Dental A Team Podcast

Kiera Dent
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Dental A Team Podcast

This podcast is here to give dentists and all dental office team members, in EVERY position, TACTICAL and PRACTICAL TIPS to: - Be more efficient - Have more fun - Improve doctor and team communications - Eliminate frustration - And make your life easier! Jump in! We are thrilled you have decided to LEVEL UP and be part of the DENTAL A TEAM! New episodes every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

  1. HACE 2 DÍAS

    #973: Dr. DiPilla’s Cosmetic to Holistic Dentistry Journey

    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

    42 min

  2. HACE 3 DÍAS

    #972: How to Cut Your AR in Half!

    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

    29 min

  3. HACE 4 DÍAS

    #971: Sealing Those Cash Flow Leaks

    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

    17 min

  4. 20 MAR

    #970: 3 Steps To Implement Block Scheduling

    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

    12 min

  5. 19 MAR

    #969: It’s Time For a Q1 Review

    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, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com 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

    9 min

  6. 18 MAR

    #968: The Financial Piece So Many Offices Forget About

    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.

    25 min

  7. 13 MAR

    #967: Understanding Your P&L Can Be Easy As Pie

    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 Hello@TheDentalATeam.com 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

    19 min

  8. 12 MAR

    #966: Planning For Your Practice Exit

    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

    28 min
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    This podcast is here to give dentists and all dental office team members, in EVERY position, TACTICAL and PRACTICAL TIPS to: - Be more efficient - Have more fun - Improve doctor and team communications - Eliminate frustration - And make your life easier! Jump in! We are thrilled you have decided to LEVEL UP and be part of the DENTAL A TEAM! New episodes every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

    Información

    • Creador
      Kiera Dent
    • Años de actividad
      2019 - 2025
    • Episodios
      971
    • Clasificación
      Apto
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      © 668974
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      Dental A Team Podcast

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