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The Surprising Things Dentists Should Be Thankful For This Year · The Millionaire Dentist™

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  Hello, everyone, Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist Podcast, brought to you by
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  four Quadrons Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry,
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  finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentists you deserve to
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  be. Please be advised we do speak with an honest tongue and may not
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  be safe for work. Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hires back at
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  the Millionaire Dentist Podcast in studio with co host Jared Bridgeman. Casey, my
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  pants don't fit. I know. We had very nice doughnuts from a nice
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  bakery here yesterday. Yes, I had half of one and half of another
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  because I love variety. Yes, I also had did you hit the over
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  the under on one full donut? Three and a half? Donts three and
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  a half donor? Here's the deal? You know, I am often I'm
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  very thankful for when our boss brings in some donuts for the office. But
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  then also I'm cursing him under my breast because I know I can't walk in
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  and I go, damn it not again, because they're so good. I
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  know I can't resist them. Yeah, I'm not that strong, they're so
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  good, but gosh, Casey, we just you know, just a few
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  days ago or last week, I should say, was Thanksgiving? How was
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  your How was your break full of Thanksgiving? Yeah? Is that? Then?
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  That was great? Yeah. My wife's sister hosts one event, my
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  sister hosts the other event. They live very close. Time off is great
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  for the most part. Family sees eyed eye on those things. I always
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  see those funny memes about bring up politics and then you will have less Christmas
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  gifts to give because you'll try. You'll never speak again. But no,
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  it was it was great. How about you? Good? Yeah? So
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  we did on Thursday. We did it at my with my aunt, my
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  cousin and my mom's side of the family. And then on the following Sunday
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  we uh we went to my dad's side of the family. Well that's not
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  so. It was nice to have two separate dates. I told my daughter.
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  I was like, hey, you know, on Thursday we're going to
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  see your your grandma and on Sunday your grandpa. She's like yes, And
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  I was like, you love your grandparents how much? He goes, No,
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  there'll be lots of food. Yeah, she's honest. I was all
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  right, Yeah, that was good and and certainly, you know, times
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  of reflection, what are we thankful for? I run that exercise through my
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  kids and then I'm like, I should probably do that for myself, right
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  right, So let me ask you as you were thinking about that, and
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  you know you live, breathe, sleep, and eat dental people, right,
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  I don't eat them, what do you think? What do you think
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  a practice owner, our dentist could be thinking? Beulfore this year it was
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  funny we uh, you know, hours of prep for this podcast. Wink
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  wink. We like it to be pretty straight and raw. Yeah, let's
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  do something about thanks. We're kind of joking. And ultimately there's a lot
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  here, you know, as a dentist or a specialist and with what we
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  do in this space. Number one being thankful just about dentistry. I mean,
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  some people are burnt out and we'll get into that. But when you
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  get into dentistry, you do it for a lot of excitement and positive reasons,
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  and one of them is you get to you know, get to be
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  your own boss, and you get to help people, and the dentistry is
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  something to be thankful for. Unfortunately, a lot of folks get a little
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  bit cynical as the years go by. I mean, being your own bosses
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  can be pretty awesome, but then there's nowhere else to go with it,
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  as long as you don't have to fire yourself because you're not good at stuff
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  right right, But you know, digging deeper, we were kind of joking
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  about a few things, but insurance as a startup. I talk to a
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  lot of practice owners and they are grateful for insurance. It's a way for
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  them to get to get started, right because they have not established a name
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  for themselves yet. Yeah, if you don't want to go, you know,
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  spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or you know, eight digits on an
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  existing practice. Well, a lot of people do startups, and I'm talking
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  to more and more people were in the last eight to ten years. Their
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  startups crushing it right now, and they attribute that to insurance. You know,
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  hey, I was able to have some marketing and market accepting insurances and
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  grow my patient base. Flip the coin. What they're thankful for is now
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  something that they're very frustrated with. My insurance adjustments are well. My software
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  says seven percent because I bill expect to collect and cook the books, but
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  it's actually thirty percent. And I'm frustrated. So you're saying, like,
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  you know, they're thankful they got the insurances, they helped them get their
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  you know, their startup up and going. But they became so you know,
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  successful for that level that they just kind of kept adding more to it.
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  Yeah, potentially mistaking busyness for profitability sometimes. You know, Paul Harvey
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  the rest of the story. He was a radio host for our younger listeners,
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  and he was somebody who would tell a story, but then he would
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  go and here's the rest of the story. And it's like that aha moment.
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  And with insurance, so many practice owners, it's a blessing. And
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  then it quickly turns into here's the rest of the story, and it can
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  be really challenging. It's more work for less money. Yeah, what's the
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  number one thing you hear people complaining about dentist? Like dentists when I when
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  I ask about challenges, what do they start with complaining about? Uh,
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  more than likely it's gonna be staff. If if you know they're not gonna
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  be super honest about themselves, they're going to have staff. And and here's
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  the thing. Staff is such a blessing, right you have hopefully good people
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  that are in your office and with your patients, and you're with them and
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  it's exciting, and you build some good camaraderie and sure you might addition by
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  subtraction, you'll get rid of some people and get that right culture and and
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  it's people are thankful for their staffs right now they're planning office parties. But
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  the other side of that is, if you're not a good leader, your
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  staff will run you. The tail will wag the dog because you lack the
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  leadership that you need, or just one one person can come in and and
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  and put that toxic news out into the rest of the staff potentially, and
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  you know right now they're vulnerable to that because it seems like many people need
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  I need one more hygenis, I need two more hygienis, I need this,
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  and so they will potentially not vet them out thoroughly, bring somebody on.
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  That's not great. But again, thankful for your staff. Absolutely without
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  poor leadership, your staff can be one of your biggest frustrations. Here's the
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  one to be thankful for your patients. Right for the most part, you
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  kind of need them, you need them, You're thankful for them. Now
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  here's the key of course there's an armory one here there people that canceled.
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  Your collection percentage needs to be ninety nine point five percent. Otherwise, I'll
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  speak for myself, I would be less thankful for my patients if they don't
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  pay me. You can do dentistry on your terms for free. Don't be
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  dictated to by your patients. No, it's it's a novel idea. But
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  unfortunately, sometimes this very same practice owner who lets insurance run over them,
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  their staff and team run over them, and then their patients not pay them.
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  They look up and they're frustrated, and you know, as a firm
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  we help those things. But ultimately, practice owners have to look in the
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  mirror and be strong leaders, be good communicators, set expectations because things that
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  you are thankful for and things that are inherently positive can quickly turn negative if
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  not done managed and strategized the right way. Insurance staff, patients being the
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  hat trick there, and a lot of that all comes down to having some
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  systems and stuff in place, you know what I mean, just to kind
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  of help you if you need help managing your own time or whatever it is.
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  Yeah, well, you know, what is the culture? What are
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  the systems? And processes, What are the expectations, what are the boundaries
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  all those things. Again, we provide that for our clients just kind of
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  day one because we have that bandwidth of twenty years of experience from New York,
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  California, Michigan, the Texas and everywhere in between. Here's one that's
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  funny. What's that corporate dentistry DSOs thankful? That should we be thankful for
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  those? You know what I think right off the top of my head is
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  potentially a brand new out of school. Maybe they're able to get it in
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  there and get some experience. You're on the right track, right. A
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  young dentist can get some really good training and work ethic because it's demanded,
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  and they can also maybe see how they don't want to practice dentistry learn what
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  not to do. So there is a place to be thankful for corporate industry
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  and DSOs. Now they're paying a lot of money to a lot of entities
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  and state groups and money talks, and so they're almost like they have got
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  their own internal lobbyists now just telling everybody how great it is. There's a
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  place for it. It's not all bad, but let's be honest, most
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  dentists don't envision them themselves working for corporate dentistry their whole life. You can
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  get great training, great work ethic, see some good probably see some things
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  that you might wouldn't have done if you're running the show. Now we are
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  the DSO kryptonite, meaning our clients practices, the financials, the balance sheet,
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  the profit law statement, the income are also pristine that they don't need
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  to sell out this corporate dentistry. You have options, but there's a place
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  for it. Yeah, be thankful for it. Yeah, and those young
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  dentists, maybe you need to need to bring on an associate. That's a
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  target rich recruitment tool right there. Or also you could be thankful in terms
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  of you know, patients go to the DSL where realize this the service of
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  shitty and come and come to you. Yeah, you know, that's an
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  whole other podcast right there. We don't want to get get too far down
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  that road. But now it's a good it's a good time a year to
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  be thankful, to reflect, you know, what can we do better?
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  Ultimately, I receive a whole lot of inquiries around end of November, December
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  and early January because people realize, wow, I've produced great dentistry. But
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  there's something I'm missing. I've hit a plateau. My income's not acceptable.
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  I don't have a plan, I don't have a strategy. I don't know
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  what I'm going to retire a lot of those reflective moments and inquiries, what
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  do you think you could do better? What are you talking about? You
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  know what I mean? Like in terms of talking about clients, is it
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  a we're talking about being thanks? City should be thankful for me? What
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  could I do better? Well? Am I on the spot here? I
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  am thanks room for improvement? I think I am thankful for you because you
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  you talk more and eat it more of the time. Was that a compliment
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  A little bit? Yes? Backhanded? One double edged sword. Well,
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  during this season of reflection and thankfulness and what other other descriptive words you use
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  if you are at an inflection point, if you've hit a plateau, if
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  you have frustrations, Uh, good news and bad news. Good news is
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  there's a firm out there that helps with it. The bad news is I
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  talked to hundreds of Dennists. We don't bring on that many. But that
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  also means there's not a lot of pressure. You're choosing to engage in a
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  process to vet us, and we vet you and turn over a lot of
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  rocks that weren't looked at. Casey, listen, dude, you did awesome
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  today. I'm very proud of you. All Right, it's almost December,
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  right, you're going to be somewhere pretty cool and a couple of weeks down
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  in Louis will Yeah. Yeah, we're We're going down to Louisvilleville and uh,
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  I have to order a hot brown. That's yeah, they're known for
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  that. It's a delicious meal. Ultimately, we're going to be providing some
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  continuing education on the business side of dentist Street mid December. It's actually like
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  make your own bourbon bottle. It label it custom any garrels and billets.
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  It's connected to the Louisville Slugger Museum, so it'll be pretty cool, no
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  kidding. I want to a wedding reception there, that's nice. Yeah yeah
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  yeah. So if us information useless information, please If you want to check
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  us out, go to four quadrantivisor dot com or go to four quadrantidvisor,
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  dot com, slash events. Check us out. If you want to register,
• 11:39
  make sure you click and register. If you're in the area. We'll
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  be in Scottsdale later this week. Yes, that's right, Scottsdale. They'll
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  be exciting. Are you pretty pumped to go to some warmer weather. Yeah,
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  it's gonna be good. It's got it. I'm chilled. And right
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  now we're in that situation where it's heavy coat in the morning and shorts in
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  the afternoon. I mean as sixty Greece today. All right, all right,
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  thanks Hazy, that's all the time we have today. Thank you to
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  our guests for their insight and for sharing some really great information, and thank
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  you to you the listener for tuning in. The Millionaire Dennis Podcast is brought
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  to you by four Quadrance Advisory to see if they might be a good fit
• 12:16
  for you and your practice. Going over to four Quadrantsadvisory dot com and see
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  why year after year they retain over ninety five percent of their clients. Thank
• 12:24
  you again for joining us, and we'll see you next time.