreds of offices and we work virtually we work in person we work one-on-one we work group style but I found that like one of the biggest stressors for dentists is not understanding like how does the money work we understand the dental we don't understand the team per se front office is like I don't know but it's really like where is my money and how do I actually make my money work for me
And so understanding that, what does it mean to be profitable? We have overhead calculators, we have profitability scorecards for you that I really love helping our clients with. But really it's like, let me just break it down into the nuts and bolts. I am not a CPA. I will have that disclaimer out there. I just am going to break it down of like, how do I become a financial master? So today let's break it down into step one is understand the structure of your PNL. So a PNL is broken down into basically like our, our revenue, so our collections, and then our expenses from there.
and then that breaks it down into profit. Now, something that always gets a little funny is debt services. And if we've got loans or student loans or practice loans, sometimes those are associated with our P &L, other times they're not. And what we really care about as owners is cash, right? We want the cashflow, we wanna understand where that's at. And so if you understand that it's broken down into this where we've got money coming in, so those are our collections, we need to make sure our collections sit at 98%. So we produce, we collect money.
Kiera Dent (02:21.654)
those collections and then we spend money of our expenses. So payroll, rent, utilities, supplies, all of that paying you as a doctor as well. And then from there we have what's called our profit. And then after that we have our debt services and then that's our cashflow, but also cashflow then there's taxes that come out of it. And I think when you understand that instead of it being like, I don't have any money. We just understand that this is where it goes. And so if we're not tracked, if we're not tracking it, what happens is we're spending money.
We're spending more than we need. Like I had an office and they weren't tracking their supply spend. And so what happened is they were spending about 30,000 a month in one location. They're spending about $5,000 a month in another location. There's a discrepancy, but they didn't even realize that they were having this discrepancy until we started looking at their PNL. So once you start to monitor it, then we can actually get our supplies into more of like a 4 % of total collection. So if we're collecting a hundred thousand, 4 % of that would be $4,000. That's what we're allowed to spend for that month on supplies.
Well, now we have the budget. Now we can get it in alignment. We can actually track it and lean it down. Another officer looking at their P &Ls are doing it. They were at an 85 % overhead at the beginning of the year. By the end of the year, they were coming in at a 53 % overhead. So to me, it's just a math equation. One plus one equals two. How do we, we have money coming in, subtract the things we spend. We have profit leftover from there. We have our debt services and our tax that gives us our true cash at the end of it. So then number two is we got to focus on
What are the ways that we actually bring production and collections to the practice case? We've got our PNL. We understand how that's broken down. I also want you to know there's a chart of accounts that you can change that up. But step number two is we've got to focus on the revenue streams or the production of how do we actually get money on the books to be able to collect that? Are we being profitable in that zone? So there's different ways that we do this. So like hygiene, restorative, ortho, cosmetic, like different ways that we do it. And some offices actually like to track this and break it down. And you can actually put this on your PNL.
You can literally put down how much production has come from restorative, how much production comes from hygiene, how much production comes from ortho, and then you can break down the collections that we have from that as well. So this is something really awesome to see how much of my practice is hygiene, how much of my practice is on implants or all on fours, how much of my practice is ortho. I have a pediatric practice and they really love to track their ortho amount of it because they want to see how much of their practice is truly ortho. Do we need to spend more marketing money there or do we not? This really helps you be able to see
Kiera Dent (04:45.64)
What services should we continue? Which ones are the highest revenue? Do we need to change our fees on it? Do we need to look at different ways to break this down? It's really, really, really fun. And so then I can look at what promos we put in the practice. Where do I put my blocks? What block scheduling do I need to have more of? What marketing do I need to spend to make sure we're getting the correct revenue or production streams of the correct patients? We're treatment planning it. We look at our treatment tracker to see, are we actually bringing this in? We can actually increase profitability without needing more patients if we follow this. So
A quick action item on that is maybe talking to your CPA about breaking down your revenue by services of what's coming into the practice to see where most of your income is actually coming from in the practice. Super enlightening when you start to look at this. Step three is now going to be looking at what we're spending. OK. And on the chart of accounts, if it's not broken down, you can ask your CPA to break it down. I've mentioned on prior podcasts that we were spending about fifteen thousand dollars on hiring once upon a time, but I didn't even know that's how much I was spending.
This last year, they had all of my marketing lumped into one. So I actually asked them to break it out. How much am I spending on the website? How much am I spending on events? How much am I spending on our ads that we're running? All these different little pieces, because I wanted to get more granular and understand where are the dollars going and what, if I spend a dollar, it coming back to me and what is it? So thanks for you on looking at your expenses. We usually have payroll, we have rent, we have supplies, we have labs, other things. We have our marketing, CE, consulting. We're going to want to look at
Maybe you have our associate doctors on there, but what are these different pieces and payroll? Oftentimes it's all the fringe benefits that go on to it as well. So making sure are the additional pieces of like our 401ks and our health benefits. What is all that going? Cause that does go into payroll. What's our payroll tax on that employee? Gosh, that was a fun day when I learned like what? So this also just helps you look at it. And then what we want to do is we want to look to see, there ways that we can cut costs? So going back to that example of cutting supplies,
Well, this office was just ordering through one supplier. There's companies like Ordo or Synergy or different group buying areas where you can still go through your same preferred vendor, but we can just get it on a discount rate. So for example, kind of like using Costco, like I can go and buy my, I thought Costco was ridiculous on their rotisserie chickens. Like they're $5 or I can go to Safeway and spend $9. I'm still getting a rotisserie chicken. It's just how much am I spending for it?
Kiera Dent (07:10.742)
Now I get that food's a little bit of a funny analogy because food is not equal across all stores. So let's do something a little bit easier. I could spend, you know, I can have my car insurance, like again, through Costco versus through someone else. We're just trying to get our reduced costs, still getting the same quality, but could we reduce those costs? Other times just giving a budget, me realizing that I'm spending 15 grand on hiring. Well, there's a great company called Viva HR. If you do Viva HR slash Dental A Team or just DM me or
email us [email protected] literally spend $100 a month on unlimited ads. So took a $15,000 spend down to a $1,200 spend right there. I freed up over 10 grand. I mean, we're talking more like 13 grand that I was able to then save and allocate somewhere else just by switching that one thing. I'm still doing the same thing. I'm still posting the same ads. I just use Viva HR rather than spending it on indeed, but I never would have known that if I would have been tracking this.
So this is where can we look at it? So what I recommend, and we haven't broken down into percentages on our overhead calculator that we've created for our clients, but you wanna categorize your expenses and look for areas where we can cut unnecessary costs. And also what's the percentage of our total collections that we're collecting that we can actually minimize and make sure that we're with the alignment of what's recommended. So for example, like I said, supplies are usually at 4%. Payroll is between 25 to 30%. So making it get all the way down, but also,
Those percentages are just baselines. If you want more profitability, can we shave a half our percentage? Can we shave 1 % and still maintain the quality of our practice? That's a question for you to answer, but great ways to analyze this. So that would be action item on this is let's categorize your expenses, look to see where we can cut, look to see the percentages to make sure what is in there. Is it allocated correctly? Meaning did they put actual supplies in supplies or did I get labs in there as well so that when my numbers are wrong and what other ways can I change that?
Okay, step four is now we wanna calculate our ratios. So on that, we're going to wanna figure out like, what is our profit margin? What's our payroll ratios? Like I was saying of those percentages, this is now where we break it down. If I'm spending $10,000 on payroll out of 100,000, well, that's a great gig and I probably don't have enough people on there and I have space within, because I'm only at 10 % and I could go up to 30 % again, depending upon what I want my profit margin to be.
Kiera Dent (09:33.39)
I target with all expenses paid for offices to be a 20 or 30 % profit margin. So that means, cause overhead and profit get a little funny, overhead means all of our expenses, I like you to hit around a 50%. So if I've collected a hundred grand, I don't want you spending more than about 50,000. That leaves 50,000 here. We pay our doctors here. The goal is to leave about 20 to 30 grand if we're on this hundred thousand collection practice of true profit. Now of that profit, we, like I said, you can have debt services there and also taxes.
and depending upon the tax bracket you're in, that can actually make a pretty big difference. If I'm collecting 20 grand, I'm really not collecting 20 grand because I owe taxes on that. So that's a big asterisk around cashflow of how to master this and how to look at this, but making sure we're at the correct percentages for it to then gauge where are we at. So figure out what your, what our costs are, get them in in the pieces, and then figure out the percentages of each one of them, making sure that we're actually at the correct ratio.
of what it should be. In Dental A Team we're high on payroll because the bulk of our company is team. I don't have a physical location. I don't have a place that goes. Our product is our consulting. So my payroll is much higher than 30%. I pay a lot in payroll, but that's also, that's my product for you. have a lot of product in your practice of the supplies that go into it. We don't really have a lot of supplies that go into ours. I have a lot of software that I spend on. So everyone's going to be a little bit different, but we do have categories for dentists that we recommend.
Like I said, payroll 25 to 30 % supplies at 4%. Labs are 9 % combined together. Those are between 13 to 14%, especially if you're on an implant practice marketing. If you're growing, it can go all the way up to 5 to 7%. If you're lower, it should be a 2 to 3 % again, pending upon your goals and also pending upon where we want our profit margins to be. I really love my doctors to be paid at least a 30 % and they're also can get in to a little variable of do we pay our doctors as associates if you're an owner or not?
Kiera's opinion, and I know, like I said, I'm not a CPA. My opinion is I like to help practices exit out of the practice if they want to. Meaning, if you want to own your practice and not have it dependent upon you, that's what I like to grow for offices. So they have the option if they want to, or if any life circumstances happen, they're not handcuffed of, I don't have anything else I can do because I'm no longer practicing dentistry. To me, that's a very scary spot to be in. So what I do like to do is pay my dentist as an associate and as an owner.
Kiera Dent (11:56.386)
because that way if I ever want to replace my doctor, I already have on my P &L paying them as an associate, not just as an owner or actually taking $0, which often happens because of distribution. Now your CPA can help you advise on tax strategy because there are strategies of how much you quote unquote pay yourself. But the way we have it is we just break it down and you don't necessarily have to run it through payroll. We're just making sure that our P &L matches so we know how much profit we'd have if any life circumstances happen to you.
All right, and now step five for you. Step five is we wanna set financial goals and track our progress. So like I said, where are you wanting to be on your profit margin? Do you wanna be, where are we at baseline today and then where do you wanna get to? And then we look at the pieces for it. Just like on a family budget, if we say we wanna save for a car or we wanna save for Disneyland or we wanna go on a trip to the Bahamas, well, now we start to save and we start looking at our expenses of well, what could we eliminate? Maybe we don't need Netflix anymore. Maybe we don't need a DoorDash. Maybe we don't need internet. Maybe we need to...
add an extra job to it to be able to pay for this. But it's the same thing in a practice. If we want to have profitability or we want to have long-term financial success or we want to be set up for financial freedom, what do I need my business to profit to be able to go after it? And how do I look at this? So then we look for how can I increase my production of higher revenue generating pieces that we enjoy doing? Maybe All On X, maybe Ortho, maybe same day crowns, whatever it is for you, how can we add more of that to our schedule?
How can we decrease the expenses or be smarter instead of just paying straight through a supplier? Could we work with a bigger supply company, like I mentioned, kind of like Costco and get a discounted rate for that? Could I do that and save money on things I'm already buying? And then we're gonna wanna make sure we get those profit target margins, the percentages, based on the industry benchmarks, like I mentioned to you, to really be able to grow for this. And so it's really fun if we look at those little items,
It just becomes a shave of a half a percentage here, a 1 % there, a couple dollars here, increasing our production, using better block scheduling that really makes us where we then are tracking our progress. And it's really fun when you can get an office manager and a leadership team bought into this with you as well, which is why we share it on the podcast, because when they're all tracking and they're all aligned and we know what our profit margins need to be, it becomes much easier. And so if there was a practice,
Kiera Dent (14:17.262)
Like I said, we track with them quarterly, we're watching it they went from that 85 % overhead all the way down to 53%. Well, let me just do some simple math for you. Pretend that practice was only, let's say that they collected a million dollars that year, okay? So they did a million and that they were at an 85 % overhead. That would mean that on a million dollars, and let's say a million was true profit. So we've got a million, we've got 85 % overhead. That practice was collecting or like take home.
not including tax and all the other things, 150,000 out of a million. Now I understand. Now, if they're able to go, that was an 85 % overhead. If they go, so still a million dollar practice, down to 53 % overhead, what that does is that actually moves them into 530,000 is now their costs, right? Did you follow my math on that? 530,000. if they, and from there, so that means they're taking home 470,000.
That just simple shift, they didn't increase their production. They just reduced their expenses. Again, a million dollar practice, 150 to 470. That's a really big swing. You don't have to do anything more. We just had to be smarter with our dollars. So when you look at that and you think about that, that's where numbers get really fun for me. And that's where I love to empower doctors, leadership teams to how can we actually achieve this? So my goal for you would be let's set a financial goal for the next quarter.
Based on your P &L review, do we wanna cut down our supplies? Do we wanna increase our production? Do we wanna add our block schedules? What do we wanna do in there? Because this then will literally help you exponentially grow to your financial freedom. So as a quick recap of these five simple steps are one, understand the structure of your P &L. Two, focus on the revenue or production streams that we can add in. Three, analyze our expenses. Four, calculate the ratio. So again, the percentages of them and get those into industry standards.
And five, set financial goals to track the progress and actually see where we want to be. It's such fun for me because this is how you actually are able to exponentially have your business work for you. You not working for your business. You don't have to do more work. You don't have to more patient flow. None of those things. We just have to be smarter with how we're utilizing our money, how we're collecting collections, impact that how we're spending our money, making sure we've got budgets in place for our team. Teams will follow suit. We just need to get this set up for them. So this is where it's really fun. And honestly, you understanding your PNL.
Kiera Dent (16:43.158)
It allows you to just make informed decisions, increase your profitability, AKA take home pay and grow your dental practice. And then the next step of this will be how do we actually keep the money that we're making that becomes so fun. So I'm happy to go through this. If you guys want, I can go through a PNL piece with you. [email protected] or go to our website and just book a call. We can do a practice assessment with you, totally free complimentary on my side because this is really where I love to just truly empower doctors and owners to take.
the like bull by the horns, you're already doing the dentistry. Let's have you now be compensated for that and do it in a fun way where you now feel like you were in financial control for yourself. So this is literally what the Dental A Team does in consulting. If this is helpful for you, you want one on one help, you want us to dive into your practice more in depth. Like I said, we have that complimentary assessment for you. Click the link or come work with us. I'd love to have you because this would really be a zone. You can DM us on social media, the Dental A team. So Dental A team is our hashtag.
or you can email us [email protected] This is truly the zone though. Become a financial master this year. You will be so happy that you did this. This is a gift you can give yourself. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.
-
Even if retirement is a long, long way off, it’s important to have an exit strategy ready to go. Tiff and Britt discuss both the emotional and business sides of things of making sure your practice is in order, including debt awareness, numbers in different scenarios, passive income possibilities, and more.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript
The Dental A Team (00:01.588)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I'm so excited to be here this morning. I don't know what time it is while you're listening here, but today it is a beautiful sunny Friday morning that I'm recording here with Britt. The one and only when I get her on these podcasts, I just soak it all up because I don't schedule her often. It's few and far Between. She's a busy lady. So, Britt, thank you so much for being here with me this Friday morning, and we are just kicking off the weekend in the right headspace.
And I'm so excited to chat these contents with you today. How are you, Britt?
Britt (00:33.486)
I'm doing great, Tiff. Thanks for having me on. You know, it's always like hangout time for us consultants, even though, yes, hopefully are providing value to all our listeners. That's our ultimate goal, but it's fun for us to get to chat about these things.
The Dental A Team (00:46.145)
I agree. I agree. had asked Kristy yesterday, I just messaged her, I'm like, how are you doing? Our consultant, Kristy, you guys know her. And I'm like, how can I support you? Like, how are things going? And she's like, I just missed my Tiff time. And my response was, we've got podcasting soon. So.
Britt (01:01.518)
Exactly.
The Dental A Team (01:07.913)
I like our one on ones. You guys, tell you to do monthly one on ones just so you know, we do monthly one on ones in our company. And then our podcasting time. I'm like, gosh dang it. actually, for a virtual company, I think we do fairly decent, but I love these podcasting hours. I'm excited today because just in case no one understands or knows this already, if you know, no BS, Britt is gonna call you today.
Britt (01:09.537)
you
The Dental A Team (01:34.209)
You know, Brit, you know that she's got a, like this business sense that she just knows. Like, you know, there's just things in life you just know. You just intuitively know, you're like, I don't know, it just makes sense to me. That's business for Brit. And I love watching you just work in that zone for our company, but then also for the clients that you've worked with and helping us consultants just learn so much more about that business side.
And today, your idea was so brilliant. That's what I'm saying, like your business. I'm like, leadership. And she's like, actually, let's talk about this. And I really wanted to bring Britt on today to pick her mind on how you doctors, you practice owners can really start preparing for your exit. know Dana and I've talked about this before and really talked about, even if you don't think, you're like, Tiff, I'm not.
I'm not leaving, like I just started. You're like fantastic, but you should always be prepping and planning for your exit because you just need never know when you're going to be like, I want a sabbatical and you're up and I don't want to my practice anymore. So you should always be prepping and planning for that. And my ideas, know, Britt's like, no, let's talk about this. I think it's brilliant. So we really, really want to take a look at the business side and how you can not only prep emotionally with your
leadership team with your ops manual. We already talked about a lot of that stuff on another podcast and Britt here is gonna bring us some information on really how to prep the business side. How do you prep your finances? How do you make sure that your practice is sellable? What are the pieces that that actually entails? And how do you make sure that you have it in order? I love to tell doctors all the time, evaluate your practice constantly, because you just wanna know. It's like never knowing the value and the worth of your home. I know my...
My lending team and my realtor team, they send me evaluations of my home every six months by email. And it's just really cool to see where the market's at. And so I think taking that mindset and applying it to your business is also really fantastic. So Britt, I'm excited for today. I know the listeners are excited today. I actually, know personally because I hear it and I think you need to hear this today.
Britt (03:20.834)
Yeah.
Britt (03:41.358)
Thank
The Dental A Team (03:41.983)
I actually hear from a lot of our listeners and a lot of my clients who listen how excited they get when you do come on. So I do want you to know that. I know it's not your favorite space. know you don't love that on a public forum, but I think it's really fantastic and you just bring such a wealth of knowledge. what do you see being like the biggest pieces that's like, let's start easy, let's start simple.
Britt (03:51.214)
Thanks, Ted.
The Dental A Team (04:09.099)
and then expand and really dive into like nitty gritties. So where do you see on like an umbrella scope of overarching, this would be a really great place to start to really start prepping your business for an owner's exit, whether they're dental or not.
Britt (04:23.33)
Yeah. So I kind of have the mindset, right? There's always, lots of things that go through my head, but working with clients and I tell them this, I'm like, ultimately, I always want you to be thinking about your business as like, it is truly an asset to you and what is the value of that asset that you have for, you know, so that it can be worth as much as possible whenever it is that you decide to sell it. So like even starting from the beginning of your career,
The Dental A Team (04:49.622)
Mm-hmm.
Britt (04:53.07)
Kind of knowing long-term goals even. I think we've seen probably to have plenty of people who even fresh out of school go into a lot of debt, like they're already in debt and they go into a lot of debt when it comes to purchasing a practice. like even when you're going into purchase a practice thinking about, right, what are my long-term goals? How long might it take for me to pay this off?
The Dental A Team (05:06.755)
Thanks.
Britt (05:13.762)
you know, how much value equity am I going to have within this business even? And just start having that in mind because I think it helps to guide your decisions knowing that like, yeah, sometimes we're going to make a big investment and say, yeah, I'm in this for the next 15 years for sure. No problem whatsoever. Awesome. Take on something that you know that at the end of 15 years that you're going to be able to have it in a spot to where great, that's going to be a fantastic asset. And then whether I actually want
The Dental A Team (05:23.9)
Thank you.
Britt (05:42.966)
to move on or retire in 15 years or whether I decide to stay here, totally fine. You're in a fantastic spot to have the ability to make that decision, whatever way you want to go. So I think starting from the beginning, always thinking of your business in that way. And so of course, that's what we do with a lot of practices, right? Like ultimately, when we want to grow it, we want to grow your bottom line, right? Profit at the end of the day. And when it comes to thinking of the value of your practice, kind of like
debt to EBITDA multiplier, right? So like ultimately when you sell EBITDA is the thing we want to focus on. And so really making sure that we're driving that profitability while you're still able to live a comfortable life, obviously, and take care of everything you need in the practice, but always working to grow that profit and grow that EBITDA so that your value of your practice, you kind of always have an idea of where it's at.
The Dental A Team (06:14.327)
Mm-hmm.
The Dental A Team (06:25.564)
Yeah.
Britt (06:37.216)
I would say check in from time to time even to say, great, how much debt do I still have left? What would my practice be worth? What could I walk away with maybe as far as selling it? What the value would be to me? I think those are some things just to kind of think about in the background and start to look at some of those numbers. The other thing I think it comes down to is sometimes I'll have clients come to me or even on sales calls come in and they're like, well, think I want to sell. I'm not sure. I want to be able to retire. And I'm like, have you
Do you know what you need to retire? Like, do you know what you want that life to look like? Because honestly, that's even the first step. So I know, all right, will the value out of this practice that I will have in 15 years based on what I've paid off, what it's potentially worth, is that enough for me to have the life that I want? Or am I going to get that point and be stuck? I think that's ultimately, I don't want anybody to feel like, my gosh, I'm stuck.
The Dental A Team (07:07.269)
.
The Dental A Team (07:15.204)
Thanks.
Britt (07:31.852)
and they have to keep going and they're not happy. I want you to be happy in the position and feel like you've got choices. So I think that kind of overarching view of things. So ultimately, always think about your business as an asset, right? Make decisions accordingly, financially on that end. And then also have an idea of when you might want to retire, right? Or how long you may need to work in order to retire in the fashion that you want to be able to retire.
Because again, that's just, I think, mindset for you and also mindset around decisions you make for the business. Because if I might want to sell at that time or I might want to transition to associates and still be an owner, cut back days, whatever it may be, if I kind of have a point of where I'm wanting to sell, I'm to make some decisions accordingly along the way to where I want my like peak value point to ultimately line up with when I might be ready to sell.
And so that's going to impact how much debt am I taking on, right? At what points do I want to move to another big building that's going to put me in a bunch of debt? Or I'm so close to that point, let's just crank up however much we can make this practice worth so it's ready to sell when I want to. Those are some of the big picture things in my mind that kind of play into long-term view.
The Dental A Team (08:29.337)
Mm-hmm.
Britt (08:54.606)
current decisions even from the get go of buying a practice and then as you make decisions, you know, along the way throughout your career, always making sure that you keep that
The Dental A Team (09:05.269)
Sure, thank you. Question, said to really be watching your EBITDA, will you, for the public here, just explain why and what EBITDA is and how they should be evaluating that monthly in comparison, right? Because we look at overhead and we look at profit, but then EBITDA is like the separate piece that you need to know, but it's not the profit debt. It's not all encompassing that you actually need to know to move forward with your...
today, but it's Ibara. Will you explain the difference there? Because I think a lot of people get stuck on Ibara, number one, and the definition of it, but then a lot of people get stuck on only focusing on that, but then they miss these other pieces over here and vice versa, look only at these pieces and never at Ibara. So can you just explain what Ibara is and how it plays a role coinciding with overhead profit and the month-to-month movements, but not being your sole focus?
Britt (09:59.522)
Good questions. And there's some other like detailed things I'll talk about when it comes to like when you're actually starting to like get more to that point where you're thinking more seriously. Some things I play around with even on the PNL, I'm playing around with numbers to start to prepare yourself for what that will look like. And like even a yes, there's a long term definition of it, which I think we get lost in. But ultimately, right.
The Dental A Team (10:22.522)
Mm-hmm.
Britt (10:24.97)
It comes down to what are the true operating expenses for that business. So it is not your debt. It is not some of the other fancy terms. It's not taking into account taxes. Right. But truly day to day operations of the business. What does that cost? So think of it in that way. Some things to think about. Right. Some of our private practices, Dr. Own, Single Dr. Own.
Right, we'll say overhead and then doctor pay usually falls below the line. When it comes to thinking of EBITDA, ultimately you're gonna have to replace yourself. That's gonna be part of operating expenses. And so that's where I'm like, all right, when you start really thinking about it, shift some things around, because like your, know, things that you might have running through the business that you like, parts of being a business owner that you pay for through the company, along with your.
The Dental A Team (10:57.671)
.
Britt (11:16.968)
know, accountant's advice that you're following those rules. I start to pull those things out because that's not really within your overhead. And then I start moving above the line as if you are paying yourself as an associate because that's gonna be an expense of running the business, which is gonna give you a good idea of like, what are the true operating expenses? And then...
The Dental A Team (11:34.446)
Okay.
Britt (11:42.786)
depending on kind of what route you want to go, whether it's like, I'm prepping to sell, then great, let's work with your accountant, clean some things up ahead of time, clean them up. So then you've got good financial statements when you go into the actual like true valuation phase of getting ready to sell, that it's all like really clean and easy for them to see what the EBITDA is and what the value of the practice is going to be.
And so you might need to shift some things around and work with your accountant so that you're prepped for that. So it's not like, a month ago you started moving some stuff around and it looks kind of sketch. So let's get ready for it farther ahead of that. And then also knowing what direction you want to go. So whether it's just you that you're going to have to replace. So moving you above the line, paying you as an associate above the line, technically. And then if you're wanting to say, hey, what if I replace myself? And these are even some numbers.
The Dental A Team (12:27.08)
you
Britt (12:38.456)
that I also just recommend you play around with just to know your options. So it's not a, yes, there's feelings, but like also make a smart decision behind like the financial pieces on it as well. So if you're saying, Hey, what if I did just bring on an associate, right? And even have them just run it and take my place. yeah, I run some of the business stuff. All right. Well, what if I paid myself as a CEO of the practice?
and then paid an associate, like what would my numbers look like in that scenario? Or if it's like, yeah, I'll run it, I own it, I'll just pay an associate and then I'll just take distributions, what might that look like if I go that route? So that's where I like to, ahead of time, and even sometimes way ahead of time, I tell doctors, just cause you start like looking at some of this doesn't mean that you have to make a move. Cause you know, they're not sure, but I'm like, I'd like you to know your options. And again, I don't like you to feel stuck. So,
The Dental A Team (13:08.328)
you
The Dental A Team (13:28.296)
Hmm.
Britt (13:35.114)
Know your options, know what you can or can't do on your personal and financially what needs to be done. And then look at the numbers and be smart from there. So yeah, EBITDA gets scary, work with your accountant, they can kind of help you with some of that. But really think of it as what does it take to run the business? That's ultimately what we're looking at when it comes to that overhead expense and playing around and looking at EBITDA.
The Dental A Team (14:01.514)
Awesome. Thank you. I think there's a few pieces in there that I want to acknowledge for purposes of like professionals. You're mentioning accountants, things like that. A lot of the stuff that you've mentioned, I think there's three professionals I can think of off the top of my head immediately that are going to be key in making sure that you are lining things up correctly. Because like you said, even if you're doing it for six months, they still could be like, well, why are you doing this? Right?
Britt (14:03.726)
you
The Dental A Team (14:28.426)
So it's kind of like when you go to buy a house and they're like, well, where did this money come from? And you're like, well, my grandma gave it to me because I was buying a house. And they're like, that's weird. So can you afford the house? Right? So it's kind of like that where it's like, well, where did this come from? So the three professionals I can think of, right? Number one, consultant, obviously, because they're going to be able to, like Brittany's doing right now, steer you in the right directions and give you advice off of things that we've seen before, we've done with practices before, and really be able to do the checks and balances on all spectrums.
then you have your accountant, your CPA, your lawyer, right? All of that space right there that accountant, CPA, they're going to be able to tell you what it needs to look like. And I guess there's probably four, right? Because then you've got your broker to do your valuation, you've got your evaluation team there. But then also, I think a financial planner would be really, really beneficial in all of this because they see your finances from a different point than the CPA does. So when you combine a CPA and a financial planner, I feel like that's the magic sauce because the CPA is like,
Britt (15:10.968)
Okay.
The Dental A Team (15:27.807)
black and white, like this is what it looks like in a finance planner. It's like, well, if we play with it like this, like we could make it look like this. And then doing it in conjunction with your CPA really can like level some of those things out. But then you also mentioned, making sure earlier, earlier that you know your retirement and like the length of time that that is. So your financial planner, your CPA can help with that. Absolutely. But I think from a financial planner standpoint, they have better resources and tools than the CPA actually has access to.
Britt (15:32.366)
Okay.
Britt (15:41.612)
Mm-hmm.
The Dental A Team (15:57.683)
And so when you plan for that and then you work with your CPA, you plan for your retirement, you're like, okay, this is what it needs to look like. My financial planner's got that. My CPA is gonna make sure that that money gets to my financial planner because he's making sure she's making sure that it's all coming in. I think all of those spaces right there really help to dial that in. And then.
with the going back to the EBITDA, I wanted to get that out there because I know there's a lot of spaces that people are like, wait, who can, who would do this for me? Is that you? And I'm like, I don't do that, but I can tell you who to go to. Right. So those are the people I would tell you to go to if you had asked us. Now, going back to the EBITDA, you mentioned, Britt, a few times, pay yourself as an associate. And I wanted to clarify on that because when you're owner doctor, you're like, this is my collections. Everything is your collections, right? Everything that goes into
Britt (16:24.974)
Yep.
The Dental A Team (16:45.074)
your QuickBooks, everything that goes into your account is your collections because you own the practice. But to clarify, we're paying yourself as an associate, how would you pay an associate, right? You're not going to pay an associate based off of what hygiene has allocated over to them or what you have allocated to you. So you're going to look and correct me if I'm wrong, Britt, but when you say that, my brain says, okay, I'm going to pull my production. So if I'm the operating doctor,
I'm going to pull my production and my collections separate from the practice full collections because that's what I would be paying an associate on would be that 20 % or not 20 % probably, sorry guys, 32 % or whatever. Sorry, associates, I do love you, but 20 % popped in. But that 30 % of my produced collections, I'm going to pay off of that.
Britt (17:27.148)
No.
The Dental A Team (17:36.299)
not the total practice collections, which is what we're looking at our EBITDA from. So I want to make sure that that clarifier is there. And that's what then would go like, quote unquote, above the line to see. So I think overhead, we talk about being like your true overhead is if you sold the practice, this is what a doctor would take on. So it's not including your loans, it's not including your owner pay, but then your EBITDA to say like what they need to collect to be successful would include that doctor associate pay. Is that right, Britt? Am I?
Britt (18:05.838)
So you are accounting wise, accounting for yourself and yes, just you based on your collections, right? What it would cost to replace you. That's what you're moving above the line. And I'll add this caveat to it. Exactly how you get paid that amount and additional amount beyond that, because yes, you'll take more than that, right? As the owner.
The Dental A Team (18:06.005)
Clarifying that, okay?
Britt (18:32.088)
how you pay yourself, whether W-2, whether taken as a distribution, right? That can still be paid to you in whatever way you would like it to be paid to you based on working with your accountant for what's gonna be most beneficial tax-wise. But I want it to be accounted for above the line to replace you. And then with that, I also wanna make a note on this. As you run some numbers, if you're looking to completely replace yourself,
Usually our owner doctors are really good producers and finding associates. We love our associates, but them coming into this new practice, not having been there as long as you have been, usually their production is not going to be the same as yours. So that's where I'm like, play, play around with some numbers. And that's obviously I love to do this because like, so work with a consultant, right? We can run through some of this stuff with you.
The Dental A Team (19:01.388)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (19:16.203)
Thank
Britt (19:26.446)
Again, I like you going in with eyes wide open because we've worked with some doctors, right? And some, everybody has it at times. like, well, I should just sell it. And it's like, whoa, whoa, hold on. Let's see what this asset is worth. Even if you cut days back and bring in an associate, right? What can you still be making where some of that is even passive income or work yourself out of it?
The Dental A Team (19:36.063)
Yeah.
Britt (19:50.702)
what could the passive income look like for you with like, yeah, you're going to have to do some things in the business, but for how much time is that worth it to you? that's where I'm like, play through all the options, like get creative with it. There's a lot you can do. That's not your traditional, well, I'm retiring. I have to sell it. It's a different landscape these days. So there's a lot of options out there. I'll also make a plug for, I think most brokers we know and talk to brokers know it's like a, it's a, there's a long like,
The Dental A Team (20:10.443)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (20:18.992)
Okay.
Britt (20:20.718)
period of getting to know a broker, right? Because you'll reach out to him and it's like, I'm just trying to get an idea. And good brokers know that and good brokers are going to help to talk you through pros and cons and work with you through things. so knowing that like, hey, you can engage that relationship at an early point to get the value of your practice. And just to kind of understand the landscape of what's going on, especially knowing, right, depending on your area, depending on your type of practice.
The Dental A Team (20:48.22)
Mm-hmm.
Britt (20:49.55)
They will know what practices are most attractive depending on who you might want to sell to and how long it might take in some areas to find a buyer, again, which is just good information to have a current market to know. It adds into your timeline, right? And a lot of times we've got our doctor owners that'll be like, yeah, I think I'm ready to like retire. And that's where I'm like.
The Dental A Team (21:07.404)
Go.
Britt (21:14.702)
Like it's going to take a little time and I want you to know things ahead of time so that you can be prepared for it. And when you're ready to go, you've got all the information to have it work out as beneficial to you as possible instead of being like, well, I'm done. Let's figure it out. Let's go. And you start to make rash decisions and that asset is it, you don't take advantage of it as much as you think. Like it is, but it's just not as valuable as it could be. So yeah.
The Dental A Team (21:33.388)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (21:37.038)
It's no longer an asset, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's great advice. I'm thinking like, because I have had that where doctors are like, I'm done, I'm out, I got to get out of this. Like, I'm like, well, if you're in the got to get out of this phase, like, that is just not the place to be living in. For either side, right? Like, you need to get out of that. I see that. But also for if you're offloading the practice, like this is going to be, this could be a really sketchy situation. So I think
for dentists and practice owners or business owners in general, earlier, when we first started, you said, always think of the long game. So I think when you think you're five to 10 years out from retirement, your financial planner should have this information. You should know when is a good timeframe for you to retire. And when you're five to 10 years out from that, think this is right when you should start.
moving all these pieces into place and at least have that knowledge because you don't want to even get two years out and be like, all right, Tiff, I got two years. And I'm like, shoot, I got a lot of stuff this goes into two years. Like it just takes, I think it just takes more knowledge and you really want to go into it from the sounds of all these pieces you put together today, Britt, thank you for that. It sounds like you just want to go in with the most amount of knowledge possible to make the best decisions possible because they're no longer
an emotionally based decision. Now they're a black and white, this is what's best for me emotionally, physically, mentally, financially decision because you've gathered so much information. So yeah.
Britt (23:12.672)
it helps on the emotional side of things, right? Sometimes even just knowing, hey, if I go five more years, right, the value difference of this is gonna be X, Y, Z. Is that worth it to me, right? And it may not be or it might be, right? So again, it just kind of, and sometimes I'm like, for that, yeah, I can do five more years for that dollar amount. So yeah, it just helps you to be able to make the wisest decisions, I think.
The Dental A Team (23:26.083)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (23:34.319)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (23:41.551)
I love it. Thank you. So if we had to give them three steps that they could take today to push forward towards just even the knowledge, what do you think those top three items would be?
Britt (23:52.61)
Yep. I would say have an idea and it doesn't have to be set in stone when you might want to retire or start to step back from the practice. I think that would be number one thing, which along with that then comes like knowing what you need to retire. like plan for that. Have an idea of a timeframe. Again, it doesn't have to happen, but you've got an idea of that timeframe. I think
Make sure you're looking at your financial statements and looking at it not only from a sense of overhead, but look at it from a sense of value. So looking for that EBITDA, what's that profit kind of number? What is the value of the practice? And then use that information to help make decisions in the practice. So you don't find yourself in a situation while I've made so many, like I've gotten in debt on so many things.
Even if you sell the practice, you've still got your debt that you need to pay so that you can make smart decisions with it. I think those would be my top three things. And then as you get closer, right, to the time when you're like, you know, I'd like to know the value just because I'm probably heading towards that within the next decade even. Then there would be some other steps, but that would be my main three for anyone, no matter what stage you're in going into buying a practice, having owned it for a while. Those would be my top
The Dental A Team (24:47.034)
Mm-hmm.
The Dental A Team (25:12.786)
Awesome, thank you. You guys, this was a chock-hole of a ton of information. I hope if you're driving, you have saved this or you do save this so that you can go back through and take some notes. If you weren't driving, I hope you were feverishly taking notes because there was just a ton of information here. Thank you, Britt.
Britt (25:14.264)
Bye.
The Dental A Team (25:30.161)
I knew you would come to the table with just so much with that business brain of yours. So you guys go take a look at these pieces. And if you've done some of them and you're past those three steps we just gave you, then pull out other steps from this conversation. Make sure you've got those professionals on your side. Make sure that you reach out when you do need help. Or you guys, if you ever need a recommendation.
For professionals too, we work with a lot of companies side by side simultaneously with them. We talk with them on behalf of clients and with clients. And so just know we have these resources for you. Just reach out and we are happy to help you. As always, come stop by if you're not yet a client of ours or you're just looking for information on your practice on goods in the beds and the hot ticket spots. Our team is always here to help.
really dial in biggest issues or biggest spaces of work for you, whether you're a client or not. So please reach out. [email protected] or TheDentalATeam.com. You can sign up right there as well to chat with our team to really just evaluate where you're at with your practice. And as always, leave us a five-star review. We love to hear how much you enjoyed this.
content and we love to see what you enjoyed the most of so we can recreate that and continue on those paths. So everyone, thank you so much. Britt, thank you so much for being here with me today and we'll catch you guys next time.
-
Bringing on an associate is a big move for any practices, and while the benefits fill out a long list, the way it’s done will have lingering impacts, for better or worse. Kiera gives three actionable tips on how to make the transition a smooth one for all involved.
Find an associate who fits your clinical and cultural model
Schedule a team meeting with the associate
Establish regular check-ups with doctor feedback
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript
Kiera Dent (00:00.45)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today, you guys, are you struggling to onboard a new associate without team tension? I know that this can be a tricky problem that a lot of our offices faces. And so these three steps will make the process smooth and successful. Honestly, onboarding an associate is such a critical piece. You're bringing on this new doctor, they already love you, they already know our existing team, and now we're bringing someone new in that's gonna help us help serve more patients. It's going to help our team be able to get those hygiene checks on time.
going to be able to help us expand our clinical suite. So whatever the reason for onboarding an associate, it oftentimes comes down to that team buy-in, not having the team tension, getting the patient retention. And so the goal is today, I'm going to walk you through really three simple steps for you to be able to onboard this associate with ease and success.
I am Kiera Dent. Dental A Team was created to really help give you guys wisdom and knowledge out in the field to have a trusted expert, someone who's been there, done that, done that successfully multiple times. Honest to goodness, our consultants are incredible. They really have real life experience. Every consultant on the Dental A Team has to have real life experience in the practice.
clinically and for an office. They've had to grow multiple practices exponentially. They've had to work through these kinks. So when we give you tips and advice is not because we're just here talking about theories and what we hope works. It's because we've been there, done that and done that successfully. Honestly, onboarding an associate is going to affect your long-term harmony. This is where it's going to be amazing for your team with harmony, but also productivity. And so today is going to be short, actionable episode. And honestly, you guys are going to want to wait till the end because I walk you through the three steps.
And then at the very end, I'm gonna wrap it up for you of exactly how you can do this with simplicity. So step one is you need to actually find an associate who fits your clinical and cultural model. This is really paramount because a lot of times we just want an associate. We just think, let's bring someone in. But what we forget is these patients have been coming to us as a clinician, as a practice, as a culture, and that's what we've actually built. So there's a lot about branding in other companies. Well, in your dental practice, you have to realize you as the dentist, you as your clinical skill set has actually been built.
Kiera Dent (02:08.034)
to be able to be a culture that your patients are accustomed to. So it's crazy because we just think we just need to hire an associate. No, actually looking to see are they clinically the same as you or adding to your skillset and also do they fit your cultural model. It's wild because if you'll just take the time to find this person who fits not being desperate but actually using the time to find them is really going to help. Now people ask me, Kiera, where actually can I go to find these associates because it can be tricky. And what I say is let's start talking with the community.
Talk to the dental colleges that are around you. Talk to your Henry Schein rep or your Patterson rep. Start talking to different offices because they might know someone. Get to the country club. A lot of deals have been made on golf courses that I've heard. Go to yoga studios, different places where people will be and start talking and networking and letting them know who you're looking for. Also let your team know, hey, we're looking for this. This is who we're looking for. Do you know anybody? Because your team can really be an advocate for you.
In addition to that, I like to build pipelines. So if you know family members that are going to dental college or you have friends, but somehow getting really intertwined into that, that dental college around you, in addition to being able to work with residencies and G, your, your practices that way, that's going to help you actually exponentially become stronger to get this pipeline of people there. So really looking for someone who fits your clinical and cultural model is going to help you exponentially because they're going to subscribe to the models like you do.
They're going to act like you do. They're going to have the feel of it. And really, like I said, this is all about your brand. And so it's interesting because I've actually seen there was an office that I consulted and what happened with them is they brought on an associate. They thought that they were great. They had the clinical skills that they needed, but culturally they weren't aligned and the hygiene team started to get frustrated because this doctor was actually not following protocol within the practice. So whenever the two different doctors came in,
the hygienist were trying to adapt to each different doctor, the exams weren't consistent, the treatment planning wasn't consistent. And yes, there will be varying shades of this, but really making sure that in the interviewing process, this associate aligns is actually gonna prevent that team tension in the future. So truly, before you hire, clarify what your core values are of your practice and the clinical expectations that you have before you even go out to hire. Now, if you already have someone, that's okay, there's still things that we can do.
Kiera Dent (04:25.88)
but really making sure that they're like almost this little perfect outline of what you're looking for because just like when we want to go buy a car, when we say, want to buy this G wagon or I want to buy this Toyota Corolla or I want to buy this Tesla. What happens is we start to see that car everywhere. Well, same thing's going to actually happen with your associates. When you know exactly what your crystal clear on, go for it. That's going to help you actually sift through and find the person that's going to work great for your practice.
Step number two is going to be once we get our associate, we know that they're going to be great. We need to actually have a team meeting and buy-in. Letting our team actually ask the questions because what happens is a lot of times the team tension just comes from fear. It's not that they don't want to onboard our associates. It's not that they don't want our practice to be successful. It's just fear. It's the, about this? What about that? What about my patience? And so what's going to happen is when we have an effective meeting with our team,
we're going to introduce the associate and their strengths, making sure we highlight why did we bring this person in specifically? What is it about them? Don't forget, this is about the branding, making sure that they're branded, making sure that they fit our brand of the company. And then we open up the floor of team questions and letting the team, like, what are your concerns? What do you think patients will feel? Because the more the team can air this out, the more we're going to be able to find solutions. And what I found is let's address them in, in person, in our meeting, but also have your office manager or a team member
actually take notes to where there's verbiage in their scripting because what we hear is not actually what we retain. And so just giving your team the tips and the tools of amazing, this is how Dr. Sarah is going to do a great job on our clinical experts or what's going to happen if they have redo treatment, what do we do then? And so that's really going to be able to help your team feel confident because now they've got the what happens when and here's the solution. And if you write that up, it's very simple.
This will help long-term and also we really want to like boost why this associate is going to be great for the practice. Now a question that you could also ask to follow up on this is what qualities do you think would help our new associate succeed here? Because these are also going to be things of what can we do to make sure this associate does great here? How do you think we need to behave? What do you think the things we need to do are going to be this way this associate is truly successful and set up for success within our practice?
Kiera Dent (06:37.838)
And what I found is when the team is bought in and they're bought into the associate, they're excited about the associate, they've had their questions answered, that team rallies around this associate. That team is super excited to recommend this associate for treatment. They're excited to recommend this associate for other patients in the practice. And something that really gets squirrely with teams is who's gonna see the new patients? Who does the hygiene exams? What can this doctor do? And as a team member myself,
I'm always looking at their clinical suite. And so making sure that that team knows perfect, we're gonna onboard them this way. We're gonna actually check their work with x-rays post-treatment. It's okay, we do this for the first three months. That way we don't have to do redos. Me and the doctor are actually gonna be working together. So the doctor and the associate will work together on monthly calibration meetings, weekly calibration meetings. They're also gonna calibrate with the hygiene team and really truly setting these in your schedules from the get-go will honestly help you onboard this associate with success. So what I like to do is,
the, the call to action on step two would be schedule a team meeting before the associates first day and set the stage for success. I usually like it to be a week or two before we type up that protocol for them. They know what's going to go on. They're able to meet this associate. They're able to get excited for the associate. And I also prep the associate like come in and be a human. They want to see your fun side. They want to see your clinical side. So if you can also show examples of case works that that associates done in the past, that also can really give the team buy-in for this as well.
And then step three of this process is going to be onboarding this associate successfully with daily, weekly, and monthly check-ins with consistent team and doctor feedback. Now I know this feels weird and a lot of doctors get funny because like, but they're a doctor and I'm a doctor and I don't ever want to undermine them. And what I, what I want to recommend and really emphasize for you is you are the expert in your practice. That doctor is an incredible dentist. That's why you're hiring them, but they don't know how to be an incredible dentist in your practice with your team in the ways that you guys have set it up of the culture of your practice.
So we're not here to tell them how to do dentistry. Maybe there's a few things that we do need to correct or to change or to calibrate on, but the bulk is how do we do it within our practice? And so there's onboarding checklists that we really love to do of how they can shadow. I really love to dovetail. So that means the doctor watches one procedure and then you watch one procedure. And I know this sounds annoying because usually when we want to hire an associate, we want them yesterday and we want to just fill their schedule.
Kiera Dent (08:56.44)
But I say if we slow down to speed up at the beginning, this is actually gonna help you be very successful with your associate, be very successful with their onboarding and catch the issues quickly and give the honest feedback before it becomes harder to give the feedback. The longer we go without giving that associate feedback, the harder it will be for them later on to take that. So it's giving the shadowing, maybe dovetailing. I use the same dovetail where it's one appointment then the next appointment. We go back and forth and we watch each other. Have them hear you do exams. You hear them do exams.
This allows you to calibrate very quickly. And I know it feels annoying, but I promise you, if you'll do this, that doctor will be able to produce for you so much faster than you think they'll be able to. So then from there, what we're going to do is we do a weekly where we actually calibrate with them and doctors, strongly recommend you put this in your schedule. We calibrate with them. We pull up X-rays just like going back to dental school. What's the FMX? What do you see in this X-ray? What am I, what do I see? We don't actually talk about it out loud, but we write it down and then compare notes.
We calibrate with our hygiene team. And if you have a really calibrated hygiene team, they should be able to tee up the treatment for the doctor. And then the doctor's then really just gonna have to come in and swing and make it happen. But that doctor might see things differently. And so really, what do we do if we see things differently? How do we calibrate our hygiene team? I recommend this takes about three months of being very intentional with it, meeting every week, meeting monthly and giving the feedback and doing true formal check-ins for both the associate and the team. Asking the team, how are they doing? Asking your hygiene team how they're doing.
giving the feedback of the positives and the areas to improve early on is going to fix that. Like I said, I'm very big when you onboard to make sure you're taking x-rays pre and post treatment. I know it sounds funny, but you really can get a lot further ahead if you're willing to take these quick steps. having a really structured check-in will help. And like I said, I have it in office and what was funny about them was it wasn't even funny. was just really like, truly it was sad because they had this amazing associate.
They brought them in. They didn't want to check the work. They didn't want to do the onboarding. They were like, they're just an amazing clinician. Let's go. Well, three, four months in, they started seeing a lot of redos and a lot of patient sensitivity and a lot of patient complaints. So they started looking, they started looking at the x-rays. had a lead assistant that sat with that doctor and started realizing there were open margins. Well, now it comes to the spot of they've been working with us for four months. We have all these patient treatments that's been done. We know we've got four months of not as great ideal dentistry. What do we do now?
Kiera Dent (11:17.826)
They ended up having to terminate that doctor and they had to do, was about eight months of redo dentistry that they had to do. And I thought we could have swallowed our egos. We could have swallowed our pride. We could have been here. We're here to help you. And let's fix these problems and issues before they become big issues. That's a much easier conversation to have than one after they've been in the practice for four months. It was awful for this practice. It was hard. And they have committed that every time they now bring on an associate, they always do the onboarding. They always do the calibrations. They always take the X-rays.
And also another tip is adding a lead assistant with that associate as soon as they start really sets them up for success because that assistant can see a lot of things that maybe we don't see otherwise when we're not in the operatory with them. So really having that, and I say map out your 30, 60, 90 day plan. What are you doing daily? What are we doing weekly? How do we make sure that they know how we treatment plan a crown? How do we treatment plan a root canal? How do we treatment plan and talk about implants? If they don't do this type of treatment, who do they refer with air quotes in our practice?
is really gonna set this associate up for success. So as a quick recap of how we onboard an associate effectively without team tension and amazing team buy-in is number one, we wanna make sure that we're hiring an associate that has our clinical and culture skillset. That's number one. Make sure we've got the DNA right of the correct person, because that's gonna help us exponentially. Number two is have a team meeting where we're able to actually talk through what does this associate need to be successful.
What are our questions? And we write it up a protocol for the team to follow. What do we say to patients? How do we introduce? Where do the new patients go, et cetera. And then step three is going to actually 100 % onboard this associate correctly with check-ins, calibration, and consistent feedback, 30, 60, 90 days, and possibly even beyond. And when you do this, this is going to be an incredible way for you to onboard them, have successful team buy-in, and hopefully incredible successful associate success.
I think one of my practices that I'm just really, really proud of within Dental A Teams Consulting is they were able to bring on two brand new straight out of school graduates. And they really were intentional about how they did it. They got the DNA right. They had a team buy-in of how we're going to do this. We set up the schedule appropriately. We figured out what this associate doctor needed. The associate doctors were mentored every single week. The hygiene team gave a lot of feedback. The dental assistant team gave a lot of feedback. And within nine months, their associates were producing about 100,000 a month.
Kiera Dent (13:42.156)
And to me, that's an incredible success story of we slowed down to speed up and look at the success that they were having. So with that, I really hope that you guys are able to take this to implement, to get excited for it. And if you're onboarding soon or thinking about us, DM us or email us, [email protected] for an onboarding checklist that we can share a sample of what this looks like. And always like subscribe for more tips on leadership and success in your dental practice.
This is truly what the Dental A Team does and we help offices overcome these issues and overcome these struggle points to make it very successful for you and your team. So if that's helpful, reach out, [email protected] And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.
- Laat meer zien
