Dental A Team Podcast

Dental A Team
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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.

  1. 2H AGO

    The Best Present on a Day Full of Presents

    Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Dental A-Team! Kiera encourages listeners to acknowledge and celebrate the people in their lives in real time. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript:   The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and Merry Christmas. I hope that you guys are so happy and I don't know, I feel so honored that you're sharing Christmas Day with me. I hope that you unwrapped your packages. I hope that you were able to give amazing gifts. I hope that you were not naughty this year and you were nice. I hope that like, my gosh, like I just wish that I was with you like walking down the stairs to your Christmas morning. I hope that you were with your friends, your family. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope that you woke up today just feeling the special magic.   of this time of year of anticipating our next year. And I just hope that you're surrounded by friends and family and that you just feel love. I hope you feel love for yourself and just Merry Christmas. I am so, I love this time of year. I love this holiday and I did not used to love this holiday. It was my favorite growing up. And then there was a short stint of time where I hated it. Like no Christmas music, no things. I don't even know how that was possible because I was Mrs. Claus.   I worked for United Way of Utah County and I was Mrs. Claus for the year and we did Sub for Santa. And that was a year I realized that there is truly magic in our communities and in us serving each other. And gosh, I just like, I remember growing up like, yes, I loved presents and I love those things, but a lot of times it was just like my family being together and little things. And like in my family, had, when I was really, really little, we had these like dollars. don't know, they were called like.   I to say scholar dollars, but that wasn't right. They were these like little dollars that my mom gave us. And it was like little things that we did that were kind gestures to our siblings, like helping each other out. My family was lawn mowing business. And so we'd help each other with that. And growing up and getting older, I think, well, yes, it's so fun to have gifts for my siblings. The real gift that I look forward to, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this is   being with these people, being able to be present with them, being able to share special moments, to be able to share magic with them, that's what makes holidays magical. ⁓ And when I think about like this time of year, giving's not just about gifts, it's about like our presence. So not present, but presence, our impact, and how we're able to like show up for our families and for our teams and our practices. And so when I look at this, I just really think about like,   in the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of giving, in the spirit of that, like leadership and team culture are so important of gifts that you can give your team. And this is what can help you guys thrive. So of course, it's the holidays. I'll make this short and sweet for you ⁓ because I really want you to think about like when we're looking at our families and we're looking at today, being present with our family.   is one of the greatest gifts that we can give them. think of how many times are we scrolling on social media? How many times are we not present? I even think about me and Jason, like we're hanging out together and we are both knee deep in our phones. And I look up and like 45 minutes have passed by and I've been sitting by the person that I absolutely love. And the world is so obnoxiously annoying on asking for our time, asking for our attention. And I think that that's why we get so excited about holidays is we actually have this like   Dedicated shutoff time where we can be with our families and holidays sometimes actually bring out the worst in us I know two Christmases ago It was absolutely one of the worst days and I felt so annoyed because I had to slow down and I couldn't go anywhere and I couldn't call anybody because people with their families and I felt stuck and I felt trapped and I was like this is not a good thing Kiera you clearly are operating at such a high velocity all the time that you slowing down was actually one of your worst days and so I think when I look at like being present in life   I think being present for my team. How many times is my team talking to me and I'm slacking or I'm sending an email off or I'm not fully listening or I'm responding to a text message. I think the world today is craving people being present, of being intentional, of listening, of caring. And I think that that's like when my family gets together, yes, a gift is nice, but the gift of their time and attention is becoming more and more valuable because I think it's so hard to capture that from people. And also I think being present for yourself.   showing up for yourself every single day, having meditation time, having journal time. Like the world can be so loud. Things can be like, we have dinging things, reminders constantly that it's like being present, listening, showing up, engaged, engage with your team. I think about Britt, there's certain times that her and I would just like shoot the breeze and we're just hanging out with each other. And I'm like, those are more meaningful than our meetings. And we're just like trying to rattle things off and get things done.   And so I just think like, if we're giving a gift of presence, not present, how can you as a leader do that? And I think one of the biggest things that doctors can do is to actually be fully attentive in team meetings. ⁓ And for team members to be fully attentive in team meetings, I can't tell you how many times I watched teams and the doctors on their phone, they're not engaged. And I just think like, if you're asking your team to be here and you're asking them to solve problems, but we're not willing to be present,   Gosh, like that's just such a hard ask. And I think as leaders, that is your job to silence them, to be present, to be with the people in front of you and not to be distracted elsewhere. And I say team members to do the same. We've got to also have our minds be there. I could be completely checked out of my phone and Slack, but my mind could be elsewhere. And so how can I be fully attentive in my team meetings when I'm having conversations with people? And I will say like, doctors, this is like, Merry Christmas. Be present for your team.   ⁓ I watch often and I see doctors just scrolling on social media, even when I'm there having conversations with them. And I just think if you're willing to do that with me, that you're paying me to be here. ⁓ and that feels icky to me. How do think your team feels when they're coming to you as a leader, as someone that they're looking for, for support. And I just think for your family, the gift of like, even if it's like five seconds, even if you put the phone down, ⁓ even if you just like really commit to be there.   be there. ⁓ Another thing is like to pause during the day like a short connection. ⁓ It doesn't take a lot to be connected to people. It doesn't take a lot for you to just say hello to ask them like genuinely with no agenda, no time construction, not having your phone, not having your watch go off. Like even people is like, my watch like, hmm. Yep. huh. I'm listening. I'm like, you're not listening to me. I literally have my watch to where it will not have text messages come through at all. I use it specifically for a watch. If I need to later, I can have things pop in but   I shut off the notifications because it drives me nuts when I'm in a conversation and I'm having a conversation and they pull up their watch, they pull up their phone like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. No, it's not uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. You're not listening to me. You're not present with me. So I think like today, practice being present with those around you. You might be Kiera who had like one of her worst Christmases a few years ago and it was awful, but I realized this is, I'm out of touch. I'm out of practice. I don't do this often.   And if we can train that muscle, gosh, what a gift it's for yourself, a gift for your team, a gift for your family to truly be present. ⁓ I also think another way for you to do it is to celebrate people in real time. So the reason why this is a gift of presence is because you have to be intentional. You have to be paying attention to them to celebrate them in real time. like look for it, look for when your assistant does like perfect handoffs to you, like.   They're handing the instruments and they're just crushing it. Celebrate that with them. Celebrate when someone closes the case for you. Celebrate when we fill this schedule hole. Celebrate when we like got that claim collected. Celebrate when like doctors, got that perfect endo, like you got all the way to the bottom of that root tip. Celebrate when you did a perfect crown prep. Celebrate and be present in that moment. Celebrate when patients tell you great things. Celebrate when we get an SRP diagnosis and we went from a bloody profie to an SRP and we told them what they really needed. Celebrate when our team   is like giving a great patient experience, celebrate when our team does a tour of the office and highlights how great of a place it is, celebrate when people edify each other, celebrate those little pieces in your life. This is such a fun, easy way, because I really do believe that we're just becoming a society that's not present. We're giving presence, but we're not present. ⁓ We're so distracted trying to be connected that   we're missing the people right in front of us. And I think about that. We have no social media Sundays in our house. And Jason and I are shocked at how many times we like go to the app on

    15 min

  2. 1D AGO

    The Right Kind of Spice for Your Practice

    As the holiday cheer permeates our day-to-day, know that that same kind of energy and excitement can be found in your practice year-round! Kiera talks traditions, countdowns, and culture from a dentistry perspective. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and it's Christmas Eve. You guys know that I'm obsessed with holidays. I'm obsessed with this time of year. I'm obsessed with just so many fun things. And I hope you guys are like, yes, listen to the podcast. Sure. But I hope that more than that, you're hanging out with your families. And if you don't celebrate the holidays, I hope you're taking this time to celebrate you and to just be there with you. guys, I just love the holidays. think that Christmas is more than just about   present and like those traditions and all of that. I think it's just like the anticipation of what's coming next. And I think one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is like the excitement that we feel leading up to it. My husband and I were on a really fun trip this year, but we had to plan the trip in like two weeks and I actually missed the anticipation leading up to it. So with the holidays, I feel like every single year we get this anticipation, we get this gift, we get this same excitement that   I really do hope that you guys are feeling that same excitement that hopefully you're feeling for Christmas Eve tonight, going into the excitement into your dental offices for 2026. Like just think about it, you guys, we are about to wrap a bow on 2025, roll into 2026. And I think that energy, that excitement, that fun, that zest, this is really what brings the magic of the season. This is why the holidays are so special. It's time for us to sit back. It's time for us to reflect. It's time to get out of our routines. And I really just hope that you guys are giving yourself the greatest gift of anticipation.   but I hope that it's anticipation with a thought out plan. I know there can be anticipation for Christmas when I have not thought about family and it is a frantic scramble. And if you are that office for 2026, I would encourage you to not be that office. There are better ways where I actually like to have our entire year gets wrapped up by December 15th so I can go into the holidays, have a good time. ⁓ I like to have my Christmas gifts all bought usually around.   Halloween. I like to just have it done and out of the way. And I would hope that the anticipation of how great the year is going to be how great the holidays will be how excited you are for people to get this rather than in the frantic scramble because both can be anticipation both can be great gifts. But I hope that you're giving yourself the gift of like true joy and anticipation of the excitement of the year to come rather than the frantic frazzles. So guys, if you don't know me, I'm Kiera Dent. ⁓   founder and CEO of Dental A Team. love all things dentistry. I love helping dentists and their teams find happiness. Life is my passion, dentistry is my platform, and truly to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. Like this is something where I just hope that teams and doctors have excitement for what's ahead and that your team and you feel energized and not exhausted. And if you feel exhausted, that's okay. We've got solutions for you and I'm here to help you with that ⁓ because   I really do believe that you and your team can crush it. And as we're on Christmas Eve, you guys, my family is so fun. Jason said when he joined our family that Christmas and the holidays were just a good time. Like it has always been so magical. ⁓ Christmas Eve, we're going to be hanging out with family. And it's been fun because we shifted it up. I was selfish. And for the first several years of our marriage, I was with my siblings because my little sister is 15 years younger than me. And so   I really want to be a part of my siblings' lives. I wanted to be there and be close to them. And Jason was so accommodating. He was the youngest of his family. And so all of his siblings were grown, that we went to my family for so many years. So Christmas Eve with his family is very different. And the anticipation and the excitement, I was a little disappointed last year when we were with his family versus my family, but it was so fun. And we were able to make new traditions and...   we were able to create fun things and his dad, I made his parents who are much older, they Jason has a complete accident, ⁓ do family Christmas pajamas and matching with us and to be able to create new memories and new holidays. And I really do think that the energy and excitement and the love that we feel at this time of year can be something that you can also do with your own practices. So ⁓ I think that like,   getting anticipation with clear goals is going to be super, super beneficial for you guys. just like when we were kids and counting down the Christmas, teams also can get excited with this countdown to goals and to what's coming up and what the vision for 2026 is. And so I just really would encourage you right now, if you haven't done it or it's in the process, create goals and topics and conversations that your team can get super jazzed and excited about. Having a vision, having a fun year.   Every year I theme my year and you guys it's not too late. Like we're only on December 24th. You still have like a week before this year is over. So take the time, give yourself a theme, something to look forward to, something that you and your team can anticipate with excitement and counting down ⁓ of clear annual goals, clear quarterly goals, and then like celebrate those milestones as they come up. Like when we hit them, what are we doing to celebrate?   and have countdowns and visual trackers just like we have advent calendars. In my family, my mom was awesome. There were seven kids in my family and each of us had an advent calendar where we'd count down the days to Christmas. And I think, why don't we bring that fun, that zest, that excitement into our teams? Why are we sitting here like, hey, we hit production. No, like let's add the spice, let's add the fun. I think teams get really excited. People are like, what is different about Dental A Team over other consulting companies? And I'm like, what's different is we bring fun and excitement and get results.   That's what's different. Like why not make your practice a little more fun? So I think that you guys could build like a gold tree in December where every like scheduled case you get is an ornament and it can be super, super fun. Like you guys don't want to bear Christmas tree. So maybe consider that. Maybe we have something that kicks off in January where we have snowflakes and or we donate and we give back. Like we talked about at Thanksgiving time. Could you create visual countdowns for Thanksgiving where it's like   for all the number of cases we do, we're gonna donate to a family in need. I don't know. There's so many ways you can do it. And I don't think doctors, is for you. This is why it's a Dental A Team and dentist and team podcast. Team members, like let's get your ideas. Let's get you on the podcast. Listen to this episode, share this with your team. But like, how can we build visual countdowns and have a fun time? Because again, the anticipation with clear goals is what's gonna help you guys this season. So number two, I think something that you guys can do is like,   just like on Christmas Eve, like build traditions that fuel culture. I was talking to an office and they were dressing up as wicked. And I said, my gosh, are you guys gonna go to the wicked opening? And they hadn't thought about that, like wicked part two. And like, that's the fun stuff that fuels culture. So like, what can we do just like at the holidays? Like we all get excited for the charcuterie boards or for the matching pajamas or for stockings or in my family, we did baby stockings on the tree in addition to regular stockings.   We had countdown chains, had advent calendars. The holidays are so special because of the traditions. And so what traditions can you guys put into place in your practice? So could we have our tradition at like end of quarters when we crush it, we do X, Y, Z that people can look forward to it. We can get excited for it, that our goals are leading us to these like fun ideas. Could we do annual CE trips or retreats that everybody looks forward to? Our company cut them and then they got sad about it. And then we like, I get it.   There can be pieces, but like this is culture. Our team all gets excited for fun Friday on morning huddle. We all get excited for ⁓ Wednesday is core value shout out days. Like all these little things drive and thrive with culture. And so what can you guys do that can make it fun? Can we have a shout out jar that everybody gets gifts? Can we do like, I don't know, once a quarter, we do a, our favorite things, gift swap. So many little things that are going to just building traditions that are going to fuel your culture because   We have the countdown of anticipation of goals, but goals are not met with crummy cultures. A lot of times when I look at offices, I'm like, how is the culture? How was the leader? Those things are going to impact you far more than anything else. And so what is the tradition of culture that you guys can do? And I have a practice and they started celebrating their team. So every single month they had shout out jars and we shifted a whole culture who used to be like mean girls status. They were actually just women. There were men too, but like the movie mean girls.   to being this team of loyalty, of camaraderie, my team was even that way. I remember saying like, I felt like I used to be on

    17 min

  3. 2D AGO

    Pay Attention to THIS When Purchasing an Additional Practice

    Tiff and Trish discuss the need-to-know info for the buyer of a practice, including team member transparency, new patient inflow, software use, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. We are back again I have Trish with me because I freaking adore her and I the we just recorded a podcast We record a few at a time. You guys know that I batch them It's called efficiency and that will be on my tombstone per Kiera. She tells me that every day It will it will if it's any vision. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like grating cheese by hand like come on anyways   We are here today and we just recorded a podcast. So these are kind of serendipitous that they're back to back and it ended up this way in a weird way. So I don't have to go down that rabbit hole, but we just recorded a podcast on this seller's perspective of how to ensure that you're always ready and prepped to sell no matter where you're at in your journey, making sure that 10, 20, 30, five, two years down the road, you can sell your practice and that it's not as...   as stressful an event as it would be if you were unprepared. So I can't say we can remove all the stress. I can say that we can remove some stress that is just unnecessary. So today, now, I really wanted to look at the buyer's perspective. And we kind of hit on both a little bit on the last one, but this one's gonna be a little bit different. So make sure that you listen to both. Doesn't matter which order, I don't think. We'll find out by the end and I'll tell you if you should have listened to the other one first.   I know, I know, inefficient, but it's okay. So Trish and I are here today. You guys know I adore Trish. If you just listened to the Sellers one, which you should, ⁓ you heard me just rave about Trish. And Trish, love, I realized when I was recording with Monica a couple of weeks ago, which those were fantastic, you guys, if you need information and ⁓ ideas on training your team and operations manual, et cetera, all those pieces, Monica has some stellar ideas over there. But I realized Trish, while I was   Recording with Monica, I love podcasting. I love this aspect. I'm just a weirdo like that. But I love podcasting with you guys. And I realized in the beginning ⁓ with Monica, it was our first time podcasting together. And it was the first time that I got to rave about Monica and just really say all of the things that I love about her and I think is just so incredible about her with her consulting and just who she is as a human.   And I get to do that with you guys here in this platform. And Trish, you're one of my favorite people to rave about. love all of our consultants. You guys hear me rave about them, but Trish is such an incredible human being. It is impossible to describe you. You're just multifaceted. And I realized this is my brag session time. And I'm like this, I love it. It makes me so happy inside.   DAT Trish Ackerman (02:37) Thank   I that.   The Dental A Team (02:49) to just watch you guys thrive and to get to just tell the dental community how amazing you guys are and how special it is for them to get to hear from you and to get you guys in person with them and working with their teams and the leadership that changes the profitability that I've seen come out of everyone's work is so cool. And I realized with Monica, I'm like,   this is why I love podcasting with them because I love getting to love on you guys. It's just so cool. So thank you for, I hope so. Dana's over there. just always like ask her about workout stuff, you know, and I'm like, she's, I love on her too, but I'm always like, what's your hair product? What's your, what's your workout? It's fine. It's fine. ⁓ so thank you for letting me have this space Trish and for, ⁓ always being open to all of the things that I need. ⁓ your,   DAT Trish Ackerman (03:19) We'll take it.   Thank   The Dental A Team (03:43) one of those people that I know I can trust to just be myself. So thank you for that. Thank you for being here today. Of course, of course. I love my job. So with that said, number one piece of suggestion that I have before we get into this buyer side, Kiera and I, have been at this for a little while with the Dental A Team and   DAT Trish Ackerman (03:46) You're welcome to attend, thank you.   The Dental A Team (04:06) Carers Dental Consulting and Dental Masters and whatever name we decide it's been the Dental A Team for a long time and it's going to stick the Dental A Team, it's not changing. But we have had a couple of renditions and one piece that I know we have gotten really, really good at, but that we've really had to work hard at. And from a buyer's perspective, a seller's perspective, I think this is insanely relative, the people. We have worked really, really hard at the people aspect and   pouring ourselves into the people and figuring out that that's actually what we love to do. We love to consult. We love to be with the teams and the doctors and we love to see all of those pieces. I love being on stage. I do. But pouring into our team and creating a business that's not solely dependent on Kiera and I and a company that could thrive if we're on the road, if we're on vacation, that has been a massive transition in our company.   And once we realized that and we got really good at it, we started attracting some really, really cool people. And Trish, you're one of those people and you do not shy away from letting us know that it's working ⁓ or letting me know when I'm not on my best A game of that. And I love that about you. And I love that about our team. think I can count on any one of you ladies to be that person for me. thank you.   And doctors and business owners out there, think this is a huge piece of selling or buying a practice. And Trish, you mentioned that towards the end of our sellers one is the team and really making sure that the team is there for the longterm, but they're really supportive. know if, you know, we built this company to be a sellable company. That's a known fact. It would be wild for us not to do that. It does not mean that Kiera is selling the company tomorrow, but she could.   if she needed or wanted to. And Trish, from a team perspective, just real quick to hit on that, as a team perspective, how does that make you feel ⁓ for the doctors and practice owners out there to kind of hear?   DAT Trish Ackerman (06:13) You know, this is a hot topic. I won't go down bunny holes, but I have seen many, I've been with a lot of doctors that have purchased a practice and they have acquired that team. And I've seen the bright side of it and I've seen the dark side. The bright side is what I'd like to share today because we'll put the light on that. And I also do want to, I want to add something to what you just said, Tiff, about how you and Kira are also feeling like   The Dental A Team (06:26) Yeah.   DAT Trish Ackerman (06:42) you're in a different space now in the company because of the people. But I also want to remind you that that is something that you and Kira, you built that. You built, it didn't just happen. You guys built that. you do have to, like for Kira, there is a level of trust that has to take place. And I'm sure it's really difficult. I mean, this is a livelihood. And this is the same for these dental practices. So when a buyer is coming in,   Typically they do acquire a team and it is the responsibility of the selling doctor to be very transparent. We can't leave team members out when they get shocked and just told I sold and there's a buyer coming in there. could we I've seen I've seen entire teams walk out like, okay, we're out. We're not we're not dealing with it. But when there is a lot of transparency introduction to the incoming potential buyer, sometimes they haven't even bought yet.   The Dental A Team (07:30) Yeah, thumbs up.   Yeah.   Yeah.   DAT Trish Ackerman (07:41) ⁓   and just letting the team, ensuring that the team knows that they're going to be safe. They're to be safe. There's change coming, but they are going to be okay. And if they value and adore their doctor, which many of these team members do obviously, and if they've been there for a long time, then they also want to be part of that support. So being a part of this whole process is, I always say number one, like start there.   The Dental A Team (08:07) Yeah, I totally agree. I love that. So taking that to the next layer, right, as a buyer, I think that would be a a great inquiry when looking at practices, right of what is the team's knowledge on this situation? Do they know that you're selling? How far into those conversations argue how prepared is the team? And really like, what am I walking into? I think is massive. think if you were dating,   and you are on whatever dating platform, because that's where you're finding people these days, right? And it's like, yeah, I have three kids. It's like, cool, what am I walking into? You would not just walk blindly into a family and expect everything to be just fine. It would be, you know, there's a, yeah, yeah. Like there's a courting period for both, for the parents, right? For the...   DAT Trish Ackerman (08:53) no family.   The Dental A Team (09:03) boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it is, right? And the kids, there's a courting period for all of it. And they think that we devalue that in the buying and selling situation. I think, that was great perspective. If I'm a buyer, that's definitely a great question and inquiry to ask. And I think when you're adding additional practices, we have a lot of dentists, a lot of doctors who want to, they have their flagship and they want to expand and they want to reach more communities. And so they're adding,   a

    29 min

  4. DEC 18

    Does Your Practice Have THIS Hidden Gold Mine?

    It's office autopsy time! Kiera shares the story of a practice that recently discovered $2.5 million going unnoticed. She talks about the doctors and their (very) busy schedules, the need for an additional hygienist, and what the cold, hard numbers told this practice about next steps. Episode resources: 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 today I am excited. I was just in a practice and we were going through a lot of really fun things. And whenever I come from an office, I get so excited to come back and chat with our podcast family of things that you and your practice should and could be doing. I was told when I was in this office, this is the Dental A Team magic where we physically fly to your practice. We work with your teams. We work with you as a doctor. We uncover hidden pieces that maybe you didn't even know to bring to a call.   I think it's so magical to be able to do this for practices. And so today is a little office autopsy of finding $2.5 million left behind on the table in ways that you would never expect. Sound interesting? Well, I hope you're ready because I wanna take you through and uncover hidden little cashflow pits that you might not even be looking at. So number one, we decided to go through...   because this doctor is so busy. So many of you tell me I'm so busy, Kiera, my schedule is jam-packed, and I say congratulations, but what is the cost of that? So for example, if you have your hygiene department, you should be looking at your active patient base. So an active patient base for a general dentist should be 1,500 patients as an active patient for one doctor. High end, like where you can kind of get by is 1,900, but beyond that, that's very high. And we're talking 12 months and 18 months. So take a look at both of those numbers.   and just look to see where are you at. So this practice, they have about 4,500 active patients with two full-time doctors. They're at capacity. So what's happening is we have options. We can add more hygiene, but then that's going to have our doctor to hygiene, AKA our exams at the wrong amount. What's happening is they're dropping periopatients because they don't have space for their...   Regular prophy patients, then they're diagnosing SRPs, but they have nowhere to put them for six months. They're pushing new patients out for four to five months. So we did a little bit of fun math and we didn't even, this is just gonna be some hypotheticals, but I think for you just to hear like, what are some of the things that actually can hurt your practice and how much are you leaving on the table when we do things like this? So for this practice, when we went through and we looked at it, we thought, all right, let's take an average prophy and whatever it is for you.   Maybe it's 150 up to 200 for an average prophy. We're talking prophy, x-rays, cleanings, or just even prophy and an exam. How much is that for you and your practice? Now, look to see how many active patients you have. If we've got 4,500, well guess what? You get a double that because those patients are coming in two times a year. So have fun with those numbers. We divide that by 12. We look at how many patients we're seeing per day. Now that doesn't necessarily mean how many you are, but that's how many you're going to need to see.   Then we look to see how much hygiene we have right now today to see, we actually have enough hygiene spaces for it? But let's not forget that we also have to add new patients because in addition to our active base, we are constantly adding more patients. Yes, we are losing some patients, but my hope is that you at least are adding more than we're losing. So we've got to look at those two together and see how much time we actually have in a week, in a month that we need to be seeing patients. This is gonna then show you your gap. So for this practice, they had over 200 appointments   that they were short every single month. That's at a minimum. So clearly they're ready to bring on another hygienist. This was great numbers to see, do I bring on a hygienist? Do I not bring on a hygienist? But the problem is they're already at five hygienists with two doctors. You can start to do the math. So it's like, well, great. Well, we're not diagnosing perio either. So options are we could bring on a sixth hygienist and that hygienist would just do SRP. That doesn't mean just that person, but we'd have eight hours of SRP in a given day.   spread across all the hygienists. That means we don't increase our exam numbers, but we do increase our number of perio. We do increase our number of hygiene spots. That's going to help in some instances. But even if we fix that problem, remember we still have all these patients that we're not seeing. So this practice right now, they told me, hey, Kiera, we're pushing our patients out about eight months is where we've got to put them. We can't see them on the six month mark. We've got to push them to the eight month. So I did the math and I was like, okay, average pro fee is going to be about $150 per patient.   but you gotta take all those patients that would be seen in one month and we times that by 150. Now, I understand this is very loose math, but it gives a good idea because think about it, those patients, if we saw them every six months, that's money from insurance and also from seeing them on a regular schedule, plus not just that, but patient care. We see them on the six month interval, but these ones we're not seeing every six months, we're seeing them every eight months. So that means there's two months that we're missing out on opportunities to see them.   So when we did the math, it averaged out to about $450,000 with this patient base annually, just of miss hygiene. And that was only on one month. If you want to do it on two months, which is realistically what it would be, that's almost a million dollars worth of revenue, just in hygiene miss opportunity. That's fascinating to me. This is why I think a consultant is so powerful because we come in and we do crazy numbers like this and we look at your numbers and we look at where you're at. And it really gives you the confidence to know, can I bring on an associate? Can I bring on more hygiene?   I feel like this, what does the number and the data suggest? So just looking at that, I was like, a simple fix is bring a hygienist in, let's have our perio go up. And then also we need to bring a doctor in for whether it's full time or not. So we ran scenarios of if we brought a doctor in, if we added more hygiene, if we had our doctors do this, what do we need to do? How do we keep our doctor to hygiene ratio running all these scenarios to then say, my gosh, this really would help our practice out.   And when I think about this and I think about practices for us, are you looking at numbers and metrics like this? Are you calculating the cost of missed appointments or not scheduling our hygiene patients back? Not to mention that we're certainly not doing 30 % of our patient base as perio. What these hygienists are doing is they're seeing that they need perio, but they don't have space to put them. So they don't want to have the conversation. This is no knock to a hygiene team. Several hygienists do it because I'm going to tell you, you've got this awful disease.   but then I'm not actually going to be able to get you in for X number of days, weeks, months. That feels really, really, really hard to try and convince a patient of this. So what do we do? We clean it out and we say, you know what, we're just gonna get it next time. But next time then fumbles and then we gotta have these conversations. Then we don't wanna have these conversations. We're constantly looking at like, we're just punting the ball down the line. So what do we need to do on this? What are the scenarios in this option? How much money is being left behind, but also how much patient? And this is great.   Other options that we considered are, we cut insurances? Because, hey, if we've got this many patients, what if we cut out our lowest producing insurance that pays us? And the doctor said, no, my mission and vision for this practice is that we care for the average patient, that we are here to take care of them and support them. And that's what this doctor wants to do. So it's like, great. They have an incredible building. They've got more space to build out. Fantastic. Let's bring in the other doctors. Let's bring in more hygiene. Let's serve these patients because instantly if we brought on one or two more hygienists,   Guess what? We could backfill very quickly with all those patients. Plus we need to hold space for new patients and perio that would be ideal based on the number of perio. So then you look at your patient base, you figure out 30 % of that. That's going to tell you how much SRP spaces you need to hold every single month in the practice. Don't forget, once you have SRP, you also need to have perio maintenance is in there. So this you can see is like this amazing web of data, of knowledge, of fun.   to figure out how much is your practice actually leaving on the table unintentionally. And when I looked at that, the doctor, he was like, well, Kiera, number one, you're always worth your weight in gold. You come in and you find little things. You guys, that is one small change that's worth 450 to $900,000 just in the amount of pro fees. That's nothing else, nothing. Like that's all we did. And to be able to uncover little opportunities like this and so,   for you to look at your practice, this is why I wanted to give you this scenario of this practice. There were several others that we looked at that we found that we were able to just quickly identify. But I think so often people are looking for big moves. They're looking for

    14 min

  5. DEC 17

    Where Are You in Your Business's Life Cycle?

    Kiera compares the stages of a business to the stages of the human life cycle, from the infancy of a startup, to the chaos of money flow without systems, to the growing profitability of early adulthood, and so on. The goal is, of course, to reach maturity, where the business can run on its own, there's work-life balance, money flow, and more. Kiera gives listeners the common factors for each "age group," and what needs to be done for practices to reach their prime. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope you are having an amazing day. I hope it's an epic day. I hope you're loving your life. I hope you're having just so much fun. ⁓ I love dentistry. I love podcasting. I love connecting with so many of you. I just met people this week that are Dental A Team fanatics and it's always fun. And it's funny on calls when I get to chat with you in real life, people are like, Kiera, you sound just like you do on the podcast. And I'm like, that's great because guess what? It is me.   So I am so excited to podcast with you guys today. Welcome. If you're new to Dental A Team podcast. Hello, I'm Kiera Dent. Dent really is my last name. And it's because I love all things dental. ⁓ I love my husband, even though he's not a dentist. ⁓ I love, I just love life. I love helping people. We had a, in our consulting, we have what we call our doctor mastermind. It's a doctor only mastermind and it's on ⁓ Tuesday, the first Tuesday of the month. And we call it Think Tank Tuesday for our doctor mastermind.   We had all of our doctors there this week and we had several doctors come. It was just a really, really fun time. And as I was sitting there, I tell everybody that this think tank is supposed to feel like you're sitting in my living room, hanging out with me. We're all just here having like a good time. I love to see there's one doctor pushing her daughter on a swing. There was another doctor making dinner. There's another doctor sitting at the office, another doctor driving home.   It truly is a like, let your hair down, come be, let's come hang out, let's all be together, let's all work together. Cause honestly, dentistry can be super hard and challenging. And ⁓ as I walked away from that, we were talking about the life cycle of a business and people were just talking about where they were and here's where I am and how do I get to the next phase of my business? What are some easy moves? And it was crazy because it's actually not that hard to move from one part of the business to the next part. ⁓ A lot of times it's just having somebody pointed out to you.   ⁓ giving you the confidence that you can do that. ⁓ And then having a group of people around you that are just like you. And as I walked out of that meeting and that just fun hangout time, there's always Kiera's after party, which is not recorded. It is Kiera unfiltered. I just thought, I'm so blessed to get to know these human beings, these people that we get to work alongside with, that we get to collaborate with. I get to see them go through all the phases of business from where they were to where they are.   working with us, get to see their production increase, I get to see their ROI ⁓ tenfold, I get to see how happy they are in life, I get to see when they were once stressed to where now they're exuberant and happy and fulfilled and that is why Dental A Team exists. That is why the podcast exists is because I want all of you to feel like you have ⁓ someone in your corner, someone who is rooting for you, someone who has answers where you feel like there are none, someone who sees the path more clearly than you can.   someone who's created a community of like-minded doctors that are either where you are or have been where you are and can help you get to the next step. We have doctors who mentor each other. have ⁓ masterminds in person. have where we come to your practice. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're feeling like, gosh, I just don't even know what to do. The answer is there's actually always the what's next to do. There's always somebody who can help you. It's just you having the courage to book the call to   ⁓ invest in your practice in yourself and decide that you're worth having the life and the practice that you know, you're capable of having. And so if that resonates with you, reach out, come join our doctor mastermind, come meet us in person, come hang out with me in real life. I would love to have you be a part of it. ⁓ my mission truly is to change people's lives. and that's luckily I get this amazing platform of dentistry. So, reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com because honestly, I believe that it is so fun and so powerful. ⁓   to go from that. And so I teased out a little bit of a life cycle of a business. This came from Tony Robbins. I really love Tony. I love a lot of things that he teaches and ⁓ there's a lot of wisdom. so just to kind of to take this on for the podcast today, I feel like, hey, we talked about this in our Dr. Mastermind, but I think it'd be very beneficial for all of you to hear. And this is my adaptation of it to take it to dental offices and kind of then giving you some of the things that I see in a practice so you can kind of understand.   But basically we have kind of like think about the life cycle of human beings. It's where we start out as infancy. We're born into this world and then we're infants and then we're toddlers. And then we go into this like middle life, like middle school. And then we go into high school and then we go into young adults. So college or young adult. Then we go into maturity or our prime of our life. Then we go into this kind of midlife evaluation. That's right before we retire. Then we go into aging. Then we go into institutionalization and then we go to death.   So we think about how people go around and it's interesting because there could be say a 25 year old, 30 year old, 40 year old who actually could be on the aging path even though their age is not where you would think that they would be. And so the idea of this is to kind of look to see based on like a life cycle of us where your business is and what maybe is like the pain point. So when we look at a business and we look at like children, so an infant,   They're screaming, right? They're screaming all the time. Yes, they're alive. Yes, they're there, but they're screaming and they're hungry and they don't know how to make money and they always have all these problems and it just feels like it's problem after problem after problem. That's like when you first start a business and it is chaos and it is exuberant and it is blissful and it is terrifying. Like Tiff and I were actually joking about it when we were on our doctor mastermind and we were talking about how like Dental A Team when it was in its infancy stage.   I literally was paying Tiffanie via Venmo. I did not have any payroll set up. I don't know why Tiff stayed with me. So Spiffy Tiffy shout out to her today. ⁓ But I really truly was such a naive business owner. I did not have protocols. I did not have a lawyer. I didn't have HR. I just said, I want to be here in this world and put something together, but no processes, no systems. It was screaming mayhem all the time. And then you go from that infancy stage to toddler, right? Toddlers, they can sleep through the night.   They're more independent. They can reason on certain things, but they're not this middle schooler, right? ⁓ And so when we look at that toddler that like they're going to elementary school, they're kind of in that middle stage. This is now where a business has elevated. It's not like paying people via Venmo, ⁓ but you still don't have the cash flow to be able to hire great people. It's still this like very new. You probably have one or two people. Practices that are in this realm are more the   the startup phase. So startup is like your very infancy, whether you're buying it or if it's a scratch start or you already have it. But it's kind of that screaming and then you move into toddler where like we can afford like one or two people on our team. but maybe we're moonlighting at another practice. cash flow is not consistent. ⁓ Systems and processes are not in place. And it's really just in this like delicate, but more stable, like we're like, okay, we're not we're not gonna go broke.   We know we can kind of handle, but at the same time, cashflow is not there. Then you move into middle school and you think about a middle schooler. This is where like we're starting to hit production. We can kind of have a few team members in there. We kind of maybe have a little bit of money, but not quite. ⁓ And we're starting to get a little more established, but we're like very gangly. We're very awkward. ⁓ We're doing the dentistry, but we're still, we're still not quite making it. And so from there, when we move from there,   You didn't go into a teenager and you think about a teenager, they think they know what they're doing. They've got the keys to the car. And this is where you've got money, but you're blowing through it because you have no systems, no processes. Like you are mayhem. Like you're making the money, but you're not keeping the money. And you're running on all four cylinders. But it's just chaos. It's wild. There's a frenzy. There's an excitement. And I think when Dental A Team was in that phase,   We had a little bit of money and so we were hiring people, but we didn't have quite enough money so we're not hiring experts quite yet. And you can just feel there's like this teenage energy and ⁓ then you move into like young adult and young adults were like perfect. The company is making money. We're able to hire more experienced people. So like we

    22 min

  6. DEC 16

    Are You Looking Ahead For Your Practice?

    Tiff and Trish discuss the often ignored practice transition — are you looking ahead for your practice? Ten years out? Thirty years? The two consultants discuss what to keep in line now so that any changes on the horizon are received with minimal panic and damage. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. We are here today with some really, really just fantastic information. We're rounding out the year, if you can believe that. It's almost 2026, so whatever year you're listening to this in, hopefully it's also still super relevant, but we are heading into 2026 here soon. And we thought that it would be really fun to just wrap the year with a couple of different practice strategy kind of.   don't know, just like how to progress where you're at, from where you're at to where you wanna go. Strategy podcast. So I'm just super excited. I have one of my favorite human beings in the world here with me today. I have Ms. Trish Ackerman. She is a prized possession on the Dental A Team team here. She is a traveling dental consultant with our team, which means that she does virtual consulting. So we do.   coaching calls, video calls, we team training calls, all those pieces, you guys know that, but she also travels to practices and sees different practices in person, kind of helping them strategize and train the team and get things working again, kind of oiling that machine. And something I like to say is, I always tell my practices, Trish, and I think you probably feel the same way, I always tell my practices that we have the most incredible practices that join the Dental A Team. We really attract the most incredible people, but   more than anything, I always know that I'm coming into a practice that's running really well. And my job is to find the areas where they just kind of feel a little bit stuck. Maybe something's a little bit inefficient. Maybe there's just something that's like, gosh, if we tweak this a centimeter to the left or a millimeter to the right, kind of I think of like implants, like, you know, you gotta just get them just right. And if we can make that little tweak ⁓ with them in office and find those areas, then their lives become.   less stressful. like to remove the stress. So I always tell practices, gosh, like I just don't get invited to practices that aren't doing well. I'm always, I'm always just so shocked at how well practices are doing. And Trish, I know you've consulted for a while. You've been here with our team for a little while, but you have just so much, there's like a wealth of knowledge behind you and all of the aspects of everything that you've done. And I'm so excited for you to be on this team. I know your practices are thriving because you're here.   We are thriving because you're here and we're all better people because of it. So Trish, thank you so much for being here today. I'm excited to pick your brain on these practice strategies. How are you? Your hair, we already talked about your hair is stellar. I had a weird hair dream. So hair is on the mind. It's like, it's a thing today. So welcome with your beautiful glasses and your beautiful hair. And it's 8 a.m. in the morning. What were we thinking? But this is a great way to start our day. Trish, how are you today?   DAT Trish Ackerman (02:44) I'm doing great. Thanks, Tim. I always like doing this with you.   The Dental A Team (02:47) Okay, thank you. Thank you. That makes it much easier ⁓ when I schedule it that you enjoy doing it. So thank you. I appreciate that. ⁓ I do enjoy life with you. You shed a lot of perspective for me. So thank you. ⁓ Yeah, definitely team listeners. I had this, okay, start over. Marketing, our marketing department, they help us come up with a lot of topics. And then the consulting team, we kind of look at them more like, hey, is this relevant? Is this something that   DAT Trish Ackerman (02:55) Welcome.   Thank you.   The Dental A Team (03:17) we're seeing pop up in our worlds of consulting with our clients and our listeners is this something that's going to be super beneficial. And this topic came up and I was like, gosh, actually, it's kind of super cool to end the year with this because now we get to look into what next year is going to be. And this could be a lot of strategy that helps build, I think, Trish long term visions. It might not be something that someone's thinking about today. Just like I know we have.   you know, lot of new graduates who listen and, a lot of doctors who've been in practice for 20, 30 years, or even three years, five years, wherever they're at on their journey, I feel like this is information that we like to shed light on for all of our practices. That's like, always be prepared. Just like, I don't feel like, I don't feel like we buy houses. We don't have a home and not know the value always. Like we're always making sure we know the value. We're making sure we know, you know, our prices right.   our interest rates are the best that we can get. Do we need to refinance? We're always looking at those aspects, but I think that we forget to duplicate that and look at it in our business as well and make sure that we always know the health of our business. And Trish, when we're building out goals, I know you and I both do this. We like to look as far ahead as we can, like 10 years ahead to say, what could that look like? And when do you want to retire?   Right, when do you think that you want to repair? How long do you want to work? And even if that's 30 years down the road, making sure that at any point we could be ready for that. And so today is really talking about practice transition strategies, what that might look like. And Trish, I want to know from your perspective, you've done quite a few practice transitions, I would imagine, in the history of dentistry that you've got behind you there. What are some of the...   What are some common to start, like let's start just broad. What are common practice transitions that you have seen that you've worked through? Like what does that even mean when a doctor says I want to transition or we say transition in there to understand that? What does it mean to transition? What have you seen?   DAT Trish Ackerman (05:24) What I've seen is doctors that have been with the practice for many, many years, they built their legacy and they are ready to pass the baton to a new dentist. And it's a big decision. And sometimes they're sometimes they have sellers remorse because then they realize that, shoot, maybe I wasn't quite ready. But I have, I have seen it where, I mean, most of the time the sellers are very ready and, the new buyers coming in are very ready. So   you know, it's a transition. We make sure that the doctor, both doctors are aligned, the seller and the buyer, and that it's a good fit for both.   The Dental A Team (06:03) Yeah, I love that. love that. So transition could mean a sell and a buy, right? A transition is a change, right? Transition is we're making a change. We're looking different in the future than we do today. And I agree, I think a couple of pieces that on both sides are super important, I think is that alignment word that you used, right? And making sure that we know where we want to go. I think a seller needs to know where they want to go. Why do they want this practice?   the or why do they want to sell this practice and the buyer needs to know why do I want this practice and being in alignment with that is absolutely key. Now, when we're prepping for selling ⁓ and transitioning, we'll call it transitioning, what are some of the things that you have advised or you've worked on yourself while helping practices to sell? How do you prepare for selling? Like what do you need to make sure is in place if they're not?   We'll take it two ways. Maybe someone's not selling today. They're like, well, one day I might sell. And then maybe someone's like, gosh, I need to sell. want to sell. I'm ready to get out. So what would you advise someone who says maybe one day I might want to sell? How do they keep their business prepared for that?   DAT Trish Ackerman (07:16) Well, that's always the best way, like start a plan. There are times when it's like an emergency and need to sell, when they have the, when they've got the time to plan, you really want to ensure like the, like you were talking about, tip that the selling of the house, you don't sell your house if the flooring is just a hot mess or if, or if the roof is caving in, you get those things fixed first. And in a dental practice, you really need to protect the patient base because the new buyer   or even somebody transitioning in to purchases, what does the patient base look like? And if we're adding a partner, do we have a patient base for them? If we don't, this is the time that we, the doctors need to be hyper-focused on growing that patient base. That also requires like, what does the accounts receivable look like? What is the collection ratio? Is this practice producing but not collecting? And though you do like kind of a full analysis on the top.   five KPIs typically, and then ensure that they are in really good condition. You want your practice to look appealing and you want your practice to be healthy. And when you're selling anything or transitioning in, the patient base is always number one. So if you have the syndrome where the front door is open, but the back door is open as well, we need the time to strategize to get that back door closed to ensure that when we go to sell this new buyer,   The Dental A Team (08:35) Yeah   DAT Trish Ackerman (08:43) or new partner knows that there's a solid patient base in place. And then again, the counts receivable, that's another really big one. That's got to be cleaned up prett

    26 min

  7. DEC 11

    This Is the Holy Grail of Dentistry

    Dr. Pia Lieb returns for a second part on the podcast. In this episode, she talks about being obsessed with your craft, and why that extra 10% for patients will take you miles. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:10) I love that you, ⁓ I think this is probably what's made you really great. I don't know. I've heard a lot about you. But I think what you do is you make sure that the patients are obsessed with the results and not that Dr. Pia is obsessed. Like you're obsessed with the craftsmanship of what you've done.   You're really talented at that. But like hearing that you let people walk out and go try these on and what is it going to be like before you do it? That to me says that you are so obsessed about the outcome and the result for the patient. And then your job is to make sure you have the most excellent craftsmanship, the best product, the best techniques, the best method to get them the outcome they want. And I think hearing that, I'm just so proud of you. And I'm so grateful to hear that there are clinicians in our industry that   are obsessed about that rather than the reverse. Because I think some people are obsessed about maybe the dollar, maybe about doing these types of cases, but they're not the best at it, or this is what I think that they should look like. You really want to make sure that that patient is like a walking raving fan of you before you even do the work on them. And that I think is very special about you.   Dr Pia (01:17) Thanks, but you know, I like to say that, you know, like, the thing that people don't understand is I'm technically the Hermes of dentistry because I, it takes a long time to make a Birkin, right? It's all made by hand. So are the veneers, hence why it's so hard to get one. But look, I   Kiera Dent (01:39) Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (01:42) 22 years old and it still looks brand new because it's the quality of the craftsmanship you know and I tell all my patients you should get anywhere between 20 and 25 years out of the mirror okay this whole nonsense of five years and ten years that's because they want to redo the case and for you to pay them again if you're doing good quality work the only reason they should be replaced is because you have recession due to old age   Kiera Dent (01:55) Wow.   Mm-hmm.   Wow. And you don't have any issues with these super, super thin ones popping off.   Dr Pia (02:17) No, because okay, let me let me explain to you. Let me explain to you physics. Okay. Okay, do you know why they pop off?   Kiera Dent (02:19) Let's talk about this. I'm so, cause a lot of people haven't popped off and it's so scary. So I'm like, let's talk about this.   You know, this is why I'm asking you. Cause I don't like, feel my guess is that they were not bonded on correctly. And that's my guess. Okay. I'm ready.   Dr Pia (02:28) Okay.   No, it's, two things. There's two things. That's   one, but that's the second one. Right. But let me explain to you. Do you remember when you were in high school and we went to, ⁓   Kiera Dent (02:37) Okay.   Dr Pia (02:43) ⁓ chemistry and we had the microscope with the two glass slabs and we were looking for amoebas and all that stuff. Okay, remember how we were all a painting that you know what and we all tried to pry those two glass slabs apart and it never worked? Well that's the same principle with veneers. The thinner they are the stronger they are.   Kiera Dent (02:51) Yep.   Yeah   Fascinating.   Dr Pia (03:06) Okay   and I'll tell you why because teeth you know because you're in the business so teeth we all have ligaments right the teeth are hard it's a hard structure the bone is a hard structure so we have the dental ligaments right they're horizontal they're transversal so those are like the shock absorbers that hold the tooth inside the bone socket. Now   Kiera Dent (03:12) Mm-hmm. Right.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (03:30) when you're speaking and when you're eating those teeth move microns not visible to the eye but your teeth have mobility just like trees have mobility in the wind right we don't see the trees move unless it's a hundred mile an hour winds but if you have a five mile an hour wind you don't see that tree moving right but it does move   Kiera Dent (03:44) Mm-hmm.   Right.   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (03:56) So   when you're doing these 3D print and you're filing like the turkey teeth where you have the little pegs left and the ratio of tooth to porcelain is 50-50 or you're having 60-40 or 70-30 that 3D printed porcelain does not flex.   Kiera Dent (04:05) Yep.   Makes sense.   Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (04:23) but your tooth does. So that's the number one issue why they pop off. The thicker they are, the easier they'll pop off. And the number two reason is the dentist has no idea about occlusion. Because if you have a premature contact or you have lateral excursions or a protrusive, you're going to pop those off like there's no tomorrow.   Kiera Dent (04:23) True.   Interesting.   Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes.   Totally. Yeah.   Dr Pia (04:51) So these are   the basic principles. If you don't know occlusion, you shouldn't be doing dentistry. I'm talking about GPs or it's the holy grail of this profession. Occlusion, occlusion, occlusion.   Kiera Dent (05:03) And I will tell you as a patient who has the most obnoxious bite, ⁓ there are dentists who do no occlusion and there are dentists who don't because my bite you adjust one teeny tiny little micron and the whole bite gets thrown off and they're like, no care, it should be fine. And I'm like, I can always tell if you're just doing blue paper and you're having me bite chew all around, I know you don't understand occlusion because I'm like, you're never going to get it. I'm going to be, you're dancing all the way around. Like from the patient who has sat there,   four hours upon hours and had to find other dentists because the dentist who thought they could do it truly can't do it. And this isn't me being a jerk. This is me being the patient who has to suffer through a dentist who doesn't understand occlusion. Like what you just said as a patient, ⁓ and like there's some, know, you can have it like completely off and like, yeah, it feels great. And then you have patients like myself that teeny, teeny, teeny tiny. I can feel it. You can't even find it. And I'm like, no, it's off. My bite is not, my teeth are not coming together.   Dr Pia (05:59) You always know, the patient always knows. They're always right.   Kiera Dent (06:02) always. And please don't have me laying back.   Please don't have me lay back. Let me sit up. Let me lay back. Let me tell you on both of them, because it's always different. And they're like, no, it's good. And I'm like, it's not. You're not sitting in my mouth.   Dr Pia (06:09) Yeah!   Because   you most probably have long centric, right? So you have one occlusion when your head is back and you have a different occlusion when your head is forward. Now, if that's the case, you need to check both.   Kiera Dent (06:18) Mm-hmm.   Absolutely.   Correct. Thank you. Preach, please, for the patients like myself. These are the pieces. And I don't disagree because when I have seen dentists and they're not checking that and the patients are constantly popping off, I'm like, just maybe check to see how those teeth are hitting in all directions because they will pop.   Dr Pia (06:43) ⁓ but let   me interrupt you for one thing. The other thing that's an issue, okay, if they do it and you're anesthetized, you're not going to get a good read. You always have to call the patient back the next day and check the occlusion again in all the positions when they're not anesthetized because I will guarantee you on my career that it will be off.   Kiera Dent (06:53) ⁓ no, never.   Yep. Yep.   Always. And they're like, no, you can bite when you're numb. And I'm like, I don't even know how I'm biting. I have no clue. I know I'm biting differently. Preach. These are the things and the conversations that I've said. And having somebody like yourself who's so good at this. I mean, you guys, has a referral-based practice. Like people are flying in to see her. I can see why, because how you speak about this is so different. And I think today, one, I hope people are inspired of things to do, things to not do.   different ways to do this. I also love the risk that you took. I love the growth. I love the determination of self of I will be the best. You have the passion. You've got the grit. You've got the tenacity. I have doctors who are great surgeons that are truly incredible at this. I've got doctors that are amazing at occlusion. I've got doctors that are amazing at fillings. There's a doctor and one of his patients said like, have the smoothest fillings in all the land. And he's like, that's really weird. I had him fix a filling that chipped.   And I'm not going to lie, he has the smoothest fillings in all the land. Like I've never felt a feeling as smooth as this man did for me.   Dr Pia (08:12) That's because he polished it afterwards.   99% don't polish them. You know, I had a colleague, checked, he did a, we put a crown in and I'm like, Joe, can we polish it? He goes, no, you're good to go. I'm like, no, I'm not. He's like, but I polished it. I'm like, okay, there is a porcelain polishing kit that you've got to go red, blue, white.   Kiera Dent (08:18) I was shocked.   Hahaha   Dr Pia (08:40) and the white has to be on low rpms and you have to make sure that it's shiny and polished and he's like i don't have the patience for that go do it yourself in the office and i did   Kiera Dent (08:52) But I think like that even I feel like dentist

    16 min

  8. DEC 10

    A Conversation With the Michelangelo of Dentistry

    Kiera is joined by renowned cosmetic dentist Dr. Pia Lieb to talk about Dr. Lieb's journey in her field, as well as her insights into what the rich and famous ask for (and pay for) when it comes to their teeth. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so excited. I have an incredible doctor on our podcast. Dr. Pia is coming to   from New York, Manhattan. And this woman is incredible. She has been able to build and sustain a high-end cosmetic practice. She's figured out how to be, you guys are gonna love this, a referral only destination for patients seeking discretion, innovation, and ultra-personalized care.   This woman has been named the Michelangelo of dentistry and I am so excited to welcome her on the podcast. Welcome Dr. Pia, how are you today?   Dr Pia (00:32) Thanks for having me, Kiera.   Kiera Dent (00:34) Of course. Well, I have been so excited about this podcast. I don't often get to bring clinical guests onto the podcast. And so to just kind of hear of how you do your cosmetic dentistry, how did you become this practice of being so sought after? ⁓ How did you become the Michelangelo of dentistry? So kind of just walk the listeners through how did Dr. Pia go from where she was to where she is today? Kind of just give us a background on, on who you are and what your story has been.   Dr Pia (01:04) Well, I'm gonna start with, it all started in dental school. There was a lecturer by the name of Dr. Gallup Evans who has passed away since. And he was giving a PG, which is obviously post-doctoral course on cosmetic dentistry. And his reputation was he was the one who did.   the supermodel Polina Povaskova's veneers back in the early 90s. And I went up to him after the lecture and I basically said, I'm a sponge, teach me, tell me what to do so I can do the same thing that you're doing. I've completely fell in love and cut out a class to go to that course. And after the course, he turned around to me and said, well,   sweetheart. You're either born with it or you're not. So I went home and I cried for five days.   and he completely tore me to shreds and that really got me upset and ⁓ I was a great student. was the youngest in NYU as a student. I graduated high school at 16. I was the nerd, right? And basically what I did is I was asked to start teaching after residency and that was my...   Kiera Dent (02:03) Absolutely.   Dr Pia (02:26) way to make sure that I would never allow anyone to speak to a student like that. And my whole point was, I want to empower the dental students. I don't want anyone to feel the way I did by this particular person. And basically I had nowhere to start. So I started taking all of these courses, these PG program courses, and I met up.   Kiera Dent (02:37) Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (02:53) When I was actually in dental school, I went and I met the holy grail ceramist who invented veneers in America. And I went up to him and I said the same thing, I'm a sponge, please teach me. And he was like, great. Okay. You have a car. And I'm like, yes, I do. He goes, all right, come to the lab every Friday after school and every Saturday, let me teach you how to prep and how to do veneers. And this man who also passed away has taught me everything.   Kiera Dent (03:12) I'm   Dr Pia (03:23) that I know because the doctors were not doing it and there was only two guys in New York that were doing veneers in the 80s and in the 90s and those were older men in their 40s and they were not going to take a young 20 year old female and teach her what to do because they were you know insecure that we were going to take over the business from them.   So that's how it all started. And obviously, I taught for 18 years and I did do that what I set my mind to do. I wanted to give every one of my students the best experience that they can have with dentistry and with cosmetic dentistry. And we're still friends after all these years. So I must have done something right, that they still love me to invite me for dinners into their houses.   Kiera Dent (04:10) Thank   ⁓ I think that you're speaking to my own heart. mean, having that love   being in the dental colleges, of   to give back, like that's the whole reason Dental A Team exists was because of those students that you just fall in love with. And kudos to you because I got really lucky and I worked at Midwestern University's Dental College in Arizona. And I have been told that the culture there and the experience there is not like most dental schools. It was a very empowering, very enriching. There was no smashing of models. There was no...   ⁓ destroying people's dreams, but I know that that's not everywhere. so kudos to you for ⁓ making a stance and also not giving up on your dream. And I think something I took from that is how often are we maybe told something that's not true and we believe it. We take that on as an identity and yes, crying for five days. I don't blame you, I would have done the same thing, but ⁓ it is.   Dr Pia (05:03) No, it's demoralizing, you know, like it's   just here you are, you're this young bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eager beaver who wants to be the best at her profession and then you get some 50 year old man telling you, ⁓ honey, you can't do this, you gotta be born with it. I'm like, really?   Kiera Dent (05:20) Hmm.   Maybe I am born with it and have you seen it. ⁓   Dr Pia (05:25) And you know what I was and that's that's the   thing and it's just but it's the way he said it but we'll get back to karma because 18 years go by and he was lecturing again and karma if it's a small I don't want to say the b word on a podcast but   Kiera Dent (05:42) Mmm.   Hahaha   Dr Pia (05:51) it is. So he's got the lecture, same thing, same before and afters. And this time I'm wearing a white lab coat and scrubs underneath and I had you know, and at this point, I was clinical assistant professor and there were like 350 doctors in the audience. And he's like, Does anyone have anything to say? And I'm at the back wall, I wasn't sitting down, I was standing up and I raised my hand and I was like,   He goes, and he goes, I know that name. You're in press and you're my competition. And he was like, and you know, what is it that I said? said, you know what? Thanks to you, I am who I am today. I want to say thank you. If you didn't say this to me and make me go home and cry for five days, I wouldn't have.   done everything humanly possible to be your competition and here I am I didn't know if he was gonna slap me or kick me out or just whatever it was but it was not what I and he said you know come on down and just tell us more about it he goes you've got so much pressure all over the place and it was funny because at that point   Kiera Dent (06:52) Ha!   Dr Pia (07:08) That was like maybe 10 months after I did 10 episodes on TLC of 10 years younger. And I was all over the place. Like everybody knew me from TV and from press and ⁓ the New York Times wrote that I'm the Michelangelo in Smile Boutique. And it just got to that point. I got the recognition that I worked so hard for. he was like, all right, give me a hug. I was like, thank God.   to   get a slap. But I was ready to get like thrown out or to. So that's kind of what I wanted to do is I just want to empower every single person out there. And you have to understand, when I went to school, we there were no women, it was 97 % men, we had   Kiera Dent (07:43) You   Dr Pia (08:02) maybe seven girls in the graduating class. I mean, not that we had a lot. We have much smaller classes back then and we were 97, but seven out of 97 is a low percentage.   Kiera Dent (08:14) That is,   yeah. Wow, that's such a fun, ⁓ I think kudos to you. And one of my favorite lines through life has been, life is not happening to us, it's happening for us. And I'm sure in that moment, you felt like life was happening to you. Like, who is this jerk? And they destroyed my dreams. And yet, ⁓ again, not to say that that's ever the right route to go. But I just want to highlight and compliment of you took something that people could have said would be sour grapes and you actually turned it into beautiful wine.   and you turned it into something beautiful and it was fuel to your fire to make you into this incredible woman that the world needed. And so I'm very curious, how did you then go from, okay, here we are, how'd you become this renowned cosmetic dentist, getting on TLC, getting all the press, like what was kind of the way to get into that? Because I'm sure there's a lot of dentists who want to live your dream. How did you do it?   Dr Pia (09:04) I think the   way in was truly like in 1998 or 99, I don't remember what year it was, but it was the first gen art fashion show for Fashion Week in New York where they took up and coming young designers and they had a private fashion show with about 10 of small up and coming, which we don't have anymore. mean, New York Fashion Week is no longer what   used to be. But I go there and I had a patient from Belgium who had a really good friend who was an up and coming crazy French designer and he was showing the runway and I just basically went with her and I remember that we were after the fashion show there was a VIP with champagne and we got these wristbands and so forth and my   my patient was, you know, late 30s, single and ready to mingle. And there was this really cute male model that did the runway for ⁓ another designer that wasn't as big. And she was like, my God, he's so cute. And here I was, I had no makeup on, right?   Kiera Dent (10:07) Yeah.   Dr Pia (10:23) this long Margiela dress and I have like Doc Marten boots,

    34 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.

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    Dental A Team
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